jesus christ. Its been about 4 years since i bought ram, and then it was $100 for a 512mb stick.
Now with these RIMM modules on my p4 board, i'm supposed to pay over a dollar per meg?
Looking for two 512mb sticks. Lowest price i've found so far is $530per......jesus. Anyone do better?

http://www.cdt.com.au/catalogue/details.js...72691&type=

???

Yeah, we got stung here (at work) a few years ago when we bought some systems with RIMM modules.
We'd still be using them if we could have bumped the RAM up in them a bit, but it just wasn't worth it so they were replaced.

What sort of processor / socket have you got?

You could probably pick up a new board and 1gb DDR with change left over, for the same price as a 512mb RIMM.

nfi and nfi. Just blew up the power supply, not sure how, so i'm putting my spare in right now.

Looks like new m/b with DDR2 or somesuch is the go, i'll use the old mb (with 300 odd mb RIMM) and a 80gb h/d as a file/game/mail/p2p server.

If you could get me the model of the mainboard I could probably give you some information on what your options are.

Have you got a manual for the board?

If not, the next easiest way would probably be to take the side of the case off and have a look at the board.
The model could be printed anywhere, but typically it's in the top left or bottom left corner, vertical near the RAM slots or in between two of the PCI slots.
Usually in larger text than everything else printed on it.

Or you could just take a nice photo of it (the board) and i'll try and work out what it is.

I could, but the board only takes RIMM, i know that much.

Thinking of upgrading...new board, cpu, DRR2 etc...probably cheaper to get a gig of ram that way than buying obsolote rimm sticks.

Now isn't that fu***ng ironic?

New processor's cost that much? Old p4 board...are there p4 boards that let me use anything other than RIMM?

Dont bother buying the RIMM.

Just upgrade. New mobo, new ram, new cpu.

AMD 64 3500+ (939) ~$180
1gb or 2gb Generic DDR ~$120 or $240
939 motherboard to suit, Pretty much any decent brand(Asus, abit, gigabyte, msi) ~$150 will cover it

If you wanna go DDR2 it will most likely require a shift to PCI-E too requiring a new videocard.

Yeah, the majority of them take SD or DDR.
RD is a very small minority.

Yes, Bondy's idea about a full overhaul is a very good one if you've got the cash.
If you haven't though, that kind of limits options.

The reason I asked about the motherboard model number is so I can figure out what sort of interface your CPU has, as well as other interfaces and such.

Your processor is more than likely a Socket 478, and although this is rapidly becoming obsolete, a fair few retailers still have mainboards that support this available (I bought one only last week for a dead work PC).
There is also the option of buying a second hand one.
So you could probably get away with it for ~$170 all up for the board and 1gb of RAM.

BUT, you have to realise that it only puts you one step forward.
You're only improving your performance and productivity marginally, and you won't have any further upgrade potential (i.e. current processors won't fit the board), so you'll probably be doing a major upgrade in the near future anyway.
Whereas if you spend ~$500-600, it puts you ahead A LOT in both of those areas.

Either way, I think you'll agree that buying more RD RAM (unless you can get it at some insane price) isn't really an option.

yeah, looking at a new motherboard, power supply (dont ask), and CPU, ram etc.

question, if i chuck the existing HD (that was running on the p4 RIMM board) onto a new AMD board, will windows boot up and adjust itself accordingly? or am i screwed?

Problem also. Dell case seems to have a "proprietary" layout on the back of the case re : connectors for keyboard/mouse and the usb ports. Might need an el cheapo, new case.
Something that can fit 2 3.5" ide drives, a dvd drive and a burner, agp card, few pci slots.

Most cases come with power supplies, yes? Might be the way to go.

You will have to reload Windows.
This is not the only 'black & white way', but it is definitely the easiest (yes, easier than re-installing everything by far) and the most reliable.

For the case, don't just buy the cheapest heap of crap you can find.
I've been stung a number of times when bulk buying custom PC's for work and choosing cheap cases.
A lot of them seem to be very flimsy, sometimes causing the mainboard tray to warp and short the board out (as an example)
The quality of the paint job, buttons and general finish often leaves a lot to be desired as well.

