She can have an internal added - she probably wold want to max out her ram which shows as 64 mb default with 256mb max. Probably pretty cheap to do while apart at the shop.

But its gonna burn slow ... 400 Mhz Cel with 256 mb mem isnt going to zip right thru the burn. I remeber 60 minute burns ... She'll probably want to not surf or use the computer at all while it burns... or it may screw up the burn.

Would an external burner be of any benefit, or would she be trading the devil for the deep blue sea?

marf

One has to think about cost effectiveness. Upgrades will probably cost in the neighbourhood of a couple hundred bucks and still not have the speed nor power for anything. She could get a low entry tower for $350-400

With Vista half-baked and the phase out of XP looming on the horizon, would a 400.00 tower be worth it?

The hard drive and Ram, and probably the burner...the purchase price will come in around a hundred...but you guys are right about the labor and are they going to insist on using their stuff?

I dunno. I don't know which way to go.

marf

The model number would indicate that her comp is older than my Win 98 HP. I would not put money into adding a burner or even a HDD to one that old. If she can fine a tower with XP in the price range Gene suggested, that's the way I'd go. She would be ecstatic with a faster processor and more memory and a larger HDD. BTW, MS is supporting XP beyond the 2009 date first announced, at least with security updates.

That's two years...this is a tough decision. She doesn't want to give up her computer.
Personally, I can't recommend any of the 400.00 t0 450.00 towers that I looked at. The users of them couldn't recommend them either. I think CNET gave one budget model a rating of 7.6, while the many users collectively averaged their rating at 3.0.

I did find a Vista premium HP tower for 564.00 and she's a HP fan. I dunno. Everybody's watching budgets and I don't like saddling her with an inferior product nor one that will need to be replaced within two years. Computers are investments. I sent her the HP tower link...haven't heard back. Telling her to throw away 400.00 isn't any easier than telling her to throw away 200.00. She's like me, a computer junky...which I think is cool but not easy in these times.

marf

Marf;
You have several threads on here relating to your aunts computer, and it makes it very difficult to help with having to bounce all around. Should have kept all the threads/questions together in one