PCTech Forums

Hi, I have a 3200 AMD Athlon processor and 64mb ATI Radeon Graphics which I want to upgrade, the problem I face is that the graphics and processor is on-board and this makes what I want to do impossible in my eyes. I fear the only way I can upgrade is to get a new motherboard, a new processor and a new graphics card then I will possibly need a new tower for the bigger motherboard. Can someone give me some advice, I am stuck with this computer with everything on board except for RAM etc, is there something I could do about this, that is not going to cost me a fortune?

I am not even sure about having to do all this to change one thing? Please anyone who could give me some help, it would be greatly appreciated. Also how much roughly should I be looking at price wise? I just wanted a 256mb video card and have got more than I bergained for. Thanks for your help in advance.

Richard

do you happen to know what motherboard you currently have? You might have a decent video slot on your board that will let you add a video card. Onboard graphics can be disabled to allow a video card to handle the load. Your processor is socketed, the only machine on earth that would have a "onboard processor" would be a MAC. If you can turn up some info on your board we can offer some solid advice, let us know if you need help finding out what board you have.

Hello again Richard,
That does tell me that you have an Asus board but i need to find out which one. Im going to ask you to download and install .





When you run it, you will see the screen shown below. Click Motherboard (underlined in red in this pic)












It should now look similar to this pic, click on Motherboard again.











You should now see something as shown below. I have underlined the motherboard model # in this pic for my board. I need to know what this is on yours, from there i can tell you what your best options would be.

Just thought I would post what the shop has told me via e-mail and see what you make of it, I asked why I would need to upgrade the motherboard, processor and memory and here's what he said.

IF YOU ONLY HAVE A PCI SLOT THEN GRAPHICS CARDS FIT IN A PCI EXPRESS SLOT OR AN
AGP SLOT.

SO YOU WOULD NEED TO UPGRADE THE MOTHERBOARD, IF YOU DON'T THAT YOU WOULD NEED
TO UPGRADE YOUR MEMORY AND IF YOU DON'T THAT YOU WOULD NEED TO UPGRADE PROCESSOR
ITS GOT A KNOCK ON EFFECT.


Don't understand really, but is he right?

Cheers for your help,

Richard

Ok, were getting closer, you've given me the motherboard ID but i need the motherboard name.


Your processor should be ok, yes there are bigger and better ones out there but a 64 bit 3200 is usually a sufficient chip. Im only running a 64 bit 3700 myself at 2.2GHz and i play any game i want and also do some video rendering with no problems.

Your power supply just might need to be upgraded to 400 or so but thats to be determined once we see what your video options are.

The email is partially right. It is possible to get a motherboard that will accommodate a pci express video card and still use your same processor and memory.

Jumping back to the last photo in my post, you can see that my motherboard name is Asus A8N5X . I need to know what yours is.

In motherboard name it says unknown but I have tried something called Belarc and it came up with this Board: ASUSTek Computer INC. Amberine M 1.03 hope this helps.

Let me know, thanks for your help. So you suggest I do this myself? And not take my computer to the shop?

Richard

I believe this is my motherboard hope it helps you to help me.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/gene ... 280&lc=en#

Richard

Cheers mate let me know, look forward to hearing from you.

Richard