Upgrading an old PC for use as a server

[nerr]

Hey everybody, I recently got an old PC for free and I'm looking for a few little upgrades to make it a little more usable and useful.

Specs include the following:
AMD Athlon (Socket A) @ 1.2GHz
Motherboard model 8363-686A (Unknown manufacturer) - VIA KT133A chipset
128MB PC 133 SDRAM [3 RAM slots] (this is a big one; I'm looking at upgrading to 1.5GB)
30GB IDE HDD
Nvidia TNT2 AGP graphics card (not important, as this will mostly be a headless box)
100mbit PCI ethernet card
Windows XP Professional SP3

This PC is currently running SSH, SFTP, VNC, and HTTP daemons, and I'd like to add a Source Dedicated Server to the box as well. It is performing adequately for the first four tasks, but I think I'm going to need a lot more RAM and a bigger hard drive if I want to use it as a complete backup file server and a Source Dedicated Server for Team Fortress 2.

Some upgrades I'm currently looking at include:
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=15737167

I figure this will be plenty of RAM and storage for the box to do just about whatever I'd like with it. I do have another spot for an IDE hard drive inside the machine, but I almost feel like I'd be better off going the SATA route since SATA drives seem to be cheaper and sport more capacity anyway. Recommendations for a nice (cheap) SATA card would be good, and it doesn't necessarily have to even be fast. It just has to work! Edit: I should also mention that I'm fairly sure there's a PCI-E x1 slot next to the AGP slot on this motherboard. I'm about 95% sure it is indeed PCI-E x1.

Finally, is there any way to figure out if 512MB SDRAM DIMMs will work in this old machine? I'm honestly not sure, but I'd just like to get as much RAM in it as possible to allow srcds and my other services to run a little more easily.

Thanks for the help, and any comments! I appreciate it!

 

[Dangman]

Socket A mobos NEVER had a PCI-E slot.

To find out how much and what RAM that mobo can support, you need to check the manufacturer's website for it. So try to find out who made your mobo.

Oh and hit up the For Sale and For Trade subforum we have for old 512MB PC133 RAM. You'll get FAR better deals than $81 for 1.5Gb of PC133 RAM from Newegg

 

[engiNURD]

For best compatibility, get Low Density sticks.

I'm 99.999999% sure that there is no PCI-E x1 slot on that motherboard, and that its most likely a CNR slot or something else, since PCI-E wasn't out during the socket A days. Though, there is a tiny chance the board is much newer than I think it is.

I'd keep upgrades cheap, like used IDE HDDs, etc, but thats just me.

For SDS, you'll need a fat pipe unless you're playing LAN games, in which case you might want a gigabit NIC.

/me slow

 

[Dangman]

For SDS, you'll need a fat pipe unless you're playing LAN games, in which case you might want a gigabit NIC.

Speaking of Gigabit NICs, I highly recommend this Gigabit NIC:
$22 - Intel PWLA8391GT 10/100/1000Mbps PRO/1000 GT PCI NIC OEM w/ 1 x RJ45