LiveJournal excitement for a Monday

[cheekbones3]

It's that time again. My PC is getting a bit old and creaky, so I need to at least upgrade, and probably just get a new one.

I'm looking for advice therefore: I've currently got a 2GHz processor and 900MB of RAM, hard drive space is not an issue, I've got an external drive too.

Is it worth me upgrading what I've got at the moment, or should I just get something new and whizzy? I'm slightly concerned about the usual problems of transferring across all the stuff I've got running on this computer, and also because I'll be sticking with Windows, it seems like a bit of a limbo time to upgrade to Vista when it's supposedly crap and the new one's coming out later anyway.

Another thought, is it possible to port my current registered (!) Windoze XP to a new computer at all, possible via the external hard drive? I don't have the original disks, as I got this comp second hand.

I look forward to your tech consultancy pitches!

Comments

[andrewducker]

What sort of thing do you want your PC to do? If it's just web browsing, the occasional document, etc. then a 2GHz processor is fine.

The "getting old and creaky" would probably be mostly solved by upgrading the RAM to 2GB and reinstalling Windows from scratch.

Which contrasts somewhat with your lack of original disks. I'd recommend googling "tinyxp torrent", if I was the kind of person who'd do that kind of thing.

If you want to play games, of course, then your graphics card probably needs to be updated.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

I shudder at spending an afternoon reinstalling Windows from a haxored torrent file, as tempting as it might be! I'm veering towards chucking in more RAM and just keeping on top of maintenance otherwise, and to hell with the occasional crashes. They appear to correlate with using Flash or playing Civ 4 (which pushes the comp quite a bit anyway), so I'm sure I can manage!

Actually, also ripping CDs does it, but that's possibly because Winamp has issues.

[cr4k.livejournal.com]

Vista sucks balls

[dryriser.livejournal.com]

Depending on what processor you have at the moment, there'll be upgrades available, though only probably as high as 2.6ghz. As said above - upping the ram to 2gig would make a big difference.

A windows reinstall would probably help, too.

As something to think about, I would also ask - do you really *need* windows? Ubuntu is at a stage these days where it's on a par usability-wise, equivalents of most applications are out there (for free) and you'll avoid the inevitable slowdown and virus/trojan attacks that come with windows.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

By upgrades, do you mean a new physical bit of kit, or just software/driver updates and the like? I assume the former, as drivers giving a 30% speed boost would surprise me!

As for Ubuntu, I like the idea, but in practice I suspect I'd cause more problems with the various poker platforms I use for example.

[dryriser.livejournal.com]

Yep, we're talking about hardware - though in this case, only the processor, which limits the cost. If it's of the Athlon XP era, then I may well be able to source a very cheap upgrade for you.

As for the poker stuff - is it web-based, or are there specific applications? Might be worth seeing if they do a linux binary...

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Nah, they all run off apps. I can't really be arsed!

A cheap upgrade sounds great - is it worth me holding off buying RAM until I see what you might come up with, or is there enough cross-compatibility?

[cybik.livejournal.com]

Don't go to Vista. Just don't. XP is *much* better. I also second the idea of Ubuntu, as it's very easy to get the hang of and is generally ace. It also seems to be quicker than Windows (in my experience), especially at booting up. But if you want to stay with Windows, use XP. Vista isn't as user-friendly, despite being shinier.

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

That reminds me, you borrowed my XP professional disc. I need to re-install the machine I bought it for, so if you could pop it in the post or something, that would be grand.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

I'm just worried that with Ubuntu I'll have problems with getting stuff to work, and I can't be bothered trying to sort that sort of thing...

[409.livejournal.com]

Put as much RAM into the machine as it can handle (it'll cost you bugger all). There are other upgrades you can do without having to reinstall windows (depending what hardware you are running, e.g. graphics card onboard motherboard or separate). If you are willing to ghost your boot drive (the one with windows) you'll see a decent performance increase by ghosting onto a modern speedy HD - this is not the easiest thing in the world to do but is always my second suggestion after RAM.

Windows would also benefit from a damn good clean out - registry, random crap loading on startup and running in the background, etc. Also defrag your hard disks (this can help quite a bit if you've not done it in a while).

Ignore Vista (dear god but it's horrible). I have no experience of Ubuntu other than helping people who can't get hardware working.

If you want to play games then buy an XBox 360 (better, cheaper (by a large amount)).

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Defragging, deep cleaning and start-up stuff is pretty efficient. I'll boost the RAM, not too worried about trying more technical solutions!

[409.livejournal.com]

If you play Civ4 then a bigger graphics card wouldn't hurt...

Assuming you have an older AGP motherboard then either of these are ok:
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=14513&category_id=126&manufacturer_id=0&tid=zt-62aa250-hss
(£36)
or

http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=21140&category_id=125&manufacturer_id=0&tid=11124-00-20r
(£85)
i'll give you three guesses as to which is better :)

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

It depends on your budget, what you want to use it for and how long you want your upgrade to last. You could probably just tweak what you have and get more time out of it, though it'll continue getting creakier. Or you could get a new motherboard, processor and RAM for between £100 and £200 that'll do for a few years. Example bundles here. RAM is stupidly cheap, so you could increase that more if you felt like it.

I've been running Windows 7 beta for quite some time now on one of my computers and I like it a lot. Microsoft have now made available the Release Candidate for free, which you should be able to use until they finally release it commercially. Feel fee to drop by and have a poke about on it and see what you think. As Vista is universally loathed, I expect 7 to take off quite quickly.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

I'm of the opinion that chucking more RAM in is easiest, as I'm a bit clueless when it comes to the motherboard etc. Would that entail reinstalling anything, or is it just a case of slotting one out and slotting the new one in?

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

More RAM is certainly the easiest option, as the OS will just see more memory and use it. To check what's best to put in, go to crucial.com and use their memory advisor. If you want to check on the specific components you machine has, I'd suggest using the belarc advisor:
http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

If you ever do get round to doing a big upgrade, I can take you through putting in a new motherboard. It's a very simple task, but it's still sensible to have support the first time you do it.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Apparently I've got an emtpy slot (fnarr fnarr), currently got a couple of 512MB sticks in. I can double one of those and fill the third slot too...

Cheers for the advice.

In fact, I'm just looking at RAM updates, and the 1GB modules all seem to be 333MHz. Does this matter? I don't remember the 512MB running at this speed! I'm not convinced it does, just needing to be sure before I spend owt :)

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

If it's what comes up on the crucial memory finder, it's guaranteed to be compatible with your motherboard. I don't *think* having an old 512 card in at a different speed will make a difference, but I'm not 100% sure. The existing cards should say on them what the speed is, so I'd say just crack your case and have an eyeball. Considering how small the marginal cost is, I'd say get three 1gb cards.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

The finder basically tells me I've got 512MB sticks in, but I don't know my computer model (can't find it!), so there's no more info than that. Ho hum!

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

The belarc advisor should tell you the specific motherboard under 'System Model' at the top right. You should then be able to plug this into the crucial memory finder. Or just google the motherboard and you should get the spec from somewhere, probably the manufacturer.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

But aye, I'll open it up and have a gander.

[lyra.livejournal.com]

Hey Ian, it appears you have one of those msn virus things. Just thought I should let you know.
You sent me a message about weight loss acai berry pills. I somehow didn't think that would be the kind of message you'd send :D

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Hopefully I've fixed it, although after running four or five cleaning programs I wasn't sure if they found anything.

[lyra.livejournal.com]

I had one a while back and it was a simple case of changing my msn password. I'd stupidly entered my password again after clicking on a picture link my sister had sent to me (but hadn't because it was the spam virus thing) x