Upgrading, When Practical, Pays Performance Dividend
My TV is about 5 years old, and, for all practical purposes, it’s still state-of-the-art. The same is true of my 4-year-old car and my 6-year-old washing machine. I wish I could say that about my son’s computer.
About two years ago, I got William (age 8) a 33-megahertz 486 machine with an internal single-speed CD-ROM drive. It was a screamer at the time, easily able to handle any software on the market. But we’ve recently come across some CD-ROMs it can’t play and some Windows programs that run very slowly. William is demanding that we do something.
Now, expecting an 8-year-old to put up with a 33-MHz 486 PC and a single-speed CD-ROM drive hardly constitutes child abuse. It’s still more than adequate for most purposes. And a lot of people have even older machines; a 386-based system, the top of the line just a few years ago, won’t run some of today’s programs. A 286 or older PC can’t even run Microsoft Windows. Older Macintosh PCs have similar problems with new software.
The good news is that it’s possible in many cases to upgrade a PC. But not all PCs are worth upgrading. Before you start replacing components, think about the level of performance you need, calculate what it will cost to upgrade your machine and then find out what it would cost to buy a new one. If it’s almost as cheap to replace it, that’s probably the way to go. That way you’ll have two machines. You can keep your older machine, sell it or get a tax write-off by donating it to a nonprofit organization.
There are a number of components that affect a machine’s speed and ability to run software. First is random access memory (RAM). It’s possible to run most Windows and Macintosh software with only four megabytes of random access memory, but you’ll get better performance with eight megabytes. Most machines can be upgraded by plugging in memory chips. It’s easy to do if you’re comfortable taking your machine apart, and memory generally costs about $45 to $60 a megabyte. (RAM prices fluctuate and may soon rise because of supply disruptions caused by the recent Japanese earthquake.)
Another component to consider is the video card, which sends images to your monitor. A run-of-the-mill VGA or SuperVGA card won’t display images as quickly as an accelerated card such as the Diamond Stealth 32 or Orchid Kelvin 64, which start at about $150. Before you buy a new video card, find out what type of expansion slots you have. If your PC is equipped with “local bus” or “PCI” expansion slots, then you can take advantage of even faster video cards. Changing a video card is pretty easy: Open the case, swap the cards and install new software drivers. It shouldn’t take more than half an hour.
Often, the biggest single thing you can do to improve performance is to upgrade the central processing unit. That’s the chip that does the actual computing and, in general, determines the overall speed of your computer. If you have a 286 or older CPU, it probably will not be economical to upgrade because you would have to replace too many other components. If you have a 386 CPU, you may be able to remove the old chip and replace it with an upgrade CPU from Cyrix (800 GOCYRIX) that turns your system into a 486. The Cyrix Cx486DRX2 doesn’t quite give the same performance as an Intel 486, but it should about double the performance of your 386. Versions for 25-MHz and 33-MHz 386 systems start at $249.
If you have a machine with an older 25-MHz or 33-MHz 486 CPU, you may be able to gain a significant performance improvement by replacing it with an Intel OverDrive chip. Intel makes three types of OverDrive chips. The DX2 (starting at $149) nearly doubles the processing speed of a 25-MHz or 33-MHz 486 or 486SX machine; the new DX4 chips ($299 and up) nearly triple the speed. (Particular programs won’t necessarily run two or three times faster, however. The actual performance boost varies with each program.)
Intel’s newest OverDrive chip, the Pentium OverDrive Processor ($449), replaces a 25-MHz 486 CPU with a 63-MHz Pentium chip. The Pentium OverDrive does not have the mathematical flaw found in other Pentium chips. An upgraded computer won’t run quite as fast as one that came with a Pentium, but the performance increase should be significant.
Not all OverDrive chips will work on all systems, and in fact on some PCs it is impossible to change the CPU at all. To find out about yours, call Intel at (800) 538-3373. Replacing a CPU chip takes only a few minutes once the machine is apart, but it can be tricky: Some PCs require you to pry out the old chip, and you have to be very careful not to bend any of the pins as you force the new one into the socket.
*
Some machines have “zero insertion force” (ZIF) sockets that make the job a lot easier.
I installed Intel’s DX4 chip in a 33-MHz 486 machine and was blown away by the performance boost. Unfortunately, though, William’s machine (an off-brand clone) wouldn’t work with an OverDrive chip, so he’ll have to live with his 33-MHz 486 for a while. I did, however, replace his old single-speed CD-ROM drive with a new Creative Labs SoundBlaster Discovery CD-ROM 16 kit. Its double-speed drive meets the latest (MPC-2) specifications for running Windows multimedia CD-ROMs, and the kit includes a 16-bit sound card, stereo speakers and several sample CDs.
The kit’s street price is typically about $250. MediaVision ((800) 348-7116) makes a similar product called Double Fusion LX.
*
Computer File welcomes your comments. Write to Lawrence J. Magid, Computer File, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, or message magid@latimes.com on the Internet or KPVN58A on Prodigy.
