THinking of a new system, advice is appreciated

[AWM]

I have a Gateway PC. PIII 500 mhz, with 320 meg ram, 20 gig harddrive, Win98, Sound Blaster Live.

Additional stuff I added is a firewire card, and extra 5400rpm 40 gig harddrive, A Video Card (32meg), HP CDWR drive. Filled with software.

My question is, What would this system be worth to someone. Loosely priced? I just need an idea. With and without the extras. What ever would be best.

Secondly, I was thinking of just updating this machine if it isn't worth a dime. My concern is that my motherboard only takes up to a 750 mhz chip. That really isn't no where near how high I wanted to go. I always know it times for a new machine if my games won't play right. Last couple I played have been laggy.

If I got a new mother board and new CPU, could I simply dismantle this old system and plug in and load all this stuff from this system? IS it that easy? Or impossible to do. A nudge in the right direction if you'd be so kind.


Thanks!

[speedracer120]

Simply speaking you could just buy a motherboard that supports PC133 ram, matched to whatever CPU floats your boat, and a new power supply unit. You might also want to upgrade the video card.

Example. Buy a Asus P4B which supports PC133 and Pentium 4 processors. I'm not sure about the power requirements for the P4 processors and what you have now so you would need to check up on that. Then pull the old MoBo out and replace it with the new one. Add CPU. Add peripherals and voila you're set to go.

But honestly, don't take anyone else's advise. Go look around. Read the reviews and figure out what YOU want, not what people think is great, because only you can figure how much you are willing to spend.

[Jeffbx]

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I have a 600Mhz that I'm debating on upgrading or replacing. I'll probably just wait a few months & replace it.

One thing you might consider is selling the extra parts separate from the system - the firewire, second HD, burner, etc. You'll get more for them than if you sell it all as a bundle.

As it stands now, I'd say your system is probably worth about $300-400 (without a monitor), unless you can find a sucker :deal:

Let me know if you decide to part it out - I need a firewire card!

[fakesurfers]

I would advise getting a P4 board that accepts SDRAM, looks like AMD is having some major quality control problems right now.

[Grimm]

While your system isn't the best and newest of everything, you probably don't need a new one.
You still have enough power to do just about anything. If your system is slow it might be time to refresh it. Back up all your data and wipr the hard drive. Restore it or install a fresh copy of the OS. Reload your software and copy over your data.
Systems get slowed down with junk that accumulates in the registry and other places. Cleaning them out accational is a good thing. You should be able to get another year out of that system.