Helping a Friend with his PC

[isis]

I was helping my friend ad a new video card for his pc and he told me he would like to upgrade his motherboard to something better and also get better cooling in his case and i took his motherboard outta the case and i have never seen this chip before and was wondering if anyone could tell me what this is called? i know its an AMD Athlon Processer of 900mhz and i would like to also know if there is better cooling for it he just has a 80mm fan taped (ha pretty ghetto) to the top of his PSU just blowing air onto it and if at all they still make motherboards for this chip (he said his dad bought the pc around 97) thanks for all the help and here are the pictures.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p...10/861145/MVC-001S.JPG

http://img.villagephotos.com/p...10/861145/MVC-002S.JPG

http://img.villagephotos.com/p...10/861145/MVC-006S.JPG

http://img.villagephotos.com/p...10/861145/MVC-003S.JPG

 

[mechBgon]

They don't make SlotA mobos anymore. That rig probably runs PC100/PC133 memory too, is that right? The DIMMs have two notches on their contact edge?

 

[isis]

yes that is correct it runs pc133.

 

[mechBgon]

If he can afford it, then getting an Athlon64, a compatible motherboard and some PC3200 DDR memory would be a meaningful upgrade in the CPU department. You would need an AGP 4X or 8X card, and not an old AGP 2X card like that old system might have in it, or you could damage the new motherboard with the old card. And he'll need a decent power supply that has an ATX12V auxiliary power cable.

So it begins to snowball on you. What's his upgrade budget like?

 

[isis]

its like 200$ he has a 4X geforce card in the pc right now its 4X but just runs it at 2X i guess he doesn't need anything to play the best games he mostly uses the pc to check his e-mail and to do some light gaming nothing like doom 3 or anything more like doom 95 and he upgraded the PSU last year with a 550w PSU.

 

[mechBgon]

You might think about... lessee here...

Shuttle AN35N Ultra $55ish

1 x 512MB Corsair Value Select PC3200 $80ish

and then whatever Sempron or AthlonXP you can fit into the remainder of the budget. FYI, if the 550W PSU was a cheap one, still don't expect it to really live up to its 550W rating... we get what we pay for generally.