Need a little help from a computer genius

[Demon]

I'm looking to upgrade a few things on my computer. The only problem is that I don't know what's inside it as it was a gift. Compatibility may be an issue as well. Does anybody know of a good way to get complete system specs for a machine?

Thanks.
M

 

[Redline]

Who made the computer?

 

[Demon]

It's a Compaq Presario 5320 US. A couple years old. I searched their site and found nothing useful.

 

[Redline]

did windows Xp come with it?

 

[Demon]

Yes sir. We got it. I know there's a way to look it up but I'm not as familiar with XP as I'd like to be. Things I'm looking at specifically:

1. What's the max I can go on a new CPU without changing mobos?
2. PCI or AGP? Can't really tell the difference with these eyes.
3. Max RAM abel to be installed?

Stuff like this. Gosh do I miss the days of my old 386...easy to upgrade cause there were no compatability issues as there was ntohign else available.

 

[Redline]

Here's what you most likely running

Pentium 4 1.5 gig CPU
512 or 256 meg pc133 ram
agp 4x slot with a 16 meg video card

upgrading the ram and video card won't be a problem
If you want to upgrade the cpu your probably going to have to upgrade the motherboard to. because more than likely they put the fastest cpu the motherboard can handle when they built the computer.

 

[SuperSix]

First thing you need to do is decide what exactly you want your PC to do after the upgrade. What is is NOT doing that you would like for it to do?

Gaming? General Windows performance sluggish? What's the reason for the upgrade?

 

[xrunner123]

Bet ya it's the ram that's making you feel like upgrading.

Upgrade from 256 to 512 or more. (if you have 256)
It will be like a new computer. XP hogs memory and it tries to load as much as it can to make things faster. The more the merrier.

 

[The Radius Kid]

Click the start menu.
Click on control panel.
Click on system[properties].
Read the general tab.
That should tell you basically what your computer has got.
There's other stuff there too.
Hope that helps.

 

[Gr82baGN]

This comes from an old review on Computer Shopper.

The new Compaq Presario 5320US featuring an Intel® Pentium® 4 1.5GHz processor and the new Microsoft® Windows® XP operating system, offers the latest technology with the easy to use Presario design. This speedy system also provides a large 40GB hard drive and comes standard with 512MB of memory. And don't forget the DVD and CDRW drives and ethernet and modem connections. This is the system you've been waiting for at the price you've been dreaming of.

Based on the other available specs you can upgrade max to 1.5 gigs of (DIMM) SDRAM. You can also upgrade your Video Display Card to any high end 128mb AGP card. To determine the mobo's cpu upgrade capabilites you need the mother board manual.

HTH
Mike