mcerd1
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| posted on 5/12/13 at 01:50 PM |
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OT - New PC spec ?
My mum's after a new desktop (well overdue) so I've got the job to rebuild her one again...
the last one I built was an i5 750 (LGA 1156 / 2nd gen i5) and it needs to be at least that quick, but the trouble is I've not been keeping up
with the newer stuff 
this one doesn't need a fancy graphics card so onboard/on chip should be fine. ideally something that doesn't cost the earth but is still
nice and quick.
what CPU / MB chipset should I be looking for ?
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Davey D
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| posted on 5/12/13 at 02:32 PM |
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What is wrong with her old computer?
If she just uses it for Internet browsing, and general use, then an i5 750 is more than adequate
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mcerd1
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| posted on 5/12/13 at 02:52 PM |
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sorry that wasn't very clear.... an i5 750 wouldn't be an issue, but the one I was talking about isn't her one (it was just the
last one I built) hers is much, much slower than that
i think its something like an Athlon 64 FX (not exactly sure what, its one of my wee brothers hand-me-downs)
its running XP and takes about 10min to start up and 2min to open internet explorer so I think its time for something better 
normally she'd get another hand-me-down, but me and my brother have both got near identical spec. i7 920's that are lasting so well that
she won't be getting them any time soon....
basically she uses the thing for office stuff, printing, scanning and managing her itunes - so nothing too taxing, but if she spends any money on
replacement it'll need to be quick enough that it'll last a good few years
she's got an 2nd gen i3 laptop (i forget what exactly) thats about 2 years old and already very slow on the startup
[Edited on 5/12/2013 by mcerd1]
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David Jenkins
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| posted on 5/12/13 at 03:00 PM |
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Was it quick in the past?
I'm just wondering if general clutter and accumulated dross is slowing everything down - you might find that a re-install of the operating
system is all that's needed to give it a boost (after backing up data and checking you have the install disks for her applications, of course!).
Or possibly some extra memory will help?
At this point I'd normally advocate Linux Mint, but I don't think there's an app for itunes (but I could be proved wrong). I also
have Windows 8.1 (on a virtual machine) and that really is quick to start, but I'd recommend installing Classic Shell to restore the menus to
something she'll recognise - you can even select an XP look-alike menu! Windows 7 is better, if you prefer.
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mcerd1
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| posted on 5/12/13 at 03:26 PM |
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^^ the thing was never that quick with all her stuff on it
its going to be a push to get her onto win7 for everything even though she's quite used to it on the laptop now - haven't got a
snowball's chance in hell of getting her onto mint etc. even if I could find ways of making here programs run...
this thing is ancient and was never very fast, its even slower than my old P4 630 from 2005 
it just needs replaced with something quicker no suitable OS is going to save it in much the same way that putting a tank of supper
unleaded in the GF's 60bhp clio wont make it fast enough to win Le Mans
trouble is I'm not sure which one to pick.......
I've got half an eye on an i5 4440 which seems to be a good price, but I've no idea how good these newer ones are
[Edited on 5/12/2013 by mcerd1]
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MikeR
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| posted on 5/12/13 at 03:49 PM |
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i upgraded a 5 year old vista laptop to win8.1 and it now flies. just be careful about drivers if you do this, a lot of oldbits arent supported.
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Bare
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| posted on 5/12/13 at 06:34 PM |
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As above: Strip out all the accumulated Crap /barnacles that have accumulated.
Wipe the drive too :-)
Then reinstall XP. Unless playing games that oldie will be more than adequate and likely Passably quick
My guess is it was already crapped up when she was given the 'hand me down'.
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David Jenkins
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| posted on 5/12/13 at 07:25 PM |
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The thing is that XP was never that slow (as much as can be expected from Windoze anyway) - if nothing else, it's worth wiping the slate and
starting again, just to see what happens. You may well be pleasantly surprised! 
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mcerd1
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| posted on 5/12/13 at 07:34 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
The thing is that XP was never that slow (as much as can be expected from Windoze anyway) - if nothing else, it's worth wiping the slate and
starting again, just to see what happens. You may well be pleasantly surprised!
