Reply to: PC upgrade

[Ken Dodd]

sitrep

I ordered, recived and installed 1Gb Ram on Friday. The difference in system performance is amazing (and that is not over-egging it).

* Start-up is quicker
* Apps launch quicker
* The PC is not reading from the hard drive all the time(as it seemed to be before)
* Even shutdown is quicker.

With the 512mb installed previously, the memory must have been completely stretched - on-board graphics and then with Office 2007 on top. I know that 1Gb is not a lot, but then again this is only XP on this desktop.

I do have a supplementary question though:
I previously installed PC2100 Ram @ 256mb so the machine had 512mb. The memory I installed was PC2100 DDR, as this is what I was told was needed. When I removed the Ram on Friday I relised that the other Ram stick in there from new was PC3200. The new memory, as above, is Pc2100 also.
Have I created a problem for myself here? Would the 3200 be faster than 2100?
Cheers.

[Platypus]

I was forced to re-install everything once, and found it a giant pain as I have many applications (30+) installed. Luckily I tend to save installer programs when I download them. And I take regular backups. So each app had to be re-installed, with its own licence key. For some apps I'd lost installers and/or keys and getting them back for 2-3 year old apps is troublesome.

Reason for my re-install? A registry cleaning product (designed to make my machine run faster) trashed the registry!

I'd be shy of doing this again unless I was buying a new (faster) PC.

P.S. I think you'll find that adding 2Gb of RAM will make a big difference to your machine's performance

[gingerjedi]

Having done this recently on a similar spec XP machine, I'd say wipe the hard disk and reinstall the OS. You'd be amazed how much difference a clean install can make.

But also WTS - PCs and even laptops are so riduclously cheap now, I wouldn't bother upgrading an old one.

I did that last weekend, to make it easy follow these steps:

1. Backup My Docs, desktop and favourites to an external drive.
2. Download service pack 3 and save it to the same external drive (saves a lot of time on updates).
3. Download BackupRex, it searches and saves all IE, Firefox and Outlook settings including your pst's, make sure it saves them to the external drive again.
4. Re-install XP from disk.
5. Put everything back.

I’ve got an old P4 2.0Ghz with 768Mb of ram and it’s made a dramatic difference, so much so I don’t see why I would ever need to buy a new PC?

[b0redom]

Never heard of the brand before, but DDR-1 memory is not available in any sort of quantity any more, and it looks like you're looking at ~ £30/gb

The raw clockspeeds may be similar to the current gen processors, but the architecture is different. It went:

P4
Netburst
Core2
Core2 Duo
Core i7 (current)

There were minor changes within these architectures, but generally speaking those were the revs. A £300 box from PC World / Dell will be in a different league performance wise over what you have now.

[NickNick]

Start - Run - DXDIAG will help in finding out what you have on there.

[Ken Dodd]

Update

First, thanks for all the advice!

I checked the machine last night - it is at home and I work away,hence the delay.

It is a Ei Machine 5025, which I bought from PC world about 4 years ago (ish).

It came with 256Mb of Ram, which I upgraded a couple of years ago by adding another 256Mb. The Ram is Pc2100 DDR.

when I did upgrade the RAM, it did make a noticeable difference to speed.

I am running M$ Office Enterprise 2007 and want to continue to do so - maybe that is resource-intensive?

I couldn't see anything to tell me what the motherboard details were, so no help there.

I did google RAM and put the details in the website I found. It said that the max RAM is 2Gb.

I did think that the P4 2.4Ghx was still fairly up to date - but maybe not.

[Fred Bloggs]

Depends on what you're doing with them, and if you have optimised the running daemons. You'll find that by default all kinds of crap are enabled which don't need to be: Bluetooth, PCMCIA daemons etc etc etc

Bloatware just like Windoze then!

[b0redom]

Depends on what you're doing with them, and if you have optimised the running daemons. You'll find that by default all kinds of crap are enabled which don't need to be: Bluetooth, PCMCIA daemons etc etc etc

[Fred Bloggs]

You could always consider putting Ubuntu Linux or some other Linux disty and watch the machine work a lot faster. And guess what? It will only cost you a CD. Some would tell you to get a Mac... but I am gonna tell ya that you could save yourself some money.

Sorry, but my machines that have had OpenSuse and Ubuntu on recently ran no quicker than they do with Win XP. Linux distros since removed from those PC's and just stick with XP.

[Svalbaard]

Probabaly already been said but there are system tasks that can be done to improve performance such as:

1. Regularly defragmenting the hard disk.
2. Running windows in "best performance mode".
3. Clearing out the registry.
4. Use a RAM optimiser.
5. Uninstall as much junk from the hard disk as you can.
6. Disable as many startup programs as you can to free up memory - MSCONFIG can do this.

There is a great free program called Advanced System Care from IoBit. This will do all of this for you with a nice friendly user interface.

To really make the difference though you can upgrade the memory, CPU and mainboard for about £150 if it is just file/print/web/mail tasks that you want to do. Or as someone else posted, buy a complete new cheap system for a couple of hundred.

[pmeswani]

Fairly basic questions, but outside my non-techy capabilities:

I have a desktop PC that is - when compared to my Vista laptop with 4Gb Ram - running fairly slowly. I have had it a few years, so you will understand when I say that I have previously upgraded the RAM from 256mb to 512mb. I don't think I need to run to the expense of replacement, but I would likle to make it 'better'.

The machine is running XP and has onboard graphics using 128mb (I think). The processor is a 2.4Ghz P4.There are two memory slots. The image on the screen is not as clear as the laptop image. I use the PC for internet and M$ office applications, no gaming. I do intend purchasing a new screen to replace the 17" one I have.

*What is the optimum amount of RAM I should install?
*Is there a limit of the amount of RAM a machine can handle?
*Should I install a graphics card? Will I gain from this?
*If I do install a graphics card, is it easy to get the PC to recognise it?

Do I need to consider anything else?

All advice gratefully received.

Thanks

You could always consider putting Ubuntu Linux or some other Linux disty and watch the machine work a lot faster. And guess what? It will only cost you a CD. Some would tell you to get a Mac... but I am gonna tell ya that you could save yourself some money.

[dinker]

Right-click My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Performance Settings and Adjust for Best Performance.

[VectraMan]

Having done this recently on a similar spec XP machine, I'd say wipe the hard disk and reinstall the OS. You'd be amazed how much difference a clean install can make.

But also WTS - PCs and even laptops are so riduclously cheap now, I wouldn't bother upgrading an old one.

[d000hg]

Really, P4 is very very very old tech. Why don't you just blow £300 on a cheap Dell?

Because he could buy 1GB of RAM for £30 and probably see some improvement.

It IS an old PC, miles slower than the cheapo things from PCWorld... I'd expect you can easily have 1GB RAM in it but beyond that not much else. You can certainly get a video card but you need to find out what kind of slots your PC takes... I'd assume it's AGP in which case some place will sell you something for maybe £20-30. An nVidia 6xxx for instance. Whether it makes any difference I don't know... if you want to run at a higher resolution on your nice new monitor then maybe/probably.

If your PC is bearably slow, I'd get RAM and a cheap video card with 128Mb+ onboard RAM, and blow £300 on a big-ass monitor.

[b0redom]

Really, P4 is very very very old tech. Why don't you just blow £300 on a cheap Dell? No messing about. No worries about RAM not working. No worries about your (presumably) old HDD packing in etc....