Suggestions for Upgrading a 733 Celeron to Athlon XP

[MrBob]

Here is the deal My dad has an old compact 733 Celeron, that is basically used for light gaming, and mainly internet usage. I was thinking that it could be cheaply upgraded to a respectable computer that would last him for several more years. He already bought a brand new Maxtor 80GB 8mb HD last month, and I have an extra 256mb stick of PC2700 ram that I'll give him. I'd like to keep this fairly cheap, say in the ballpark of a $120 give or take some.

I'd like to get this for him before I go to college in Jan. This is what I was thinking I would get:

Athlon Xp 2200 $75

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-334&depa=1

They don't need a fancy Heatsyc/fan, because it won't be overclocked.

As for the motherboard I'm open for all suggestions? The main Catches are that the board has to be MICRO ATX, and the case has 3 pci slots. I don't know, maybe recommend something from this list. It doesn't have to be fancy, mainly just reliable and cheap.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=property&DEPA=1

Also My big worry is that I don't know if his power supply would be able to handle this newer set up. I don't know how many watts it is though. What ever stock Celerons came with back then. I guess if necessary I could buy a cheap $20 ATX case with power supply and get an ATX board instead. As that would be a better deal than buying a power supply seperate. But that would only be as a last resort.

Thanks for any and all advice.

 

[ohGrFreak]

Even the pic in my sig won't last several years. Well, it will still be working, but with today's apps and programs and better OS's coming out soon, you should save up a little more and get at least a AMD XP 2400. Get the memory (hopefully DDR) up to 512, that should be good for a while. An 80 gig harddrive is good, but I would not get a Maxtor, try Western Digital instead, for a harddrive that will last a little longer.

Hopefully someone else will suggest a case for you, I would personally upgrade the mobo to a full ATX with AGP 8X with a few PCI slots, therefore changing the need for a different case. I would say at least a 350 watt PSU for upgrading room from that. You can get cases with PSU's up to any wattage, you just gotta look around.

I would have posted links and stuff with my suggestions, but other people on the board are a lot better at that than me.

So, I basically suggested to upgrade a lot more than you wanted, and is well out of your price range, but to make a real advance from what you have to work with, I think it's the only way.

Maybe you should chip in with your family and get a nice barebones PC from newegg.com or maybe tigerdirect.com that's all up to date and you can easily upgrade later.