I need to upgrade my computer at some stage. I’ve just now received another incentive to do so. A friend has sent me a new hard drive as a gift, and I’d love to make use of it. Unfortunately it’s a SATA drive. My computer does not accommodate SATA drives and neither does the external USB drive enclosure I have here.

I’m at a loss to decide what to do. Should I get an add-in SATA controller card? (I’d love to use this big new drive as my primary drive.) Would it be best to get a new motherboard? Should I be looking at an upgrade system?

I’m at a loss to decide which way to proceed. While I understand that it’s not really a good method to plan a system around a component I’ve also been considering building a home entertainment PC for a while now and perhaps it’s a good time to reconsider that idea. My main concern at present, however is updating my home business computer.

I built the PC a couple of years ago from an "upgrade" kit. The time has come when I'd like to clean it up and perhaps wring a bit more life from it. As it's a home-business PC and I don't use it for gaming so I don't need top graphics or speed. It has:

• AMD processor 1800+
• All in one motherboard with USB1, graphics, LAN, sound and so on
• A couple of IDE hard disks
• The FDD stopped working a long while ago.
• A CDRW and DVD reader
• 2 256M sticks of RAM

I now have the new 160G Seagate SATA hard disk. If I rebuild it I'd like to transfer the OS and data from the old disks to this one, so I'd need SATA and IDE controllers. (I’d rather not do a fresh install of XP Pro).

Is there a motherboard that would suit, and provide:

• Integrated. USB2, Firewire, sound, graphics and LAN.
• Would take my processor and RAM
• Would have a couple of PCI slots for legacy cards
• What else would I need?

Or am I better off buying a new upgrade system, building it up, migrating the OS and data and then selling the old machine after a good clean up? Your suggestions would help me decide which way to go with this. If you could recommend me a good on-line store that is Sydney based I’d appreciate that as well. I’m a little uncomfortable with the thought of purchasing components from interstate.

Ninetoes , Sydney, NSW

There are several different ways you could address the situation. You could clean up that existing system to get it back into good order and continue using it. As an Internet interface and a tool for writing, it’s still perfectly capable and I’d imagine it’ll continue to be so for quite some time to come yet. My own primary Internet and writing tool is an Athlon XP 2400+ system with an old 40G hard drive. I’ll admit that I’m currently considering replacing it with a more capable system, but that’s only so that I can hand it on to my old Dad, to enable him to move from his Windows Me system and enjoy playing around with Google Earth. Without that motivation I wouldn’t be considering upgrading or replacing it for at least another year or two.

You could build yourself up a new work system and use the old one as the heart of the home entertainment PC you’ve been thinking about. Alternatively you could build up a new PC which is dedicated to that task. But I’d forget the idea of simply replacing your existing motherboard and migrating your other components and your Windows installation to it. Let me explain before I go on to give you suggestions for the upgrade.

SATA hard drive

That drive retails for about $135 Its IDE equivalent is about $125. The maximum theoretical data transfer is 150 Mbps, but the actual data transfer is less. For both PCI SATA controller cards and onboard SATA controllers on non PCIe motherboards the data transfer is also limited by the interaction with the 133 MHz PCI bus.

Sorry, but you’re not really getting any discernible performance improvement unless you have a matched pair of drives and a controller which allows you to use them in striped RAID configuration. In addition, almost all motherboards will not allow you to use the drive hooked to a controller card as your primary boot drive. Your BIOS may enable you to use it as a boot drive if it is in a USB enclosure which accommodates SATA drives but those are somewhat more expensive as I understand it.

My gut feeling would be to either put it aside for use with a motherboard which has SATA ports or to swap it for an IDE drive. Basically it’s the 7200 rpm rotation speed and the 8M cache which give it performance, rather than the SATA vs PATA connection. Unless your existing drives are older, 5,400 rpm ones with 2M cache, you’ll hardly notice any difference in performance at all.

Replacement motherboard

Yes, I’m sure you could find a motherboard which will provide most of the features you mention, while being able to accommodate your existing processor and other components. But it’ll be discontinued stock or a second-hand item which is well out of date. For Athlon XP processors, the best performance motherboard chipset is the nForce2 chipset. The best performing current AMD motherboards use the nForce4 chipsets. That’s two generations of hardware further on. Why upgrade to something that’s so far behind the current standards?

In addition, you can forget the idea of migrating your Windows installation to a new motherboard. Where Windows XP is concerned that’s not a realistic possibility. I will admit that some people successfully do just that. But whichever way you attempt the task the strongest likelihood is that the system will refuse to boot, and whatever you do will not be reliable afterwards. I wrote a lengthy guide a while back about techniques for increasing the chances of success when trying to migrate a Windows XP installation from one motherboard to another. In the end I never bothered publishing it because the procedures were as complex and time consuming as performing a fresh install, and because there could still be no guarantee of success. Sorry Ninetoes, but if you’re upgrading your equipment it’s definitely tome to confront the dreaded fresh install!


So on to the suggestions

As you’re aware, we try to avoid recommending individual vendors here at HelpStation, as it’s against our policy to do so. From time to time we can’t avoid doing so, however, and I’m sure that my occasional mentions of the Melbourne based Scorpion Technology have prompted your question about a Sydney based vendor.

