What upgrades?

[NovaShine]

Well, my sister and mom is going back to australia, but im not.

My sis has a com and neither my mom nor my sis has any idea how to fix a com, so before they go, i wanna make it idiot proof, get some good cooling in, wire management etc.

My sis is going to be using it for word processing, web browsing, a bit of image editing and maybe a bit of video editing in the future.

These are the specs of her system right now:

Intel Pentium 4 2.0A processor (100fsb x20)
Asus P4B533 Mobo
3D Wizard Nvidia FX5200
Western Digital 80GB 'Caviar' (Master)
IBM 40GB 'Desktar' (Slave)
Both HDs are IDE
256MB PC2100 Samsung Ram
Sound Blaster Live! sound card
Some generic case with 4 80mm case fan mounts in the front, 1 80mm case fan mount in the back
1 TT orange POS fan in the back, 3 orange TT POS fans in the front (this is where my fans from the Xaser III went...)
A very weak generic PSU im going to be swapping out.

Nothing is overclocked and all cooling is stock, cept i have my old clear 80mm fan from the Globalwin CAK4 88T heatsink superglued to the passive heatsink of the FX5200.

So, what should i do to it? My dad has given me a HK$2000 (US$256.41) budget to fix it up.

Thanks for any responses.

 

[dorimon81]

How weak is the PSU. you would want at least 300 Watts because I have a 250 on my other computer and the drives and what not drain so much power that sometimes, the computer doesn't start up.

Biggest regret ever.

 

[NovaShine]

Everything is below their specified voltage rails, even idle. I would hate to load it. Good thing she never puts the CPU under load cept during startup. The most stressful activity that she uses it for is a bit of Photoshop and even at that, she just does some very basic operations with it, she mostly draws most of her own stuff so... If she starts getting into folding or games, im pretty sure it would be crash city and she would be blaming micro$oft like every other computer n00b who crashes 5 times a day...

 

[dorimon81]

I would still get a 300 Watt PSU. you might regret it one day as I do. About 2 years ago, i had a different 250 Watt PSU and I went to install another RAM Module. I guess the thing couldn't handle it because when I went to go plug it in, all I saw was smoke coming from the back. The thing fried my PSU and almost my CPU and Motherboard.

It's worth it to spend an extra 10 bucks and get a higher quality PSU.

 

[NovaShine]

Im actually looking towards an Antec or Enermax 350W+ PSU.

 

[dorimon81]

That would be a good PSU. I'm glad your getting a better PSU.