possible upgrades???

dezaster · Post by **dezaster** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 2:17 pm

hi,
have a question and hopin somebody can help. my cousins comp is movin pretty slow. they have a "gateway atxstf fed performance 1000." despite my pushin them to let me build them a new comp, they just wanna do what they can with this one.

i need to know the motherboard used and possible memory specs and all that jazz. i know it's an intel 815 chipset, but i can't match up the motherboard anywhere.
the best thing i can think of to pick up its speed is to add some more ram and a hard drive to put some relief on the 95% full 20gig. it has one stick of 128mb. anybody know if this is gateway minimum for this motherboard? or can i go higher and can i use ddr? the motherboard has no marking tags on it at all. any help would be great.. thanks
dez

Invisible Evil · Post by **Invisible Evil** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 3:11 pm

Have you tried the actual gateway support site?
You might not have luck tracking it down by the model, however they have a search feature that you can input the serial # and pull up the pc.
Id give that a try.

impuresoul2k3 · Post by **impuresoul2k3** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 3:12 pm

Just wondering...
Have you tried defragmenting and scandisking it?

ZYFER · Post by **ZYFER** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 3:13 pm

ddr sounds unlikely by the chipset it has, you can tell the difference in what it uses but the slot (168-pin SDram has two notches in the slot) DDR Ram has a single notch. hard drive would be useful better to choose a Seagate for warranty purposes, as well as cleaning up their spyware and possible viruses.

You are likely to find more information on the system at Gateway's website, you should look it up there, when it comes to Dell, Gateway, etc. you don't matchup the board, but the whole system itself as these companies tend to get the motherboard make for them specifically. Though seriously, it may not be a good idea for you to upgrade a system yourself, if you can't identify the current components and what it can use just by taking a look at it.

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 3:21 pm

I think the 815 chipset allowed only 512 megs of ram. You can read more here:
http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/intel815/

And it's probably got onboard video which you can read using the above link, but your best bet will be directly from Dell by supplying them with the serial number of the machine. Like others have said, sounds like it needs a cleaning.

ZYFER · Post by **ZYFER** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 3:27 pm

Originally posted by Executioner
I think the 815 chipset allowed only 512 megs of ram. You can read more here:
http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/intel815/

And it's probably got onboard video which you can read using the above link, but your best bet will be directly from Dell by supplying them with the serial number of the machine. Like others have said, sounds like it needs a cleaning.

its a Gateway not a Dell

probably has two slots for Ram if it is one of those Gateways....

dezaster · Post by **dezaster** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 3:43 pm

actually.. 3 slots :up even has an agp slot!.. lol.. nothin like a good ole P3 manufactured in 01

Invisible Evil · Post by **Invisible Evil** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 4:21 pm

IT takes pc-133 and is maxxed out at 512.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 5:33 pm

If he's running Win98 or WinME it's not worth adding more memory. Anything over 128Mb will not make a difference.

If he's running Win2K or WinXP then the minimum RAM size should be 256Mb.

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 7:04 pm

make them buy one of the Dell SC420 baby servers for $224...add a sound card and you are good to go...onsite warranty...cheap...and you are free of being tech support biotch.

dezaster · Post by **dezaster** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 1:26 am

yeah, i put xp on it... so, we'll see what a boost in some memory will do to it. thanks guys :B

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 9:16 am

If it has XP on it and only 128Mb, it's crippled. You'll see a big improvement going to 256Mb.