PC Problems Q&A thread

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ferret1603 said:
Sorry if these are really dumb questions but I don't know a lot about the tech side of computers.

I'd like to upgrade my PC and am planning on getting the Intel Core 2 Duo E8500. My first question is pretty straight forward; will it work with my ASUSTeK A7V8X-X REV 1.xx motherboard?

Secondly, is it worth getting? Does it have any serious flaws that make another model preferable? Basically I'm sick of my PC being so slow and I want to seriously improve its speed. I often run a lot of programs at the same time and my current set up just can't cope. I'm hoping that adding more RAM and upgrading the processor will solve the problem.

I currently have a 2.13 gigahertz AMD Athlon XP processor and 512MB RAM. Will replacing it with the Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 and 3GB of RAM solve my problems and allow me to, for example, run the internet, a couple of Adobe Creative Suite programs, iTunes and a virus scanner at the same time? If I do that at the moment my computer falls over and dies.

First off, your motherboard is a Socket "A" motherboard and your processor is Socket "LGA 775". In short no they aren't compatible.

As far as the processor is concerned it is a very solid processor and shouldn't have any issues for you. With that said I think your problem has far more to do with memory than sheer processing speed. Just about anything from adobe is going to be a memory hog and their creative suite is a pretty big culprit even for them.

Normally I would recommend you upgrade your RAM first and see if it fixes the problem..BUT...looking at your motherboard it takes DDR SDRAM and any LGA 775 motherboard you buy is going to take DDR2 RAM. Really though you want to upgrade to DDR2 anyways so thats not much of an issue.

What might be an issue (depending on budget) is if you need to upgrade your CPU, Mobo, and RAM all at once. There are a lot of options you can go with for your motherboard but just a quick look around at newegg.com shows that you can get the CPU for about $250, 4GB of DDR2 800 for around $80-$90 and the mobo will be between $60 and $240 depending on the features you want.

If you go middle of the road for the mobo you will be looking at around $435. Sounds a bit steep since you're only replacing a few parts but truthfully the mobo and CPU are 2 of the 3 most expensive parts.

 

In all honesty that processor might actually be a bit beefier than you need now. So if money is an issue I think you can get by with on something a lot more affordable.

PS - Do you plan on gaming on this PC or just what you've meantioned thus far?