Upgrading a low-end PC - Help me sort it out?

Hello all!

I've known for awhile that my PC's graphics card isn't supported but I've managed to enjoy SL anyways. I've learned what little things I can tweak to make whatever viewer I'm forced to upgrade to work well enough to have an enjoyable experience. RC experiences have never been pleasant for me but, by the time a required viewer rolled out, enough of the bugs have been worked out to keep me inworld.

My latest experiences with the current RC and the current *adult content search* viewer (1.23?) has made me realize that unless I make some changes, my SL life is...

So make changes I will. SL isn't a necessity but it is a very enjoyable part of my life. I can't afford an all-out gaming system but I think I can afford some basic PC upgrades. I just need to figure out if my PC is up to it.

That being said, here are my "specs":

Acer Insire AST180-UD441A
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+
2.31 GHz Rated at 6.60 GHz?
1.7 GB System RAM
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, 32-bit (Build Service Pack 16001)

**!!
NVIDIA GeForce 6100 nForce 405 ---This is my biggest problem??!!**

The *minimum* attributes of the video card seem to pass muster per "Can You RUN It?"
That is: adequate video RAM, Video Card 3D acceleration, Video HW Transform and Lighting, Vertex Shading Ver and Pixel Shader Ver. _---All Greek to me. sigh. I just want to interact with my dear friends and build.

I'd love to hear some friendly advice about how to best approach my current issues. I'm becoming too familiar with crash reports. I'm sure that the Lindens are getting tired of my crash report logs, "I just double clicked on the SL icon on my desktop!"

Upgrade my current PC or just wait it out?

Yeah, that's your biggest problem. A better graphics card, something like an Nvidia 9600GT or better will improve SL considerably.

More system RAM. An nVidia 9xxx series card or better. And, probably as important as anything..........a bigger power supply.

To use a high end graphics card you need a power supply that will handle that card. Computer manufacturers seldom (if ever) include a PS that accounts for upgrades of anything other than RAM memory modules. I doubt your Acer has much more than 250 watts...........about half (minimum) of what you need to have in order to upgrade to a decent video card.

I use an NVidia 9400 GT with good results . . . It sounds as if your system has 2GB ram, with 256MB dedicated to the embedded 6100.

Check your Task Manager to see how much RAM you use during a typical session, and what your CPU utilization is.

I don't use Vista, simply because it is a resource hog, but since you do, an upgrade to 4GB may well improve matters.

I had a very similar system when I started in SL. I upgraded the video to an 8800GT and doubled the ram to 4 GB. I kept the same processor. These two changes really improved my experience. I have since moved to Vista Home Premium 64 bit to take advantage of the additional RAM.

Computer RAM will make a huge diff in your SL.

You can also get a 9500GT 1gb vid card for about $50-$60 usd at newegg.com.

Thanks for the replies.


The power supply was a concern that I had if I upgrade my vid card. I'm not sure how to approach that issue. Anyone have ideas where I can look to find out how many watts my power supply does have?

I do plan on adding another 2GB of RAM. And, it never crossed my mind to get the newer 64bit Vista OS to actually take advantage of the extra RAM.

I'm hoping that I can make the upgrades myself. Just to be able to say "I did it!". But, the thought of it is daunting. The only upgrade I've ever made to a PC is to add an ethernet card. Even popping the cover off the tower to hunt for dust bunnies stresses me. There is a lot of scary looking things under there.

Thanks again!

The place to find the power supply rating most efficiently is on the power supply.

From googling around I think it has a 250 watt power supply.

The stock power supply in your computer is probably somewhere between 230 and 280 watts. Not nearly enough to satisfactorily run a high end graphics card such as an nVidia 9500. If memory serves me correctly the minimum PS requirement for cards in that catagory is 400 watts. However, the only sure way to know what wattage your PS has is to open your case and visually look at the sticker on the side of the power supply........manufacturers make it almost impossilbe to find that specification for some unknown reason. Even reading the wattage on the power supply is somewhat decieving..........it doesn't tell you if that's "peak" wattage or sustained. You want sustained......"peak" means your PS can put out that wattage for short times but not warranted to sustain that output. And, that wattage on the PS is probably the peak.....that is a higher number so it looks better to users who are not experienced is such things (which is most of us). Usually the sustained is about 80% of the peak. That should give you some ball park figures to work with.

