computer showing its age...upgrade or buy new?

[Blue_Tires]

in Spring 2003 I got a Dell Dimension 4550, and although it has been relatively trouble-free over the years, it is really starting to slow down...My question is whether it is cost-efficient to buy speed/memory/etc., or save up to buy a new system? If upgrades are the better choice, what should I get and what would be the ballpark cost?

I use DSL from Verizon and have:

Intel Pentium 4 at 2.66 GHz

512 MB DDR SDRAM at 333 MHz

64 MB GeForce MX Graphics Card with TV-out

60 GB Ultra ATA/100 7200 RPM Hard Drive

Intel Pro 100 M Integrated PCI NIC Card

56k PCI Telephony Modem for Windows

any other questions about my system, please ask...

[alfredo]

1. Add another 512 MB Ram and you will see a speed increase.

How full is your heard drive?

[Blue_Tires]

2. how do i find out how much space is left?

[ConsAreLiars]

4. To see the space available on a hard drive -

Hit Start / My Computer
Then Right Click on the drive(s) and select Properties.

Many use CrapCleaner http://www.ccleaner.com/ (free) to get rid of a lot of, well, crap, that gets saved to the hard disk and does nothing of value. It will remove some stuff like browsing histories and cookies that sites use to recognize you and, for example, keep you logged into DU when you return if you had selected that option, as well as cookies that do things that you'd rather not have them do, as well as autocomplete information for forms. It does not delete saved passwords. Assuming you've never done anything to get rid of the useless stuff, there is likely a large amount of disk space being wasted, and the minor inconveniences of losing some of the history stuff is likely worth it.

Also under Properties (when Right Clicking the drive) is a Tools tab. After running CrapCleaner, or even if you decide not to) you might run the Defragment utility. It will arrange the data on the disk in a more efficient manner and make reading the disk faster.

As for Anti-Virus, there seems to be general agreement here that AVG Free is a good choice. (I use it with no problems.) http://free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition

[alfredo]

8. so windows does not defrage on the fly?

[Blue_Tires]

11. i do use crapcleaner and the other usual maintence utilities

and after checking, i do have a majority of my disk space free, 44.2 MB out of a 55.8 MB max....

[Blue_Tires]

3. forgot to mention:

i also have the latest McAfee Security Center, but i have learned from other DUers that it is an inefficient resource hog

[hobbit709]

5. Best thing to do is

1. Get another 512 Mb RAM.
2. Save all your data to an external storage
3. Reinstall Windows, after five years even a good registry cleaner can't get rid of all the accumulated crap.

A 2.6 GHZ CPU is plenty good enough unless you're into major gaming or some kind of number crunching application
You might want to get a larger hard drive but IDE drives are getting hard to find at most stores. There's still plenty online like at newegg or tigerdirect.

[madokie]

6. I agree with this

I couldn't imagine going that long without a reformat and reload of windows

[Blue_Tires]

12. I am into some games

but have mostly quit because my ping/FPS were getting too high, and regular web browsing has much slower load/download speeds...

and i'll look into the cost of another 512 mb

[Deja Q]

7. Look at task manager and see how much RAM andf CPU time is used.

You can track down various processes that user more than the others.

More RAM might be helpful, but you might be just as well off to buy new -- dual core CPUs alone will nix obsolescence faster than anything else, unless future Windows OSes get even more bloated... and I am a proponent for Vista. :scared:

[alfredo]

9. could AV software slow down his machine?

[Blue_Tires]

13. i'm always worried that

ending one of these processes i don't know or recognize will cause more trouble than it solves...ultimately, i would like to buy new, but it is WAY unaffordable for the time being...

[hunter]

10. Machines don't just slow down.

New software drags them down. Sometimes it's a hardware problem, but that's rare. Often this new software is something rotten -- viruses, spyware, trojans, worms, etc. There are a very limited number of legitimate apps that would drag down a machine such as yours; the most common I think are dueling antivirus programs and other crap that runs a lot of stuff in the background.

Uninstalling stuff you don't use and don't need is often more effective then installing new memory. I don't bother much anymore poking around a computer's insides, except to vacuum out the dust if it's bad.

The easiest upgrade is an external USB hard drive, and it will still be very useful down the road when you get a new machine. The most difficult upgrade is saving all your data to an external drive and reinstalling the operating system and all your apps from scratch.

I can generally make a machine quite a bit faster than it was when it was new out of the box simply by removing crap that's never used. But it takes a long time and I hate screwing around with Windows so much these days I'll only do it if someone pays me. The Geek Squad has a similar service, but it's a fast food menu sort of thing that may or may not accomplish what you want.