I'm sure I would be for 5min
then she'd get all the rubbish back on it and it would be almost as slow as it is now in a matter of weeks - its all the hundreds of random
programs that she actually uses that are the problem - at this moment in time it might even be sticking with XP on the new machine just so she can use
some of them (although drivers are getting tricky now so I how win7 + virtual machine / dosbox will do the trick instead)
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David Jenkins
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| posted on 5/12/13 at 08:00 PM |
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In that case - I think you're on a loser! 
I suggest that you download a Linux Mint image from http://www.linuxmint.com/, put it onto a DVD and get her to try it out - bl**dy quick,
free, and relatively free from viruses etc. ('relatively free' means you still have to be careful, but in a different way). It also comes
with an equivalent to MS Office that really works.
[Edited on 5/12/13 by David Jenkins]
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dmac
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| posted on 5/12/13 at 08:15 PM |
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Swap the hd for an SSD and rebuild windows onto it, made a world of difference to mine!
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Slimy38
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| posted on 5/12/13 at 10:58 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by mcerd1
quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
The thing is that XP was never that slow (as much as can be expected from Windoze anyway) - if nothing else, it's worth wiping the slate and
starting again, just to see what happens. You may well be pleasantly surprised!
I'm sure I would be for 5min
then she'd get all the rubbish back on it and it would be almost as slow as it is now in a matter of weeks - its all the hundreds of random
programs that she actually uses that are the problem - at this moment in time it might even be sticking with XP on the new machine just so she can use
some of them (although drivers are getting tricky now so I how win7 + virtual machine / dosbox will do the trick instead)
If it's the hundreds of random programs that's the fault, then you need to be replacing her, not the PC...
It's just as easy to break an i5, my own laptop came with so much bloatware that it was effectively dead until I cleaned it up. It's a
user training thing that needs to be dealt with, not necessarily a new PC.
Then again, for general use an i-anything would be fine, I still have a Pentium M running Windows 7 perfectly well.
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mcerd1
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| posted on 6/12/13 at 12:01 AM |
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the one thing fold are missing here is this isn't a quick machine and it never was - its a fairly cheap 6+ year old single core AMD thing with a
low clock speed from another era of computing
in terms of what she wants it to do I might as well be asking a 486 to run the latest PC games - its just not worth keeping !
(besides I'm not 100% convinced about the health of some of the bits as my brother had a habit of playing with them....)
in the process I've got to wean her off Lotus works/123/organiser and onto MS office (she needs MS office to keep her accountant happy and tried
her on open office - no joy )
got to find her another e-mail program (outlook 2000 at the moment)
and got to find a better photo editing / label making program (she's using Print Shop circa 1996 )
never mind the dos programs she still uses for odd things.....
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tomprescott
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| posted on 6/12/13 at 03:09 AM |
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In the past I always bought el cheapo laptops at the 250-300 mark they normally lasted about 18 months before something went seriously wrong - often
the battery, effectively turning them into underpowered desktops due to the cost of replacement batteries. It also seems like the cheaper the unit,
the more crap which comes preloaded.
This time I decided to go for mid range and got a Lenovo z580 - over a year in and everything is still running tip top: I'm running MS Office
2010, Project 2010, AutoCAD 2013, Solidworks 2013, a full adobe suite (6 series dreamweaver, photoshop and bridge), MS Visual Studio 2012 and a few
other programs, all on Win 8.1 (a recent free upgrade from Win 8). Admittedly it probably isn't right for what your Ma might need: 2gb gfx, i7
processor, 8gb ram etc but still seems pretty good and I would imagine you could probably pick one up for around £500 now, maybe less. The only
downside is the lack of a ssd, but it still loads from off to running an internet browser in under a minute, so not too bad.
One word (or perhaps two!) of caution for anyone running the update to Win8.1: they say that you can reverse back to Win8, but really they mean
reinstall Win8, so make sure you have a boot disc/drive prepared before installing 8.1. Also, on first start it is supposed to show you the smart
swiping guide - if you don't have a touch screen it is a fairly common problem that the 'swipe in from the left' action won't
be recognised on your mouse, so the "helpful hint" box which covers a large area of the screen never clears, no matter what you do until
you restart. When you restart the pc, the hints will start again because you didn't complete last time, so you are always stuck with the hint
box covering a portion of your screen. To fix it you need to go to control panel and disable the HID interface.
A bird in the hand....
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