I need to upgrade the processor and RAM for my computer. I don't need it to do anything fancy, no games or video editing, I just need to use if to edit digital photos, adequately. I'm a photographer, and this is all I'm going to have to work with, for a while, so I need to make it work as best and as fast as I can, for little cash. I know I need to do some research but I don't even know where to start, this computer is so old I wonder IF I can even do anything. But any help I could get would be awesome...Thanks for all your time.

I forgot to mention it's a eMachine T2042 model, if that helps at all...

Systems from VARs such as yours are generally not upgrade friendly or cost efficient to partly overhaul. You may not have a better alternative to selling or scraping the eMachine & building a complete new & much faster system.

Don't tell me that...I have very simple needs, give me hope MAN!

You chipset is the intel 845GL which can use the 100 or 133 fsb cpu`s. You can use the p4 533 fsb but I dont think you can support ht. Since the pentium 4 used prices are somewhat high I would rather save for a new pc. You can try to run spybot, adaware and clean up your startup programs to make this pc somewhat faster but dont expect miracles.

The best you can do is a Pentuim 4 2.8ghz 400mhz FSB, but you are going to be paying 168 bucks for it since these models weren't mass produced.

http://www.starmicro.net/detail.asp...

If you don't feel like spending that much then the best budget cpu upgrade you can do is a Celeron 2.8ghz 400mhz
FSB for 35 bucks.

http://www.compuvest.com/Search.jsp...

Best you can do in ram is throw in another 512mb of ram cause your max of ram is 1gb of DDR ram on that board.

If you don't want to get a new pc but don't want to spend a lot of money on upgrades, then go with the Celeron 2.8ghz 400mhz FSB model and another 512mb of DDR ram.

Thanks for all the help...

One more quick Q... Can I put 1gb of RAM in each slot, or is a gig the cap on this model and all I can do is use two 512mb sticks?

it's 2gb max.

check here see if this helps you you can put 2 gigs according to this site.

http://www.crucial.com/store/listpa...

Jim R