Hi, I am (trying) to upgrade my parents PC and the first thing i want to do is upgrade the CPU. It currently has a Pentium 3 550MHz (http://processorfinder.intel.com/Details.aspx?sSpec=SL3QA) and i wondered what was the fastest CPU i could upgrade it to would be. I have noted down some numbers from the motherboard - Dell Rev.A00 AA A01025-305 00010RNC-12462-02E-00I3 I am also going to upgrade the memory - it has two slots for memory and currently 128mb RAM. Any advice would be much appreciated. Many thanks, Ben

I think, the fastest P3 is 1.2Ghz, but I don't know if your motherboard would support this. You would notice more of a difference by increasing the RAM. Depending on the motherboard, you might be able to increase it to 512mb. In my opinion, it would be more cost effective to buy a second hand pc from ebay. Before posting try google. Backup. Use anti virus software.

You're right it would be more efficient to buy a second hand PC but unfortunately my folks are mega tight!!!! Bit more info for you - i think the motherboard only supports a bus speed of 100MHz as that is what the current procossor is and the ram is PC100. I was going to get two sticks of 256MB PC100 RAM anyway.

As clive_pearce said, RAM will make more of a difference than a CPU upgrade. Always double check the motherboard manufacturer's website for which CPUs & RAM are supported. It's possible a BIOS update may be required to get a newer CPU recognized. Here's some cheap PC100 & a 1.0GHz P3: http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?in... http://www.starmicro.net/detail.asp...

I think you should still have a look at ebay. For £20 plus postage, you could get something better than you can upgrade to. http://computers.shop.ebay.co.uk/it... Before posting try google. Backup. Use anti virus software.

You can find better stuff than that on the curb awaiting pickup. I am not trying to insult you, just pointing out that it isn't worth spending much on. I have given away faster computers than that and that was a couple of years ago.

If your parents are running XP on that box, I agree that you should just add some memory. However, if they are running win98, the additional memory might not help that much. Thinning out their msconfig startup programs might help quite a bit.