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#11
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Upgrade or by again?
In message , Surfer!
writes In message remailer.net, Alison J. writes Is it worth upgrading a 5 y.o. PC? Someone said buy a new one but it's a waste of an old PC. Good parts but out of date. I have to by parts in Oz but how do I fit them. How to decide? AJ By the time you've replaced the motherboard, the CPU, the memory, the HDD, possibly the graphics card and probably the power supply there's not a lot left of the old PC... I would recommend hanging on to the old machine as long as possible, then buying a complete new system. As others have said, a lot of the technology in a five year old machine has been superseded. I would also consider hanging on to the old machine and networking the two. The old machine can be a file-server for backups and a print-server to take some of the load off of the new machine. -- Bernard Peek |
#12
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Upgrade or by again?
Alison J.
wrote: Is it worth upgrading a 5 y.o. PC? Apparently the cost for components has been rising. Not sure about the cost for prefabricated PCs. I guess that partly depends on whether they are hiring fewer Indian/Asian technical support workers, but I guess that would not do much to reduce the price. |
#13
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Upgrade or by again?
Alison J. wrote:
Is it worth upgrading a 5 y.o. PC? Someone said buy a new one but it's a waste of an old PC. Good parts but out of date. I have to by parts in Oz but how do I fit them. How to decide? AJ This is my personal, arbitrary rule of upgrading - "Will this upgrade, double the speed of my machine ?" If I'm gonna waste money on a machine, I want double. If you give some details about your computer, like the make and model number of the computer, maybe what speed of processor it is, then someone may be able to comment on what options are available to you. Paul |
#14
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Upgrade or by again?
On Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:44:38 -0500, Alison J. wrote:
I've looked after it so long and it's taken effort and want others to benefit from my good old pc. is that being too sentimental? Not at all. Just make sure all of your personal data has been overwritten, multiple times. If you are not planning on giving away a copy of whatever operating system you currently have installed on the pc, I'd suggest booting from a linux live cd/dvd, opening a terminal, and then running a command such as "dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda bs=4096", to wipe everything from the hard drive. If you want to leave the os on the hd, and don't have an install cd/dvd to install it with, delete all "personal" files, from the hd, and then run one of the programs such as pgp, that can wipe (aka overwrite multiple times) all of the free space on the drive. If that's out of your skill set level, I'd suggest removing the hard drive, and then using a hammer/bonfire to destroy it. Regards, Dave Hodgins -- Change nomail.afraid.org to ody.ca to reply by email. (nomail.afraid.org has been set up specifically for use in usenet. Feel free to use it yourself.) |
#15
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Upgrade or by again?
On Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:44:38 +0100, Alison J.
wrote: I want a steady workhorse system that's not underpowered. No games or films. Then I don't understand why your current PC will not do this. I am using 6 six year old PCs for web browsing/office stuff with no problems. A memory upgrade may be all it needs. -- (\__/) M. (='.'=) Due to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and (")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking most articles posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by everyone you will need use a different method of posting. [Reply-to address valid until it is spammed.] |
#16
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Upgrade or by again?
Alison J. wrote:
On 19:20 10112009 Bernard Peek wrote: In message , Surfer! writes In message emailer.net, Alison J. writes: Is it worth upgrading a 5 y.o. PC? Someone said buy a new one but it's a waste of an old PC. Good parts but out of date. I have to by parts in Oz but how do I fit them? How to decide? By the time you've replaced the motherboard, the CPU, the memory, the HDD, possibly the graphics card and probably the power supply there's not a lot left of the old PC... you are kind. health and wellness to you. I see what you mean about I have to replace everything. can I give the old system (I call her Sandra) to a good cause where it will still be used? I mean I've used it so much and and not to throw it away. do you know what I mean? I've looked after it so long and it's taken effort and want others to benefit from my good old pc. is that being too sentimental? I would recommend hanging on to the old machine as long as possible, then buying a complete new system. As others have said, a lot of the technology in a five year old machine has been superseded. I have to get a new machine. I won't buy it to be future proof next time. that was a con when I bought this machine! I would also consider hanging on to the old machine and networking the two. The old machine can be a file-server for backups and a print-server to take some of the load off of the new machine. thank you for everyone's advice. I want a steady workhorse system that's not underpowered. No games or films. what is a good middle-power processor to go for in a desktop? Nothing flashy or just released or with a dead-end upgrade path!!! celebrate good health in mind and body. Alison -- Healthy mind and body! http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/faq2.html http://www.usenature.com/crystal_healing.html A wonderful idea. If you can't find a local non profit to give it to I would suggest you try this Freecycle .http://www.freecycle.org/ This is a group with chapters all over the USA. Find a local one join it and then post the machine. People with no computers and needs will send responses. You can then pick one and they will come and get it. very satisfying. I've been doing this for the last 6 years. Freecycle is for anything that is usable to help keep your unwanted/needed items out of the landfill. No cost to you and a needy family is helped. There are groups all over the US Canada and the UK. |
#17
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Upgrade or by again?
