Old Allenstein need upgrade. Please help guide me

[TheBaron]

I built an old Allenstein pc (with help; I'm pretty clueless). I'd like to upgrade it and I was hoping for some guidance on what I should/could do.

I have:
Asus AMD Athlon 64 3400+

K8V SE asamdat64k8v2
k8+800 atx audio
SATA-RAID Marvell gigabit
+firewire

2x- 512mb pc-3200 400mhz ddr mm-40512ds

AMD ATX 64 3400-socket 754
VGA ATIoem/radeon 9800se 128 m 8x

2- Western frshwedicawd
Digital Caviar WD800BB 80GB Ultra ATA/100
5.25inch External External Case
7200RPM (2MB)

Fan
Zalman cooler cnps 7000A-ALA

431W Enermax
EG465P-VE(FC) ATX-12V
Power Supply

Protools 7.3, EZdrummer, mostly included plugins plus FXpansion wrapper, Smack LE, Amplitube, Xpand, Structure Free, other randoms

I'd like to spend under $400. I could go a little more if it was a big improvement.
I'm currently up and running and things work well. I'd mainly like to get more power for plugins and automation/mixdown. I seem to have bad luck and I'm worried that, once I start messing with it, I'll be down and have problems with my software...so I guess an additional question would be, what could be done easily and what would require reinstalling everything or reconfiguring all the software? (Once again, i'm clueless)

Thanks for your help. I'm sure you don't hear it much but I envy all you computer savvy guys.

[albee1952]

I've been really pleased with the performance of my latest system. The upgrade cost me around $470(mobo, cpu, video card and RAM) and I reused everything else.

[TheBaron]

Thanks. A few more question/clarifications:

Does it make much of a difference whether or not I upgrade my video card?

If I upgrade my motherboard, cpu and ram, will the other parts I have still fit? I've been annoyed in the past on computer upgrades when I was forced to replace the box, power supply or other elements so things will fit.

Can I ADD memory to my 2 sticks of ram...will they even fit in the new motherboard?

This might be really stupid but, will I have to reinstall all my programs? Since I'll, hopefully, be using the same hard drives, will any of that change or have problems?

[albee1952]

You need to compare the specs on the 2 motherboards. The one I am using takes DDR2 RAM and PCIe video card. If that's what you have, you're set. If not, maybe just use all the old parts to make a nice "everyday" computer so you never need to connect your audio computer to the internet. I bought Kingston value RAM in a 2x1024 set(dual channel) and a $49 MSI nVidia fanless video card. The only glitch I am having is that whenever I boot up, a message pops up on the bottom right telling me that one of my SLI cards is missing. I "X" out the window and all works fine running a 22" widescreen AND a 19" LCD (not widescreen). I need to pop the lid and see if I forgot to install the SLI circuit board the correct way. This mobo has a single IDE buss (I run a pair of IDE hard drives on it) and 6 SATA ports(I run 3 SATA drives and a SATA DVD/RW drive).