My own machines run Linux. If you don't use specific Windows apps such as Photoshop or iTunes, Ubuntu is something you might want to play with, especially if you get a new machine and the old one is just sitting in the closet unused. Who knows? Maybe you'll like Ubuntu on the old machine better than Vista on a new machine...

[Blue_Tires]

14. thanks...never heard of ubuntu before

maybe i'll give it a try

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

15. Are you using a Norton Anti-Virus Product?

If so, get the Norton Uninstaller Tool, available many places on the intert00bZ, and get it the hell off of there. Like now. Norton robs about 25% of a system's performance just being on there, and is about 50% effective against threats in the wild. It's just slightly more useful than nothing at all. I am liking AVG Free a lot these days, especially since it is so simple for unsophisticated users. It does not rob performance and is a snap to install.

On the other hand, yeah, it's time to save your data off the computer, get more RAM(I recommend an upgrade to 2GB) and reinstall XP. Perhaps a new 7200RPM, 16MB cache HDD as well.

On the other hand, the P4 was a sucky chip. I just quoted a nice AMD 6000+ dual-core based machine, 4 GB RAM, MSI 750A motherboard, Nvidia 8600 GT video for about $550. NewEgg. Buy the parts and build it yourself.

[Blue_Tires]

16. i have mcafee

and how hard/easy is it to build your own system?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

17. I have lots of experience and...

It takes me longer to install and setup the OS than it does to build the hardware.

[RoyGBiv]

18. Preach !!!

Dearmercifulheavensattheboatshow ...

I've lost count of the number of systems I've set up. Most of the time it goes fairly smoothly, but it does take longer to do the OS than the hardware.

And *sometimes* setting up the OS can be a downright pain in the arse. I offer this not to scare, just as a warning to others who haven't done this much to be prepared and *save your driver discs*.

Anyone who says Windows is a "it just works" operating system out of the box either has never installed it from scratch on a newly built system, has a very limited definition of "works," or is flat-out lying.

I put together a system for my cousin over the weekend. The hardware went together great. I booted it with a Knoppix Live-CD to make sure it would power-up and get a network connection, and then I went about installing Windows XP w/ SP3, which has traditionally given me fewer problems than any version of Windows.

Oh. My. God.

I fought with that all afternoon before it finally functioned properly. The problem was that she'd lost the driver discs for the motherboard and graphics card. I'd told her what to buy, and she had it there waiting for me when I got off the plane in OKC, but she just couldn't resist opening it all up and looking at the shiny newness I guess. And she lost the discs. I had no network connection ... or sound or USB ports or a truly functional display, but the network thing was the killer.

I thankfully had Knoppix with me and so loaded it and went driver hunting, saved it all to my flash drive, then went back into Windows to load them. Unfortunately the Asus website didn't have an easy-to-find driver updated for SP3 for the network, and that took a couple tries to get the right one. (I'm curious what's in SP3 that this matters.)

Anyway ... good times. Just works. Right out of the box. No fiddling with it. No knowledge required. Riiiiiight.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

19. Well, I can say...

That due to the utter coolness of Intel's, Nvidia's and Realtek's stance towards Linux as a whole, that if you buy a motherboard wisely for a Linux build, you load Linux(in my case Mandriva, which has a great installer), and everything just...works. I keep a collection of Nvidia Windows drivers on a USB stick for Windows builds, too. I must say that I have found, in the past, that Intel's Windows chipset utility can give me flaming hemmhroids and that driver injection thingy at the beginning of the Windows install, like if you want to use AHCI, is diabolical.

Setting up printers on Linux is now, officially, a joy. Windows ain't even close. In fact, HP and Epson drivers on Windows, in their own special ways, give me a tsouris.

Someone once told me that he didn't want to use Linux because "You had to spend too much time searching for drivers". BWAHAHAHAHA! Moron.

And then, once you actually have the drivers working, you then have to install all the Windows software that makes it work correctly. FF, TB, extensions for both, maintenance tools, a decent defragger, security jizzwah up the ass, Flash...

Linux? Nope. Just...works.

Now, Broadcom and their wireless chipset and their studied ignoring of Linux is another story. Broadcom needs a good whuppin'. A real good whuppin'. Buncha jerkoffs, they are.

And do NOT even THINK of getting me started about downgrading most Vista laptops to XP, if you don't have an XP downgrade disk from the manufacturer that cost about as much as a down-payment on a house on Mendham-Bernardsville Rd in Morris County. Collecting the drivers on your own is damned near impossible and the damned things have nerfed install routines in any case. I am sure it is just all a terrible accident it happens that way. :sarcasm:

Note: I have yet to do a Vista install. No one is interested in it.

[Gore1FL]

20. I'd say get a new one if you have the cash on hand

--that is assuming you do anything intensive with it.

if it is just for internet surfing you are probably OK.