Alison J. wrote:
On 19:20 10112009 Bernard Peek wrote: In message , Surfer! writes In message emailer.net, Alison J. writes: Is it worth upgrading a 5 y.o. PC? Someone said buy a new one but it's a waste of an old PC. Good parts but out of date. I have to by parts in Oz but how do I fit them? How to decide? By the time you've replaced the motherboard, the CPU, the memory, the HDD, possibly the graphics card and probably the power supply there's not a lot left of the old PC... you are kind. health and wellness to you. I see what you mean about I have to replace everything. can I give the old system (I call her Sandra) to a good cause where it will still be used? I mean I've used it so much and and not to throw it away. do you know what I mean? I've looked after it so long and it's taken effort and want others to benefit from my good old pc. is that being too sentimental? I would recommend hanging on to the old machine as long as possible, then buying a complete new system. As others have said, a lot of the technology in a five year old machine has been superseded. I have to get a new machine. I won't buy it to be future proof next time. that was a con when I bought this machine! I would also consider hanging on to the old machine and networking the two. The old machine can be a file-server for backups and a print-server to take some of the load off of the new machine. thank you for everyone's advice. I want a steady workhorse system that's not underpowered. No games or films. what is a good middle-power processor to go for in a desktop? Nothing flashy or just released or with a dead-end upgrade path!!! celebrate good health in mind and body. Alison For people asking what to do with a machine that has been replaced, I usually tell them to hold on to it for a week or two to verify you actually have transferred all the files you really wanted to keep. Then I advise them to download the freeware program Darik's Boot and Nuke and burn it to a CD. http://www.dban.org/download After removing any hard drive from the old system you plan to keep, boot the new CD and tell it to do it's thing. It will erase any hard drives left in or attached to the computer completely. It's what we use on all our donated computers prior to rebuilding and donating them to other people. If you ordered a new copy of a Windows Operating System, and have the old CD's to donate, I would reload your old (erased) computer with the operating system it had prior to being cleaned out. Since many of the people we donate computers to only have dial access we usually go through the Microsoft update gauntlet, starting with a SP3 CD if it's XP, until the old computer is as upgraded as it can get. For that matter we usually add AVG as a starting point for Anti-Virus protection. |
#18
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Upgrade or by again?
Alison J. wrote:
Is it worth upgrading a 5 y.o. PC? What do you use your computer for? What do you have now? What do you plan on getting? If you use your computer only for Internet and business, a 1.5 GHz CPU with 512MB - 1024MB of RAM will seem as fast as anything else. OTOH for games you may need to upgrade the CPU, motherboard, and graphics card, but I don't know if it's cheaper to buy those components or buy a whole computer with comparable components. If your current computer has only SATA I hard drive ports (150 megabytes per second maximum speed), you may have problems with Hitachi or Samsung drives because they don't have a jumper to select between SATA I and SATA II, unlike Seagates and Western digitals, and some SATA I motherboards don't handle SATA II properly. Intel's do, but apparently Nvidia's and VIA's do not. A PCI SATA controller card can get around this, but PATA-SATA adapters that go between the drive and existing controller aren't very reliable. Another thing to consider are the conditions of the fans (in the power supply, CPU cooler, and graphics card cooler) and electrolytic capacitors (PSU, motherboard, graphics card). Japanese brand capacitors that old tend to still be in good shape, a bad batch of Nichicons being a famous exception that plagued Dells and Macs made from about 2003-2004. But Taiwanese and Chinese caps tend to fail a lot sooner, so you should look for any that are bulging or leaking (see www.badcaps.net). That's not easy to do with PSUs unless you open them up, which you shouldn't do because there's high voltage in them, sometimes even after they're unplugged. OTOH even lots of new products are made with junk capacitors and will probably fail before old stuff containing good caps (like my TV from the 1970s that's had only two original caps go bad) Healthy mind and body! http://www.usenature.com/crystal_healing.html http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/faq.html Why don't you just use one of those healing crystals on your comptuer? |
#19
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Upgrade or by again?
"Alison J." wrote in message . theremailer.net... I see what you mean about I have to replace everything. can I give the old system (I call her Sandra) to a good cause where it will still be used? I mean I've used it so much and and not to throw it away. do you know what I mean? I've looked after it so long and it's taken effort and want others to benefit from my good old pc. is that being too sentimental? Yes, but you are a "Sheila". I have to get a new machine. I won't buy it to be future proof next time. that was a con when I bought this machine! Given your first two paragraphs, above, the "con" has worked out pretty well, for you. I want a steady workhorse system that's not underpowered. No games or films. what is a good middle-power processor to go for in a desktop? Nothing flashy or just released or with a dead-end upgrade path!!! You might want to try and track down the "con artist" that sold you on the machine you appear reluctant to part with, and seek his advice on "future proofing" this time. Luck; Ken |
#20
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Upgrade or by again?
I bought Acer notebook to use it on a trip. I will use it for down load
photos and internet. The only advantage of notebook is that is small. Boba Vankufer "Nick Le Lievre" wrote in message ... "Chris Whelan" wrote in message ... A five-year old machine might have an Athlon XP 3000, or a P4 2.4GHz, perhaps with only 256MB of RAM. If the intended use is the usual web browsing/email/light office, such a machine, running XP, would be perfectly usable with 1GB of RAM. Yeah those netbooks with 1.6ghz Atom CPUs are actually slower then a P4 2.4ghz but that has not stopped them being useable as Internet-books this past year with only 1GB or RAM (and XP of course) and a new range of notebooks based on ULV cpus has been released and they are actually slower then the 3 year old Core 2 Duo 1.66ghz T5500 not by much only 0.4 on the WEI but still slower. What does this tell you? people are still prepared to pay top dollar for machines with 3-4 year old cpu performance of course this is mainly in netbooks or notebooks but that performance of 3-4 years old is not any less decent then it was 3-4 years ago. |
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