Upgrading a eMachines

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Dustin_Broke

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What are the possible upgrades that I can do for the eMachines T1100 tower that I have? My dad got me this about 8 years agao right when Windows XP first came out. I have been taking take of it soo it's still works good as new.


Thanks
 
Unfortunately, there's not really much you can upgrade. You can upgrade the ram, and hard drive. That will not get it up to date, by any means... It's very old technology, so parts for upgrading may be sparse.
 
What is wrong with my machine? I mean it still looks and works good as new. There isn't any problems at all. I will keep this machine until the motherboard fails and nothin can fix it. I like this tower alot. But I just wanted to do some updates to it. It was a gift you know. I can say I can update the ram to 512mb by adding two PC100 type ram. I did add a DVD player on the open slot so now I have the original CD-RW and a DVD player. I wonder if I can update the video card. I see when I open the tower that there are 3 PCI slots but no open AGP slot. But what's funny is that my onboard video card is a AGP2X so my onboard video card might be better than any PCI cards. I found the specs sheet and that's where it said my motherboard had AGP2X. I do know that AGP2X is like 533mb bus speed and PCI is 133mb speed so I would assume that if I add any PCI cards it won't be good as my onboard AGP2X card.
 
You have an external AGP card, or are you using integrated video? What card do you have? Nothing is wrong with your computer, but it's old. A lot of people here, including myself, see no point in upgrading something with technology that has already been outdated for years. I would suggest a cheap dual-core, motherboard, and a stick or two of RAM, at least. You can reuse most of the older parts, except for the video card most likely.
 
Actually, a PCI video card would be your only real upgrade. You are wrong about your onboard graphics, actually. While your onboard may be using your system memory, it is still only as fast as the RAM can go, plus it is stealing its use from the computer thereby hampering its ability to function optimally. The onboard is also using some of your CPU to generate the graphics you see.

A graphics card removes almost all of the work from the CPU and uses its own RAM. Even a DDR card will have faster RAM than your system has, and some PCI cards have GDDR2 RAM to boot.

The main things to consider is how much you want to spend. After that you have to make sure that your power supply is up to the task of the new card; if it is not it will need to be replaced in order to utilize the card at all.

If you haven't maxed out the RAM for your system then that would be a doable upgrade as well.

Honestly, although mikesgroovin was a bit uncouth in his delivery, your system is basically a money pit as far as upgrading goes. You would be better served in replacing the system. Even a four year old computer that is hopelessly outdated today would run circles around your computer. Even the cheapest, smallest computer listed on NewEgg would be a major improvement for you.
Newegg.com - Acer Aspire Revo AR1600-U910H Intel Atom 230(1.6GHz) 1GB DDR2 160GB NVIDIA ION LE graphics Windows XP Home
 
Sorry, I didn't mean any disrespect. I just see a lot of people on here with 1 or 2 posts and notice that they never come back to view their replies :) I would have said something more intelligent if I wasn't such an *******. Trotter said it best.... Honestly man... upgrading your system now, although cheap... it's limited, inferior and a waste of money.
 
Actually, a PCI video card would be your only real upgrade. You are wrong about your onboard graphics, actually. While your onboard may be using your system memory, it is still only as fast as the RAM can go, plus it is stealing its use from the computer thereby hampering its ability to function optimally. The onboard is also using some of your CPU to generate the graphics you see.

A graphics card removes almost all of the work from the CPU and uses its own RAM. Even a DDR card will have faster RAM than your system has, and some PCI cards have GDDR2 RAM to boot.

The main things to consider is how much you want to spend. After that you have to make sure that your power supply is up to the task of the new card; if it is not it will need to be replaced in order to utilize the card at all.

If you haven't maxed out the RAM for your system then that would be a doable upgrade as well.

Honestly, although mikesgroovin was a bit uncouth in his delivery, your system is basically a money pit as far as upgrading goes. You would be better served in replacing the system. Even a four year old computer that is hopelessly outdated today would run circles around your computer. Even the cheapest, smallest computer listed on NewEgg would be a major improvement for you.
Newegg.com - Acer Aspire Revo AR1600-U910H Intel Atom 230(1.6GHz) 1GB DDR2 160GB NVIDIA ION LE graphics Windows XP Home

Note that he did say he saw 3 empty PCI slots, and a populated AGP slot. The only thing that could be in that AGP slot is a graphics card.

I fully agree though, a **** near complete upgrade would be the only viable option, to me, anyway.
 
I did found out that my onboard AGP2X card actualy uses a AGP2X bus so the speed is 533mb for real. But for some ad reason there is no external AGP slot to add a new AGP2X card.





"It does have an AGP2x grphics system. AGP is a dedicated point-to-point connection from the graphics card to the CPU. In this case, there is no video card, but a built in graphics chip. Either built in or as an add in video card, they both run on the same AGP pipeline."



agpoverg3.gif




So since the video card onboard is an AGP2X then it will be better than any PCI since PCI is alot slower bus speed.

I kinda did some research now.

Here is a pic of my motherboard and as you see I don't see any AGP2X slots but the onboard card has AGP2X video adapter.



Picture041.jpg


So I thought that since there is no way I can add an AGP2X type video card then my onboard video card will be the best since it's alot faster bus speed than adding a PCI card. I mean isn't it like this for example if you had a car that can only go max speeds upto 120 mph even if you speed meter reads upto 160 mph the car can never go that fast since the engine is too small.

kinda like that I would think that no matter how good the PCI card is or so it will only be speeds upto 133mb and the onboard AGP2X is speeds upto 533mb.
 
Yeah, you got screwed on the AGP slot. A lot of lower end motherboards were made like that... they save a couple of bucks by just leaving the slot off the board.

While the AGP bus may be a little faster, the actual graphics chip you have... well... sucks royally. You have an Intel 810 which is a shade better than an Etch-A-Sketch in today's terms. The bus might be faster, but you only have a peddle car driving on that road. A PCI card... basically ANY of them on NewEgg right now... will outperform your current graphics chip PLUS it would relieve your CPU of the burden of handling the graphics AND free up your system memory. Even though the PCI bus is a little slower it will still be more than enough to handle a better graphics solution.

Now, with all that aside, what is your budget?
 
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