You can find some very good deals online for power supplies. Newegg.com and Tigerdirect.com are probably the most well kown online stores for computer/electronic parts and accessories. I've use Newegg.......they are quite reasonable in their prices and much of the parts you buy are free shipping. Tigerdirect also has some fantastic deals. It would be well worth it to compare. But, just a heads up........if you live in California, Newegg is based in CA and must charge sales tax for orders to customers within the state. That sales tax is now just below 10%.......keep that in mind when searching (if you are not a resident of CA that tax does not apply to you).

The power supply I would look at is 500 to 650 watt (really, I'd go for the higher since the price difference is almost negliable). I believe the Aspir you have is an ATX case so you need to look at power supplies that are of the same type. It's sometimes important to know if you have Intel or AMD.........but not so much anymore. I would check to make sure it matches though just to be safe. I think you will be pleasantly surprised on just reasonable power supplies 800 watts and below are.....they are down right cheap. Over that 800 watt treshold the prices go up dramatically though.

Replacing a power supply is maybe just a little harder than installing that ethernet card you did. It's not hard at all.

newegg is quite a distro chain, they charge sales tax in TN, because theres a depo in Memphis

they all kind of have to, tigerdirect is in Illinois, or thats where i get shipped from ... if they need you to pay a state sales tax it will show up clearly in the shopping cart, on either one

I run 32 bit XP Pro, and it sees my 4GB without any problems . . .Its when you go over 4GB that the 64 bit OS comes into play, from that point of view.

also, make sure your motherboard has the slots for the video card you wanna buy, and start saving money in case it doesn't, often motherboard and processor are the most expensive things on an average computer (on a high-end computer somtimes things like the colling system are even more expensive)

Wow. Lots of helpful info. Big thanks to you all!

I'll bite the bullet this following week and take a peek inside my tower to have a look at the power supply.

I believe that I understand what Peggy was explaining about the peak vs sustained wattage of the PS. I hope there is some pseudo-standard labeling on the sticker somewhere that hints at it. From what SuezanneC and Peggy have shared, I'm thinking that an obvious 250ish number would indicate sustained usage wattage and finding a number closer to 700 or 800 would indicate a short-term max peakage use. I understand the terms that Peggy used (I hope) despite not truely understanding how the power source is utilized in the first place.

Numbers, numbers, numbers...

From what I've been looking at it is hard to figure out such things. The numbers I've seen tossed about with graphics cards is another thing I'm trying to sort out. What is the situation with graphics cards? Some of the things I've read indicate that the second numeral is more important than the first in some instances.

Anyone care to indulge a dunce?

Nvidia's naming scheme for the past few years has been this: The card's have a four digit model number. The first number (5,6,7,8 or 9) indicate the generation of the card, with 9 being the newest. The second number indicates the position of the card in the lineup, higher numbers being more powerful (a 9800 is faster than a 9600, for example).

They altered this with the latest series of cards, the GTX200 line. The higher the number, the better than the card. These are all high end cards, and are all very fast.

Oh! Tigro...

One of the things that I've noticed when opening up my tower is that there seems to be lot of slots open. I can't say what those slots are good for, mind you, but it it does appear that this PC is adaptable. I can only hope that it is true...

Delta,

I'm hoping to learn a bit more about the differences in operating systems. 32bit vs 64bit isn't something that I understand. I've only heard that a 64bit is better at utilizing RAM. I don't have any personal experince. I'm probably best described as "Joe Public"...I only know what I hear about. I really would appreciate hearing about your experiences and what changes you make to have a nice SL experience.

Oy! They just work harder at making it all more understandable.

if your current card isn't PCI-Express (aka: PCI-E) odds are you will either have to buy a new motherboard and processor, or have to settle with an older video card

Hmmmm.........maybe I confused the issue a little. Let me try to explain what I meant in my earlier post. Peak wattage when speaking of power supplies is the maximum watts the power supply is guaranteed to put out in UNsustained conditions. This is the nuimber manufacturers typically put out for their specification as it is a higher number, therefore more impressive. That is decieving to most users because there is almost never a second spec stating the sustained wattage (the wattage that the power supply can maintain for extended periods of time). Some power supply labels do give both specs........but not many. If, when you read your label and only one wattage number is given you must assume it's the peak (just to be on the safe side......you will not get into trouble with too much wattage, but you can with too little). As I said, you want the sustained wattage. A pretty good rule of thumb if you only have the peak is to take 80% of the peak to find your sustained output. So, a power supply that has a wattage spec of 250 is very likely only capable of sustaining 200 watts. Use that "rule" and it's very unlikely you will ever overload your power supply.

