Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community  

Go Back   Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community > Interests > Tilted Technology


 
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 10-20-2007, 09:08 AM   #1 (permalink)
Junkie
 
Upgrading my parents old PC

I'm thinking about upgrading my parents old pc. It is a HP xt858 from 2001. It has a 1 Ghz Pentium 3, 192 megabytes of PC-133 SDRAM, a 60 gigabyte hard drive, 8x cd burner, and Windows Millennium Edition. It runs terribly slow right now, mainly because in the 6+ years they have owned it they have never reinstalled the OS. I do virus and spyware scans on it and other than some cookies it always comes up clean, they don't visit bad sites and they do have firewall software installed. I know reinstalling the OS would help a ton, but I don't want to install ME on there, since it was junk to begin with and now that it is unsupported, well its not worthwhile.
Here are some of the upgrades I am thinking of. Would this be worthwhile? Keep in mind all my parents use it for is web browsing, Word and Excel, and Solitaire. They don't do any gaming or video or music encoding or anything else that is very processor intensive.

2 sticks of this memory
This hard drive
A copy of Windows XP
and up to date internet security software

The total upgrade is about $235. Anyhting else I'm missing? Or any better suggestions are welcome.
laconic1 is offline  
Old 10-20-2007, 09:37 AM   #2 (permalink)
Knight of the Old Republic
 
Lasereth's Avatar
 
Location: Winston-Salem, NC
The RAM is gonna make the PC run like a dream. A Windows XP reinstall and the RAM is really all you need. I'd ditch the security software that you listed and just put AVG Antivirus on their PC along with Ad-Aware 2007.

I think you're gonna be surprised at how well it runs with that RAM!
Lasereth is offline  
Old 10-20-2007, 03:13 PM   #3 (permalink)
Here, yet not all there.
 
BurntToast's Avatar
 
Location: Franklinville, NJ
You can go here: http://www.dell.com/content/products...en&s=dfh&cs=22

and find a whole new computer at around the same price point that you were looking to spend originally. IMHO it isn't even worth updating a computer that old.
__________________
The taint. Conveniently located between the snack bar and the dumpster.
BurntToast is offline  
Old 10-20-2007, 04:42 PM   #4 (permalink)
Knight of the Old Republic
 
Lasereth's Avatar
 
Location: Winston-Salem, NC
Quote:
Originally Posted by BurntToast
You can go here: http://www.dell.com/content/products...en&s=dfh&cs=22

and find a whole new computer at around the same price point that you were looking to spend originally. IMHO it isn't even worth updating a computer that old.
Definitely worth a look at when you can get a refurbished system with 1 GB of ram for $299.
Lasereth is offline  
Old 10-20-2007, 05:07 PM   #5 (permalink)
Tilted Cat Head
 
Cynthetiq's Avatar
 
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
I'd buy another one, refurb or even a used machine than go thru the hassle.
__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.
Cynthetiq is offline  
Old 10-21-2007, 09:20 AM   #6 (permalink)
Insane
 
captobvious's Avatar
 
Location: Somewhere
I agree with the others. It'd be a better deal spending around the same amount of money to get a new, used, or refurbished machine.
captobvious is offline  
Old 10-22-2007, 02:28 AM   #7 (permalink)
Mine is an evil laugh
 
spindles's Avatar
 
Location: Sydney, Australia
I don't think XP would run *that* well on a P3 1Ghz. I'd vote for a newer processor (i.e. new/refurbished box).
__________________
who hid my keyboard's PANIC button?
spindles is offline  
Old 10-22-2007, 02:43 AM   #8 (permalink)
Knight of the Old Republic
 
Lasereth's Avatar
 
Location: Winston-Salem, NC
Quote:
Originally Posted by spindles
I don't think XP would run *that* well on a P3 1Ghz. I'd vote for a newer processor (i.e. new/refurbished box).
The processor would be fine. You can't dell a difference between a 600 MHz processor and a 3 GHz processor when running XP. The major contributor to performance in XP is how much ram you have. Put 1 GB of ram in a 500 MHz PC and 1 GB in a 3 GHz PC and they'll be indistinguishable in just about everything but gaming.
Lasereth is offline  
Old 10-22-2007, 03:54 AM   #9 (permalink)
Junkie
 
I guess since I have switched over to Linux exclusively since February and have had no issues I could just use my copy of XP on their computer. That along with Lasereth's suggestion of AVG and Ad-Aware, would just mean the cost of the hardware upgrade which would be right at $100. The main reason for the new hard drive is that I'm pretty sure the one in there now is a 5400 rpm drive, and two, it is really noisy, one of the noisier drives I've heard just spinning, and the loudest drive I've ever heard when seeking. A new one would be quieter and faster.

And yes I do realize it is a bit pointless to look for ways to upgrade this pc as opposed to buying a refurbished or off lease pc. If I had the money, or if my folks had the money to spare believe me I would just get a new one. But sometimes you just have to make do with what you have.
laconic1 is offline  
Old 10-22-2007, 04:20 AM   #10 (permalink)
Talk nerdy to me
 
God of Thunder's Avatar
 
Location: Flint, MI
I side with Lasereth and would go with the RAM and OS upgrade. A 60GB hard drive should be sufficient for their intended use. If they start to fill that up, removable drives and a good way to archive data.

My only tip, make sure you have all of the proper drivers before wiping the OS.

edit: You were posting about the drive noise as I was posting, so go ahead and upgrade the drive. Noisy drives suck
__________________
I reject your reality, and substitute my own

-- Adam Savage

Last edited by God of Thunder; 10-22-2007 at 04:26 AM..
God of Thunder is offline  
Old 10-22-2007, 06:06 AM   #11 (permalink)
Tilted Cat Head
 
Cynthetiq's Avatar
 
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
Besides the sound, I'd also go with the MTBF for the drive is probably sooner than later since the drive is already 6 years old.
__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.
Cynthetiq is offline  
 

Tags
parents, upgrading


Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On



All times are GMT -8. The time now is 03:29 AM.

Tilted Forum Project

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2
© 2002-2012 Tilted Forum Project

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360