The power supplies in them seem to be very questionable as well.
You'll probably find that after a while, your 'Ultra Mega 100000 watt' PSU that you got free with a $30 case won't have enough power to start the system any more.

Look at AOpen.
They have a good range of nice, strong, plain cases, with reasonable bundled power supplies.
Speaking of which, you should get at least a 400w one, 450 if possible.
There are plenty of other good ones around too, but have a look at them in some local stores if you can, online photos can be very deceiving

when you say "have to"...do you mean it literally wont work if i try and boot off a new mb/cpu combo?

I was thinking, just to be safe, of getting a SATA drive as master, then plugging in my "old" IDE drive as slave (ie, not booting off it) to get a whole bunch of data off it. Its about time for a new windows install anyway.

Thanks for the advice re: cases. I'm going to go snoop around tomorrow. your right ,llooking at gear online inspires nil confidence.

Plan so far :

GIGABYTE K8NSC-939 SKT939 AMD64 NF3-250 BOARD
AMD ATHLON64 3500+ 64-BIT CPU+ heatsink/fan
Corsair 1GB( 2 x512) DDR
300GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10 16mbcache SATA 7,200 rpm.

Just need a case + psu, got two existing IDE drives here with a copy of xp on em. Got a AGP radeon to run as well. Looking at 400w minimum, right?

Your choices look fine to me. The idea of installing windows on a new master drive is what i usually do when i upgrade majorly and it works perfectly.

Power supplies to me are much like the power ratings in car audio. Ie. If you pay for a BOSS 600W amp its not going to deliver like an Alpine 600W will.

Antec, Coolermaster or Lian Li are my choices. But Aopen is also excellent for the money.

This antec case is pretty ugly, but a good buy and an excellent PSU
http://www.scorptec.com.au/product/12175

A decent 400W brand name power supply will be more then enough.

yeah, only problem is a few games cd-keys will be left on the old registry. I could run "tracking" software to see what each game looks at in the registry, but thats going to be a pain. My fav games (eg bf2) hash the key too.

In a recent disaster, most boxes of our software were lost. rain damage.

Theres seems to be plenty of great antec case+psu combos going around fairly cheap (sub $200)...hands on tomorrow.

p.s Thanks for all your help guys. I've been considering options (ie, pentium boards, opteron boards etc) and frankly, i just want decent gaming, cheap. 2.2ghz 1mb cache cpu with a gig of ram seems to be fine for my needs. Maybe bump it up to 1.5 gig (load windows in ram too).

but yeah, some SOUND advice so far, and mirrors what my research is throwing up. Thanks y'all.

Now, to go to a lan-party and find a friendly fellow geek with a wholesale account again. Ah god the savings.

Dont try to transfer any programs or games across from the old drive. Its asking for trouble.

You'll have to go through the process of reinstalling everything.

If you own the games the keys will be easy to get off the box manual or cd, if you dont, well theres other ways easier then diving into the reg.

Name one. If i cant find the original cd case for bf2, which i cant (but the cd's sitting here in front of me) i need to do a reg copy.

And yeah, i'll be re-installing office etc. Thankfully the only major app (quickbooks).

I was just going to say use a serialsite, but if you want to play online could be an issue. Just copy over the section of the registry you need.

and for AMD a shift to AM2 (939 only supports DDR)

seeing as you've already got and AGP card may as well stick to a 939 board with AGP and DDR

MSI K8N Neo2 Plaitnum Mainbord should be what Stik just suggested. I run one in my arcade machine. or something smiliar.

I can bearly find any. This is all I could find in my price list:
ME128RIMM1066 - Kingston 128MB - 1066MHz RIMM for Intel D850E chipset mb - $169.00
Everything else is DDR, DDR2 or SDRAM

or something like a DFI LANPARTY UT nF3 ULTRA-D

settled on the following.

ANTEC TX1050B file server case + 500w psu
GIGABYTE K8NSC-939 SKT939 AMD64 .....agp 939 board
AMD ATHLON64 3500+ 64-BIT CPU+ heatsink/fan
Corsair 1GB( 2 x512) DDR
250GB 7200RPM SATA II 3.5" Western Digital WD 16MB HDD

got a ati radeon 9700 pro AGP and a SB live card here

thanks for all ya help. New thread pending