[anotherbob]

I have a Presario S3150UK with Athlon 2200+ (1.8GHz). I have upgraded the RAM to 1GB. I am using XP Home (SP2). It has CD/DVD read and write, and a floppy drive (which I still need with my old Sony Mavica). The HDD is 40GB and I have an external 250GB HDD. A local shop is offering a motherboard upgrade with a dualcore processor for about £100.
I use my PC for browsing, e-mail, sound processing, ebay, and mostly I'm content with it, but it's beginning to feel very slow when multitasking, especially handling sound files. Would the motherboard do the job, or will I have to dig deeper?

[Carbon]

Do you know what exactly the processor is?

I'd recommend a dual-core upgrade for anyone, not just serious gamers or anything. I'd say upgrade, but tentatively.

[thingie2]

Ask the shop for the model numbers/names of the CPU and motherboard they are offering, that would help us tell you if it would be worth your while.

[anotherbob]

I rang the shop, and he would want to see my PC before saying precisely what CPU etc. he would suggest. I suppose that's reasonable, there won't be a "one size fits all" solution.

In a local discount computer store is the following at £211.

Rework Acer Aspire desktop PC with AMD Dual Core processor, 2GB ram, 250GB hard drive, ATI dedicated graphics and Vista Home Premium installed

• Acer Aspire T180 desktop PC, AMD Ahtlon 64 x2 5000+ processor (2.6 x 2)
• 2GB DDR2 ram, 250GB hard disk drive, Multi format DVD Writer
• ATI X1550 dedicated graphics, high def 7.1 sound, 6 x USB,
• Card reader, Windows Vista Home Premium, Works and more installed

An extra £100, assuming mine's worth zero on the used market. Decisions decisions!

[Carbon]

That really makes absolutely no sense. If the motherboard is replaced you're essentially replacing the guts of the system. The only thing that might be a big deal is the current RAM - might need to replace that too, and he might charge you there as well.

That full setup looks pretty good and if you sold yours for £50 or so (which is possible) it wouldn't that much more. You'd also likely get a larger hard drive, nice DVD drive, lots of RAM..I'd just do it.