Resolved Upgrade or replace?

My eMachines system is showing its age (about 6 years). Over the last 18 months, I've replaced the original C: drive with a 300GB unit and installed an AGP video card to replace the failing integrated video.

I only have 512MB RAM and I'm running Win XP Pro with SP3. I'm starting to see evidence that the flat panel display is beginning to die and also getting occasional messages about not ehough virtual memory.

I'm happy with XP and Office 2003, but the box is kinda slow by modern standards.

I'm wondering whether to upgrade this box with new DDR memory (2MB from Crucial) and get a new monitor (about $175 altogether) and soldier on for a few more years with XP/Office 03 or to bite the bullet and get a more modern lap-top, maybe a recent refurbished, returned corporate unit from Dell.

Budget is tight, and much over $300 would be difficult to justify. I don't want to downgrade in terms of processor speed (2.2Ghz) or the RAM I would upgrade to just to get a newer box with Win7. I'd also have to consider the costs of new versions of MS Office and Quicken.

I'm just starting to research things and I'd be interested in any comments.

 

Looking in your 'System Detail' it looks like you've installed more RAM?

[DDR memory (2MB from Crucial) ] I take it you meant 2GB.

If you install SIW you should be able to identify your motherboard brand.

Just for your consideration - my Albatron m/b is 8 years old. Cheers Neil.

 

A little reading on Virtual Memory and one of the reasons why you should have more ram.

http://www.windowsanswers.net/articles/fix-virtual-memory?tid=vmemtoolowgoog

The monitor dying has nothing to do with your PC. It is seperate. You can buy lots of systems now with no Monitor involved. Been this way for a couple of years.

If it was me, I would get at least another gig of RAM and wait a couple of years till XP isn't supported anymore and go with a new PC with Win 8 on it.

 

What version of Office and Quicken do you have?

 

2003 will work on Win 7. I have it on 2 different PC's.

 

If you can't install more than 2Gb, I'd also look to see if there was a BIOS update that would allow you to go to 3Gb. There's no point in going beyond 3Gb as 32 Bit windows won't support more than 3.2Gb or so.

 

After memory, the next thing to give a serious performance hit will be a solid state drive (if your MOBO will support a SATA drive). Yes they are expensive but IMO money well spent. You can always take the SSD to your new PC when you eventually upgrade too so its not dead money either. I'd install the OS and the programs onto the SSD and use the existing drive for your data files.

 

I don't know if you are in the USA or not. But for 300 bucks you can get a pretty good Dell 570 with 2 gigs of ram and a good processor and Windows 7. They will come with a keyboard and a mouse and you can use your current monitor.

 

No deals like that in Scotland Bill...

$300 is about £200 roughly. Windows 7 costs just under £100 here on its own. I often upgrade machines here with MOBO, Processor and RAM costing approx £100 - £150 depending on the spec. Case & PSU will be about £40 for a reasonable kit. Thats just under £300 and no DVD, keyboard / mouse, speakers or monitor.

Dell PCs under £300 here are such a poor spec I wouldn't recommend them to anyone - not that I'd be recommending a Dell to anyone anyhow.

 

Dell is probably the most popular brand here in the States. I know the the US Navy and the Marines bought them for all thier bases because I helped run the wires for all the networking for them on several bases. The County that I live in and the County that my wife works in they switched to Dell years ago. I have had 4 or 5 Dells and know several people that have them also and no problems.

 

My experience of Dell is that they're generally fine until they actually go faulty - then they're a nightmare. Nothing but proprietary parts - although I believe there is some improvement on that front these days.

Dell machines are generally built to perform a function - JUST. Then users actually install some more software on them and they slow down to a crawl. This is especially true of the lower spec machines. Then they clock down the processors on the graphics cards so that they don't run flat out so that they then cut down on warranty claims.

This is lost on most users who rarely push their machines hard but users who do audio / video and other graphics / processor intensive tasks find out that the shiny new PC isn't quite as good as they'd hoped it would be.

My usual advice to clients is to get someone who knows what they're doing and who they trust to build a PC to the spec that they need. Yes it'll cost a bit more, but like everything else, you get what you pay for.

As for warranties, they're generally not worth the paper they're written on since they'll do their darndest to get out of paying out. And even if you do get the part replaced, you've spent so much time and effort and jumped through so many hoops to get a part out of them that its questionable whether its worth the bother.

 

The last Dell's that I worked on were fine. 5 and 6 year old ones and I swapped parts out of some old junk that I had and got them working. They use the 24 pin connector mostly on their MOBO from the power supply. Most PS now a days come with the extra 4 pins.

I agree if you are doing high end graphics and video stuff, it is better to have one built. Nobody really makes those or else you will pay thru the nose for them.

My wife does Payroll for the Sherriff Dept. and will have 10 or 12 windows open all the time and will be merging and purging and no problems. They do have a server, but the info on her PC is only on her PC for the payroll stuff on a different HD. She can access the server for things like e-mail and web related tasks.

 

Neil:

When I tried an installation of more RAM, I bought some through Amazon that were specifically for AMD motherboards. Maybe my assumption that having an AMD processor meant an AMD motherboard was in error, but the stuff I bought didn't work. I'm back to 512MB.

 

I have dealt with Dell's auction site before. I bought DW a system that worked very well and was reasonalbe priced.

When we got our motorhome, we decided that a netbook would be a good machine to have and I bought her an ASUS "eeePC" unit. Apart from not having an optical disc drive, It has wokerd very well. We use it every time we go out in the RV. We gave the Dell desktop to one of our grandchildren.

 

Thanks, Bill and Evan. \

I recently installed a new AGP card becxause the video was total ****. The new card improved it signifiantly, but I still have video "tremors ".

Based on everyone's inputs, I've decided to go ahead an spend the money on upgrading my present box. Rather than playing "memory roulette ", I'll just go to Crucial and get the right sticks, kissimg off the $40 I spent for the others. I'll go for a new flat-screen display also, since I figure that's where the problem is.

I reckon the memory upgrade to 2GB willrun me around $65 and a new display maybe just under $100.

I haven't had any issues with people sending me documents that I can't read in either Word 03 or Adobe, so moving up to the current MSOffice isn't a big deal.

The version of Quicken I have is the 2011 deLuxe. I made the mistake of buying the basic version and the finding out that it didn't pick up old data. I then bought the deLuxe version on line. Not a good idea, as it has a time limit on doing a second download. If I buy another computer I'll have to buy the latest version of Quicken. Downloads arent' always the best way to buy software!

Thanks for the comments, folks. This forum is a wealth of support and I appreciate it. Even though my experience goes back to Honeywell DDP and Singer Link GP4 flight simulators where we programmed things in assembly language, I'm not up to speed on the more modern stuff.