Now you know that the manufacturers, though not actually lying to you, they tend to give you specs that are not exactly true. "Best case"..........not real world capabilities. Video card manufacturers tend to go the other way with their specs.........they give you worse case requirements for power comsumption. They don't want to be responsible for someone's power supply failing by the use of their cards. They want to give you a spec that is sustainable for extended periods of time. That specification is often inflated by 20%........a little insurance in their favor. So a video card stating a 400 watt power supply requirment most likely with be very content with 320 watts. However, if you fry your 320 watt power supply by ignoring the 400 watt requirement, you are on your own.........the card manufacturer will be in the clear legally. And your power supply manufacturer is also home free.........you exceeded it's spec too. It's best to stay at or above those specifications for all components involved. The chances of failures are greatly reduced........though anything is possible in real life.

The reason I said I would go for a power supply closer to 600 watts over one that is spec'd at the minimum (say 400 watts) is two fold. First, you are safely above the peak vs sustained threshold. And second you have more head room for other components that may later be required (such as additional fans, faster or additional hard drives, etc.). If you opt for a power supply that is spec'd at 600 watts and that spec is "peak", you still are above the minimum requirement for the card (that being 480 sustained for that 600 watt peak spec.........worse case, instead of best case).

These "rules" are what I use...........they are overkill in some ways, but in the case of power supplies it's cheap insurance. The price difference is very little........with shopping it can be as little as $10 to $20. Check Newegg.com, Tigerdirect.com, even Compusa.

On the "numbers, numbers, numbers" part of your post. Card manufacturers are constantly coming out with "new and improved" models. That new and improved is the manufacturers pitch to potential customers........like any other product for comsumers. Keep that in mind when something new comes out. The numbering of different models is often intentionally cryptic for the average comsumer. nVidia has always been guilty of that. More so than ATI. But once you understand their method it's pretty easy to figure it out.......however they just threw a new wrench in the works. I'm sure the reason is that they hit the limit on 4 digit numbers for the next generations of cards.......either go to 5 digits or start over with a new numbering system. Either way would appear to be a change for comsumers to adjust to. Basically it's the same..........the second number is more important than the first as far as performance is concerned. The first number more or less defines features (which are important too but for sheer performance the second number is the one most would find as the important factor).

Again, I'm going to toss out my thoughts on the "new and improved" cards. I stay 1 to 3 major versions behind the current releases. There are a number of reasons I do that but the two most important reasons are bugs and cost. Often the new cards have glitches that take require fixes such as new drivers.........that can sometimes take months or even years to resolve. Even the card manufacturers having to discontinue the release since some issues cannot be fixed without a major overhaul. And the new cards are always more expensive than the older cards........sometimes 2 or 3 times the price. Waiting a few months or a year (or more) can save you a lot of money.....and headaches. I ran an nVidia 8600 GT for almost 3 years and the card was a year old when I got it (no, it was not a used card.......just not the "new improved" model at the time). I just replaced that card with an nVidia 9800GTX+ a couple months ago.............the 9800GTX has been out for over a year. Had I purchased that 9800GTX+ card a year ago I would have paid well over $200. I got mine for about $100 by waiting. I also knew the card would work for my needs. I knew the card ran quite a bit cooler than the 8600 did. I knew I was actually upgrading and not buying card that had issues that make my "upgrade", in reality, a step backward.

Those are my thoughts. Take your time. Shop, research, ask around.........get out your computer users manual and read what you can and cannot do. Then take a deep breath and just do it.

Good luck............it will be fun.

I have five computers in the house at the moment, all capable of working in SL: They all use XP Pro 32 bit.

1. A Pentium 4/2.8GHz/533/512 with 1GB DDR 3200 and an NVidia FX 5500 256MB AGP card; My granddaughter runs it in SL, and for light use it is completely acceptable.

