Can I upgrade my tired old PC?

Discussion in 'Building a new PC' started by fester451, Apr 27, 2011.

  1. fester451

    fester451 Member

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    Hi all

    I have a very old pc which is quite frankly on its ar$e and wheezing away like a 40 a day-er.

    Its a Compaq presario 6254EA, with an AMD XP2200. I did upgrade it a bit many years ago (2 pioneer DVD writers and 1GB Ram....)

    It runs XP service pack 3, and is slower than a really slow thing....

    I am, as ever strapped for cash and cant afford to buy a new pc.
    Can I upgrade my current heap for a small outlay and bring it into either this, or the last century...???

    any advice or help, as always, much appreciated!!

    cheers
     
  2. ps355528

    ps355528 Active member

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    reinstall winblows to get rid of all the errors and fragmentation (windoze is crap) .. OR.. install lovely new bang up to date Debian which will run like a star for the forseeable future..
     
  3. scorpNZ

    scorpNZ Active member

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    Must be old all i could find were pictures of laptops & that took a bit of work..lol..if it's a desktop the two issues you'll have is hard drive speed of 5400rpm & too many startup programs.

    See if a mate has a spare hdd of 7200rpm if not,you'll have to restrict the amount of junk you add (software)

    Dump programs like adobe replace with sumtra pdf reader it's small as & no auto start

    dump quicktime & itunes or at east remove from startup

    turn off microsoft autoupdate use manual instead

    learn what all the proceses are in the task manager you can use msconfig to shut the crap down

    after reinstall of windows add a few lite most used apps & create a backup image use easeus it's free

    from this point you need to be frugal with what software you install starting with most used finishing with least used,try to choose lite footprint software & preferably with manual start not start when windows boots

    Keeping your system light will negate the need for any hardware changes tho i suspect the hdd is your culprit,keep your system basic & it will perform

    link below is for linux free OS systems.

    give puppy a whirl as a live cd it has good speed then try others to see what fits best for you
    http://distrowatch.com/
     
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2011
  4. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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  5. fester451

    fester451 Member

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    Cheers for the advice so far guys....the link above is my baby...!!


    What else have I done to her....added an extra 40gig HD (5400) to give me a whopping 100gb (I have to run an external 1TB HD to cope). Also added an new USB2 PCI card to give me an extra 4 ports. other than that its still the same old OEM.

    I was considering a new MB and processor (E7500 or similar, new internal 1tb HHD, and some new RAM modules (4GB). I reckon I could pick this lot up fairly cheaply and this is the sort of setup that would work for me...is it achievable using the remains of the current system or would I need to by other stuff?
     
  6. scorpNZ

    scorpNZ Active member

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    A whopping..lmfao..best check local online computer stores even hp's etc are dirt cheap & compare the cost difference,then think carefully what you want to use it for,if all your doing is surfing why bother,however graphic cards aren't that much add a dual port tv enabled card means watching movies from the comp so it's now a media centre if you decide on upgrading or getting a newer model,to me dual hdd's is a must & nothing below 1.5tb arghh hell it's your money for the price 2tb is better..lol..,what about sound card run your cd collection direct from hdd non stop music 24/7 no changing stink'n cd's & really piss the neighbours off,shite man how much money you got i'll help you spend it..mwaaaaaa
     

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