my present computer is a self build about 7years old with a soltek mother board and a processor with speed of 800mtz. i have two hard drives with two operating systems and i am debating with myself as to whether or not i should update or build another computer. i would appreciate the views of an EXPERT. THX in anticipation.walter.First, I must say your computer - at LEAST your CPU - is probably not more than about 6 years old since 800MHz processors were not introduced to the market until about 6 years ago.

Give us more info about your other components. Your original post does not say much. We know what brand of motherboard you have, that you have two hard drives, and an 800MHz CPU. So what? We need more details on the current specs (RAM, video, hard drive size and speed, what OS's, etc.).

Also, what to you normally use your computer for? Do you want to use it in new ways that you find your system inadequate for? The main things to consider are what are you not able to do that a new machine would allow you to accomplish and how much are you willing to spend.

You could GET a barebones kit and just add your devices, but you will no doubt have to buy new RAM. You could sell yours on eBay or elsewhere and apply that money to your purchase. You could just keep yours for a spare, as you won't get that much for it, and it at least works.

Updating it does not seem to pose a solution as you will still have an 800 Mhz processor.

As previously mentioned, just ADDRESS these issues and let us know what all is in the machine now. I have a Windows 98 and Windows 2000 box that do just fine with 256 RAM, but I am not a gamer, and I don't do video editing. For normal activities - web surfing, word processing, etc. they are more than adequate. Heck I even have a PII-400 that smokes on 128 RAM!

Let us know. We are keen to help.

re my previous, firstly thx for your help and advice. i have one 40 gig and one 20 gig hard drive, i don't know their respective speeds but they seem fast enough. i have 256 mb of ram and 128mb video card, i have four usb 1 connections, two of which i installed. i have a cd rom and and cd writer. i don't use the computer a lot, i play bridge occasionally on the machine and its copes quite well. i surf the web a bit and use it for word processing. its just seem slow on start up. i am 82 years of age and two or three years ago i attended some courses at the local tech and supposedly qualified as a level two technician and i have been threatening to build another ever since, but never got round to it. i thought my processor might be a bit slow and when i go to buy parts i get talked out of it, people tell me that to install an intel processor needs special equipments since the pins are now on the m/board. i get talked out of the amd one because the heat sink is difficult to install, hence my request for advice. thx again. walter.I think you have enough computing power for the needs you describe. If you try to upgrade one part, others will have to be upgraded as well. Easier to start over, and cheaper too. If you want a project you could build a system, but that's just up to you.