I’d not hesitate to use an interstate on-line store. Finding a reputable and reliable on-line vendor is far more important than finding one in your locality. Generally, the only difference when snooping interstate is a slightly longer delay before you get the good in your hands. Shipping charges are generally identical. My own preference for mentioning Scorpion has two reasons behind it. Firstly, they enjoy a very good reputation amongst hardware enthusiasts. Secondly, their website catalogue contains links to product descriptions which can be inserted in the answers I provide to people when that is necessary.

An on-line vendor which is based in Sydney and which also enjoys such a good reputation is AusPCMarket You’ll need to wade through the catalogue there yourself, however, as their website doesn’t generate reproducible links to individual products. If you want to search more widely for cheap prices try an on-line price search such as Staticice or Ausprices

After some study of my own I’d suggest that if you want to drag yourself into the modern world it might be a good idea to go the Intel route. You’d be hard pressed to find a motherboard suitable for AMD64 which has all-in-one features, as they are basically designed to be used with add-in display cards. Integrated video alternatives haven’t really hit the marketplace yet.

A cheapish Intel all-in-one motherboard won’t provide you with an upgrade path to the dual-core processors which are beginning to come out, but I fail to see that you’d need one for a long time anyway. A Pentium processor of around 2.8 GHz to 3 GHz would be a good boost for you and provide Hyperthreading features which would boost performance further in relevant tasks anyway.

For the upgrade, you’d need motherboard, processor and some PC3200 RAM. Here are some reasonably priced suggestions:

Motherboard
http://www.scorptec.com.au/index.php?prdid=12355
http://asia.aopen.com.tw/products/mb/i915Gm-I.htm

Processor
http://www.scorptec.com.au/index.php?prdid=11614
or (preferred)
http://www.scorptec.com.au/index.php?prdid=15748

A little extra expense would give you this one
http://www.scorptec.com.au/index.php?prdid=15771
Which provides 64-bit capability, the antivirus protection of execute disable bit and also the power management features of Speedstep technology, as well as the very capable 3.2 GHz clockspeed. It’s the basis of a very capable system indeed!

RAM
http://www.scorptec.com.au/index.php?prdid=14134
http://www.scorptec.com.au/index.php?prdid=7144

Case
If you want to match that up with a really nice case which will keep it cool, provide a good power delivery and run reasonably quiet I’d suggest something like this http://www.scorptec.com.au/index.php?prdid=6165


System

All up, including a new case and power supply unit, those upgrade components will cost you around $800 depending on which processor you choose. You could upgrade at a lesser cost than that, of course, but you’d need to settle for lesser quality components. You might, instead, choose to take the ‘Upgrade box’ route.

In this case I’m happy to mention an upgrade system from on-line vendor PCPowerparts. That particular on-line store is one I have contact with because I’m acquainted with the vendor. Kev Burton, the proprietor, was a systems technician for quite a long time before starting his on-line store, and is a fella who puts a lot of care both into his system assembly and his customer service. With some other such on-line vendors, examples of which you’ll soon uncover by using the price locator sites mentioned above, you may not be so lucky. Shop around by all means, but remember you do so at your own risk.

The system I’d like to use as an example here is the “Entry Level Gamers” system from PCPowerparts. An option is provided to purchase the system box only at a cost of $999.

At the time of preparing this information, that $888 gets you a Socket 939, AGP 8X, Athlon64 3000+ system with 1G RAM, a 120G hard drive, a fast dual-layer DVD burner, and a handy performing nVidia 6600GT display card. Quite a handy system indeed, and the TV-out (including HDTV) features of that display card might prove very interesting to someone such as yourself who is considering a media centre PC at some stage. The motherboard chipset in that system is the nForce4 ultra chipset, so there should be no problem with upgrading to a dual core processor later on should you desire to do so.

In conclusion

I’d urge both you and our other readers to take careful note of the website features offered by large on-line vendors such as Scorpion Technology and by smaller companies such as PCPowerparts. The on-line store website features offered by the vendors I’ve mentioned include features such as an easily browsable product catalogue, links to detailed information about individual products and perhaps also on-line reviews of then for you to read, secure on-line shopping and detailed information about terms, freight charges, warranty and payment options. Such features demonstrate the respect a vendor accords to his customers. If all you get is a pdf price list and an email address when you check a vendor website, I’d suggest it’s one to steer clear of!

I hope my comments have helped you to organize your thoughts a bit, Ninetoes, and I hope they also prove informative to our other readers who may be deciding what to do with their older systems!

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Update:

My apologies for the non-functioning links above. The communication related to this question and answer occurred a couple of months back, and since that time the Pentium 4 models originally recommended (2.8 GHz and a cheaper version of the 3.0 GHz) have been withdrawn from the catalogue of current products and some of the other 'flavours' of Pentium processor have dropped in price. You can still obtain the earlier models from stores which still have older stock, but they're no longer being produced. i915 chipset All-in-one motherboards are also readily available. The one included was simply an example.

In any case, my firm recommendation would be an Athlon64 3000+ or better based system. They run cooler, and don't require the more expensive DDR2 RAM modules, which at current performance ratings don't give any better performance than the older DDR modules.

Cheers,

Terry O'Shanassy