Desktop upgrade help

[Taz]

My pc has ground to a halt (slow to start up and generally slow) so I'm thinking of trying to do an upgrade.

Is there a program that will scan my system and suggest improvements that I can make.

I replaced the graphics card last year so am fairly confident I could attempt this.

 

[DCB]

What OS do you have?

 

[guest100718]

depends how old it is really.

 

[Taz]

What OS do you have?

Its an oldish Asus

Runs win7, 64 bit

Intel core 2 quad CPU @ 2.66 GHz, 4gb ram.

1 Tb hard drive.

 

[Baldy Bouncer]

Upgrade the Ram to 8gb
Install a 128gb SSD and install your OS and ONLY the OS onto it.
Leave the 1Tb in for installing anything else, games, films, music etc.
Job done.:thup:

 

[Taz]

Upgrade the Ram to 8gb
Install a 128gb SSD and install your OS and ONLY the OS onto it.
Leave the 1Tb in for installing anything else, games, films, music etc.
Job done.:thup:

So the CPU's ok then ?

 

[PhilTheFragger]

With that CPU it's a very early windows 7 so it's about 5 1/2 years old. Whenever you look at upgrading components you have to compare with the cost of a new box , say £400 for a Intel I5 4xxx with 8gb Ram

The previous suggestions of putting in an ssd hard drive and bumping up the ram are good, but will cost about £100 and if you are competent in doing the work yourself then that's fine, but if you need to get a bloke in to do it, that's another £100 , so already we are half way towards a new pc
Do you need a new power supply unit for the extra componants?

At the end of the day, you could easily spend £250 upgrading, plus what you already spent in the graphics card, and you are still left with a 5 1/2 year old motherboard with a very mediocre CPU which will have a shorter life span than your new componants.

For me it's a no brainer,if the pc is 4 or5 years old, buy a new box. 2-3 years old, worth upgrading

I'm a pc engineer, this is what I do

 

[bobmac]

Phil, as a short term measure could spongebob not just save all his 'stuff' to an external memory and do a complete re-install?
At least that would get rid of all the programmes that are slowing down everything.
Might be worth trying before forking out £400, especially if you dont like Windows 8

 

[Taz]

Phil, as a short term measure could spongebob not just save all his 'stuff' to an external memory and do a complete re-install?
At least that would get rid of all the programmes that are slowing down everything.
Might be worth trying before forking out £400, especially if you dont like Windows 8

Thanks for all the suggestions, will have a think.
If I do go down the new route, how easy is it to transfer all my stuff from the old to new desktop ?
Th

 

[Baldy Bouncer]

£100 to install a SSD & Ram!!!! What a rip-off!
Boy am I in the wrong game.

 

[Taz]

Upgrade the Ram to 8gb
Install a 128gb SSD and install your OS and ONLY the OS onto it.
Leave the 1Tb in for installing anything else, games, films, music etc.
Job done.:thup:

just ran this scanner and got these results :

http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/scanview/B4BF7D6A31D926C3

 

[Scotty Cameron]

£100 to install a SSD & Ram!!!! What a rip-off!
Boy am I in the wrong game.

eek, wouldn't dream of paying anyone that sort of money for a job that is really simple. Done exactly the same to my 2010 Macbook Pro and it took all of 20 minutes or so and that was putting a hard drive caddy in as well.

 

[PhilTheFragger]

But you aren't just installing the components, you are also loading the operating system onto the ssd drive, and I suspect first you need to create a recovery disc set to allow this to happen, then reloading the programs like office , anti virus, windows updates etc
And then going and telling windows that the desktop, downloads, documents , pictures, music, videos etc aren't on the new "c" drive but located on the old C drive which has had to been allocated a new drive letter.

Now if you can do all that then great, off you go
But if you can't you will need to get a bloke in and that's a good 2 -2 1/2 hours work there.

Re the crucial scan, suggest you buy the 4gb pack, lose 2 of the existing 1gb chips and settle for 6gb of Ram. Otherwise you will be paying £125 just for the Ram

 

[Deleted member 15344]

With that CPU it's a very early windows 7 so it's about 5 1/2 years old. Whenever you look at upgrading components you have to compare with the cost of a new box , say £400 for a Intel I5 4xxx with 8gb Ram

The previous suggestions of putting in an ssd hard drive and bumping up the ram are good, but will cost about £100 and if you are competent in doing the work yourself then that's fine, but if you need to get a bloke in to do it, that's another £100 , so already we are half way towards a new pc
Do you need a new power supply unit for the extra componants?

At the end of the day, you could easily spend £250 upgrading, plus what you already spent in the graphics card, and you are still left with a 5 1/2 year old motherboard with a very mediocre CPU which will have a shorter life span than your new componants.

For me it's a no brainer,if the pc is 4 or5 years old, buy a new box. 2-3 years old, worth upgrading

I'm a pc engineer, this is what I do

This ^^^^

 

[ScienceBoy]

Upgrade the Ram to 8gb
Install a 128gb SSD and install your OS and ONLY the OS onto it.
Leave the 1Tb in for installing anything else, games, films, music etc.
Job done.:thup:

Surely 80GB is plenty if just looking to install OS only. If you install 128 feel free to stick 60GB of other stuff on it. I have done on mine and I get cracking performance (even after a couple of years).

TBH tho I have 3 SSDs in my rig full of games and for my OS and all run perfectly (I check 2-4 times a year when I take my gaming apart to deep clean it)

I stick mostly flight sims (inc Kerbal Space Program) and open world games on SSDs, everything else goes on my HDD.

I was VERY lucky when I bought my PC 6 years ago (bought it at the end of 2008/early 2009, I got the i7 920 when it first came out, I have yet to push it performance wise (Ive run it at 3.8GHz for nearly 6 years too). I think I have probably another 2-3 years, meaning I could even get a decade out of a motherboard and CPU. The graphics card needs updating every 2-3 years however!

I also recently upgraded to 16GB of RAM, it was a freebie tho so no reason not to, never been anywhere near it and I run some big programs (in 64bit mode too) that can eat 8GB on their own!

CPU wise, the modern i5s are very good but steer clear of older i5s as they did not do so well! A modern i7 is really enthusiast territory and i3s have and always will be budget.

I think you will agree Fragger that the old i7 920s were years ahead of their time and there is no need to upgrade if you have one running like mine.

 

[Taz]

This ^^^^

I'm beginning to think this way as well now.

Not sure if I should wait for win10 or look or a deal now

 

[PhilTheFragger]

No need to be worried about windows 8, download Classic shell, it gives you back the conventional start buttonas in xp/7 etc

Windows 10 is a few months off but will feature a normal start button as native
Depends how dead your system is as to whether you upgrade now or wait

 

[Taz]

No need to be worried about windows 8, download Classic shell, it gives you back the conventional start buttonas in xp/7 etc

Windows 8 is a few months off but will feature a normal start button as native
Depends how dead your system is as to whether you upgrade now or wait

Not dead, just slow to boot and hangs sometimes.

Used to do a lot of gaming, not so much now, guess I can butcher the old one if needs be.
I'll keep a watch on hduk.

 

[Taz]

Not dead, just slow to boot and hangs sometimes.

Used to do a lot of gaming, not so much now, guess I can butcher the old one if needs be.
I'll keep a watch on hduk.

Think I'm going to bite the bullet in the new year.
Zoostorm a good place to start looking.

Just a quick question what do I do about getting data off the old desktop ?

 

[ScienceBoy]

Futureproofing is easier now as hardware is way beyond what software requires of it (unless in specialist areas). Which is why my PC, due to be 8 years old in Feb, will last me until 2018 (10 years old) or even beyond!