[jack-o-bytes]

Hi I have an oldish pc that has

CPU: AMD Athlon XP 3200+
Motherboard: Asus A7N8X-X
Graphics Card: Sparkle PCX5700LE 256MB Nvidia
RAM: 1.25GB 400MHz
Hard Drive: Maxtor ATA133 120GB
Floppy Drive: Sony
Drives: DVD-RW and DVD-R
PSU: 400w

Now I am just wondering what I should do to upgrade this computer without changing the MB or the Hard drive because they are ok. I would Like to change the RAM, Graphics Card and CPU if there is a better one.
Also the motherboard says that it can take 3 1gb Sticks but it doesnt recognise 1gb memory sticks any Ideas would be great.
Any help would be great.

[parasolution]

Since you have older Socket A, I wouldn't spend the money upgrading it. I would consider it only if you have Socket 939, which on some motherboards can be upgraded to dual core. But since it's Socket A, the most you could do now is upgrade the memory and video card, which may cost you around $125-150. For around $200 you can get new motherboard, AMD dual core processor, memory and a cheap PCIe video card. You can resuse some of your older components like the case, power supply, etc.

That would be a better use of your money. I just went through this with a couple of computers and I'm glad I did.

[ibizagreg]

Your problem is that the highest rated socket A processor for your mobo is a 3200+ athlon XP barton chip, which obviously you already have, you could upgarde the graphics card to a 1gb agp 8x card, also you RAM is only supported up to ddr1 400mhz, so 3 x 1Gb ddr 400 sticks would be your best bet, (if you can get them to work)
Have you tried the RAM sticks you have in another computer?

[jack-o-bytes]

Yes I took the computer to a pc shop near where I live and they tested it with 4 different ram sticks and none would work do you think I should flash the bios and see if that works?

[ibizagreg]

Could possibly help, AWD flash can be downloaded from here: ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/so...e/awdflash.zip

And the latest bios 1009 for your mobo from here: ftp://ftp.asus.com/pub/asus/mb/socka...e/AN8D1009.zip

IBIZAGREG

[jack-o-bytes]

Thanks for the help I have updated my bios and will hopefully try some 1gb ram sticks when I go to my work experiance at the computer shop in town.