If it was worth my time and money to do this much, it should be worth $5 to finish the job. Surely you know someone with a printer. Or a public library.

The OS will still be slow because you have a slow CPU.

2.9 GHz is slow? 

2.9 "single core" is slow, yes.

I just took a 2.7  single core out of my wife's rig, replaced it with a dual core 2.1 I had gleaned from another PC I used to have. It is much faster and she can now multitask.

Before, she couldn't do 2 things at once without bogging down her PC.

Your old P4 cpu will be your bottleneck once you get the HDD replaced. RAM actually isn't going to help you that much.

I will send you a molex to sata power adapter first thing in the AM. I dunno how long it'll take to get Starker's stuff.

Nimbin made a good offer, I hope you responded to him.

Good luck man! Your WC friends are good peeps! Help comes outta the woodwork when a fellow member of the community needs help!

Thanks everyone!!!

Well I don't think I have any options with this setup to upgrade the CPU. It seems to run Linux and Windows XP fairly well. Only trouble I have is opening too many tabs in Chrome or trying to play MP3s while a browser is open. Thought the extra memory would solve that issue.  

Thank everyone for their help, it is very, very much appreciated, and I will pay it forward when I get a chance.

I am sending kona a 160gb SATA HDD that's not had a lot of use and 2gb of 4200 or 5300 RAM, depending on what my dealer has in stock when I call on Monday.  Anyhow, these items should help get him out of trouble for now.  However, if somebody has a PCI graphics card they can donate [he currently has onboard] it would be greatly appreciated.  I have tried to source one but thus far have been unable to, so yeah, please help out if you have such a thing and it's just collecting dust somewhere.

Okay, it mightn't be the best machine, and probably a lot of us wouldn't bother trying to upgrade it, but it's all kona has and can afford, so how about we help make it the best it can be until he is in a position to get something better?

As for the CPU being a bottleneck after the RAM and HDD are installed, I don't know that it'll matter a hell of a lot to kona when he's only running Linux/XP and isn't doing any high end graphics or resource intensive stuff. The thing is, the improved machine will get him by until such time as he can afford to upgrade.

Oh yeah, I'm also sending the connectors to go with that SATA drive... it's all packed up and ready to go, so he should have everything he needs to set it up. I'm just waiting on the RAM, which hopefully I'll get Tuesday or Wednesday.... once that arrives I'll bung [put] it in the post.

@kona:There are other factors involved, so I wouldn't say "solve" but yes, more memory will help speed things up in those departments. Give the machine a thorough cleaning while it's apart, put in the parts when they arrive and you should be quite happy with the results. It should serve you well past the point  of when you are able to replace it. Good Luck

@Mark. Good on ya to help out like this. That's a long way to ship parts.

I think kona and RnD have the RAM issue sorted though. 

It's a long way to Tipperary as well, hehe, but I don't mind helping out when and where I can.  I'll put that 7600GS in the mail for you the same day as I do kona's package, okay... bit of a way to the PO and it'll save me 2 trips.  It'll probably be sent Wednesday, me thinks.

Oh, okay, that's news to me.  I've been sorting out a couple of gigs as I understood they were still needed due to a compatibility issue.

The card I'm using now is a loaner and it wants to go home. (its owner has a good use for it and I promised to return it)

The 7600GS will be a great help until I can afford to restore my rig to it's former greatness. I really miss my EVGA 8800GT, it was a great unit. 

Thanks for the offer, I really appreciate it.

No worries, mate, I'm pleased that I'm able to help... and it's not too bad a card, either.

Yes, I'm sending all he needs to connect the drive... the molex to sata and the data cable.

Yeah, we can all goof up at times, me in particular, but this is no biggie now it's being sorted.  However, I will still send kona the RAM as promised, and if you can let me know what speed/value you are replacing the incompatible stuff with I will try to match it with the same.  I can get 3200, 4200, 5300 and 6400 easily enough, though given his specs I think we'd be safer to go with the lower 3.  Anyhow, do what you have to and give me the heads up when you've sorted it. okay.

Just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone. Thanks for the help. It will be nice to have a machine that I can use that will not freeze up after asking it to do a simple task, and to have more storage for my files so I don't have to keep them on a USB drive and DVD discs.

I'm very grateful, thank you.

Not a problem, kona, I'm glad that I'm able to help you out.

Well I got the memory from RedneckDude today. I see a bit of improvement in the system. I think the bottleneck at this point is the failing hard drive. Thanks again guys. 

YAY!!!!   Mark is sending more help, Terry.