Upgrading a friends old HP Pavilion - trying to stay under $100

R

RAD

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
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Hey folks,
I am working to help a friend on a very, very tight budget upgrade his old 2005 HP Pavilion.

I believe this is the model he has: HP Media Center m7265c

Product Specs here.

What I have recommended to him so far is to buy one of these kits as a ram upgrade (which in theory should take him to 3 gb total -> 2x 512 mb chips already in there + 2x 1 gb chips from this kit)
Ram Link

I am trying to figure out what his best choice would be for an affordable gpu that will still give him a performance boost. I think this mobo should support a PCI or a PCI Express x16 gpu. This is where I would love to get your help. Any thoughts?

Editing to add the answers to the standard questions:
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming for him if possible.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
As cheap as humanly possible. Under $100 for ram + gpu after tax would be ideal.
3) Where do you live?
Nor California
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
I believe we are sticking to RAM and GPU for now
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Model of HP linked above.
6) Will you be overclocking?
No
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
Don't know but guessing the 19" that came with the model listed above.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
ASAP
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc.
Not buying a mobo for now.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
I believe he is currently running xp but I do have a legit copy of Win7 I could give him if it compatible / if it would help.
 
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Definitely go with the above RAM recommendation.

As for GPU, the problem is that those specs don't show what PSU that PC has. Not to mention that this is a six-year old HP that we're talking about. So the PSU may not be all that great to begin with.

So we need to know who makes that PSU, the model number, and how +12V amperage it has on the +12V rail (just take a picture of the side of the PSU with all those numbers on it)
 
I've asked him to take a picture of the psu and send it to me, will post it when I get it, if he can figure out how to get the computer open. He lives a town away so I am trying to minimize the physical trips I need to head out to help with this. Apparently at some point in the past his computer already got upgraded to 2gb of ram, so not sure if it would be worth it for him to go to 4 gb of ram on such an old platform. Thoughts on that?
 
RAD said:
I've asked him to take a picture of the psu and send it to me, will post it when I get it, if he can figure out how to get the computer open. He lives a town away so I am trying to minimize the physical trips I need to head out to help with this. Apparently at some point in the past his computer already got upgraded to 2gb of ram, so not sure if it would be worth it for him to go to 4 gb of ram on such an old platform. Thoughts on that?
Click to expand...

2GB of RAM should be enough for gaming if there's not many random background apps running. And it would free up cash needed for a new PSU and GPU. With that said, considering the performance of the CPU itself, a lot of the newer GPUs will be limited by that CPU.
 
Well, my friend is having trouble getting at the information on the PSU. Apparently it is mounted in such a way that he would have to remove the psu to see the label and he doesn't feel confident doing so. Making the assumption that it is junk and probably near dead after 5 years, what psu/gpu would you recommend to improve his performance as much as possible without pointlessly putting money into something bottlenecked by the cpu (i.e. get performance up to the point where the cpu begins to be the bottleneck rather than the complete lack of a discrete gpu)?
 
Well, personally, for a 6 year old system, I would buy a budget GPU. They have lower power consumption and will still give a performance boost to the system.

$60 (before $10 MIR) - SAPPHIRE 100293L Radeon HD 5570 1GB 128-bit DDR3

As for the other $50, I'd save it and put it toward his next computer.

A big advantage to this approach is that he can probably keep his existing power supply as the MAX a 5570 pulls on a 12V rail is about 4 amps.
 
That is a very promising option. My only concern for him would be having him order it then find out that it is not compatible with his mobo/bios. In some of the reviews for this card I am seeing people say that for other model numbers of HPs (no one has put up a review with his model number) the card is not compatible.
 
Is a PCIe 2.1 x16 card going to be backwards compatible to a motherboard that seems to only support PCIe x16?
Edit: Nevermind, found the answer, it seems that it should.

Found the same GPU over at amazon for the same price, which has the nice perk of being tax free to save my buddy a couple bucks.
 
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RAD said:
Is a PCIe 2.1 x16 card going to be backwards compatible to a motherboard that seems to only support PCIe x16?
Edit: Nevermind, found the answer, it seems that it should.

Found the same GPU over at amazon for the same price, which has the nice perk of being tax free to save my buddy a couple bucks.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a plan. If your buddy notices any graphical glitches that start appearing when trying to game, it could be that the power supply can't keep up anymore. I think a card like this is your best shot at not having to replace the PSU. But it also leaves room in your budget to replace it should you end up having to.
 
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