2. An AMD 64 x2 3800 with 2GB DDR 3200 with an ATI 800XL GTO 512MB PCIe card

3. An AMD 64 x2 4850e with 2GB DDR2 800 with an NVidia 8500 GT 512MB PCIe card

4. An AMD Opteron 1352 Opteron Quad Core with 4GB DDR2 800 and an NVidia 9400 GT 512MB PCIe card. The MB is a Foxconn AG7M-S with an embedded ATI 3000 GPU, which also works in SL. This is my main PC, capable of running 11 simultaneous instances of SL, or a mix of browsers, Virtual Machines, movies, audio, DVD burning simultaneously without stressing the CPU. (Btw, for those interested, you can run 64 bit clients in VMware workstation on a 32 bit host, which I do)

5. An AMD Turion XL-58 64 x2 1,8MHz Laptop with 2GB DDR2 667 and an embedded Nvidia 6150 GPU with 256MB shared memory. (SL is very laggy, but does work)

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So, I would consider your setup somewhere in between my systems (2) and (3).

Get an NVidia 9400/9500/9600 and I do believe your issues would be resolved. You could upgrade the RAM to 4GB, of which your system would most likely see 3.5GB, but I would not consider that my first line of attack. All my AMD x2 systems work fine with 2GB of RAM; there is no doubt that your major issue is the 6100 embedded GPU.

Should your MB be AM2+ capable, you could also upgrade to an AMD Opteron 1354 Quad, presently available from newegg for $75.00. It is not a Phenom II chip, but is excellent value for the money. So this, with a new Video card, and possibly the extra RAM, would most probably require you to upgrade your Power Supply to something in the 450 Watt range, which is what I use in my Opteron system.

Should you just upgrade the Video, try it with the existing Power Supply first, and if it shows symptoms of struggling (such as spontaneous reboots, BSODs, or other annoyances, go ahead and replace the PSU with at least a 400-450 Watt unit. Using a 9400 GT 512, I think you could get away without it, and still have a vastly improved SL experience.

I pulled this Spec from Newegg, for your PC . .

General Spec
Brand Acer
Series Aspire
Model AST180-UD381A
Recommended Usage Home / Home Office
Processor AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+(2.0GHz)
Processor Main Features 64 bit Dual Core Processor
Cache Per Processor 2 x 512KB L2 Cache
Memory 1GB (512/512) DDR2 SDRAM
Hard Drive 250GB SATA
Optical Drive 1 DVD-Dual drive (DVD+/-RW)
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 6100
Ethernet Gigabit LAN
Power Supply 250-watt power supply
Operating System Windows Vista Home Premium
Motherboard
Chipset NVIDIA GeForce 6100 and NVIDIA nForce 430
CPU
CPU Type Athlon 64 X2
Installed Qty 1
CPU Speed 3800+
L2 Cache Per CPU 2 x 512KB
Graphics
GPU/VPU Type NVIDIA GeForce 6100
Graphics Interface Integrated video
Memory
Memory Capacity 1GB DDR2
Memory Spec 512MB x 2
Hard Drive
HDD Capacity 250GB
HDD Interface SATA
Optical Drive
Optical Drive Type DVD±RW
Optical Drive Spec DVD-Dual drive (DVD+/-RW)
Audio
Audio Chipset Integrated
Communications
Modem 56K. V92
LAN Chipset Integrated
LAN Speed 10/100/1000Mbps
Front Panel Ports
Front USB 2
Front Audio Ports 2
Card Reader 9-in-1 card reader for optional MultiMediaCard, Secure Digital card, SmartMedia card, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, CompactFlash I/II card, Microdrive or xD-Picture Card
Back Panel Ports
COM 1
LPT 1
PS/2 2
Video Ports 1 VGA
Rear USB 4
RJ45 1 port
Rear Audio Ports 6 ports
Expansion
PCI Slots (Available/Total) PCI Express x16: one
PCI Express x1: one
PCI: two
Speaker
Speaker Configuration Two external speakers
Physical Spec
Dimensions 17.9" x 14.6" x 7.2"
Manufacturer Warranty
Parts 1 year limited
Labor 1 year limited

From this spec your PSU does turn out to be 250 Watt, so its marginal, also, your MB is PCIe capable, so the Video card should not be a problem.