Computer Advice

[123GreatBuy]

Hi i have been building and fixing computers for many years and that is a very good computer which would be more than suitable for what you need it for.

P.S the 4GB Ram in the computer on its own is worth the £30 starting bid

[JimmyCee]

One of the most important ways to update a computer, have it run quicker is to max out your RAM {random access memory}
Find what you need and install it.
An easy job well worth the trouble and money, especially on 32 bit machines. 64 bit you need more also

[Juliebabe25]

A computer can always be brought back to its original speed.

You may just need to get a techhie guy in to do ti for you.

Why do people always say "they can't find their original disks"

People should know by now that you keep ALL disks that came with your pC

And you back up your files. (because one day your computer will get stolen, or break down, or get burned down)

And if this computer is 30 pounds starting price - what will you be prepared to go to ? 100 ? 200 ?

Windows 7 is so much better than XP.

So maybe get your present one fixed

Or look for one with Windows 7.

[sweetsandmemories]

Well I didn't win it but never mind.
Spent the best part of yesterday evening copying important 'stuff' to discs.
A colleague of my husband had added more memory about a year ago and 'serviced' it but just seems to be getting slower and slower recently - mind you it is approximately 7 (?) years old.
The discs that came with it are somewhere, just need to find them!!
I'm nervous about restoring in case it knackers it completely

[PetBazaar]

Why do people always say "they can't find their original disks"

People should know by now that you keep ALL disks that came with your pC

Um, yes miss!

And you back up your files. (because one day your computer will get stolen, or break down, or get burned down)

Backups are for wimps.

Everyone should have to panic about loosing all of their stuff at least once in their life. It's character building.

Think I'm in double figures now, and still haven't learned any lessons.

[JimmyCee]

If I had this problem (and I did one time).
I would gather up all the info I needed on computer.
Back it all up to what ever media you have available
Perform a full format, which means eliminating everything from your hard drive.
Freshly install your operating system, if you don't have one you must get one one way or other.
Add what ever programs you need or want.
XP or 7...go to Microsoft's site and download (Security essential's) it has everything one needs to stay clean.
It is a free offering by Microsoft, I have 3 machines running it and all runs fine.
I eliminated the McAfee, and other free and paid security programs I was using.
I also use Spy-Bot search and destroy, a great program from Germany and it's free. also
When I performed this on my XP computer it operated like a new machine.
Doing this will leave all the stuff that slowed you down out of the picture.
Then when you get another computer use this one to learn more and do what you need.
Do you have a local computer club? if you do they are very beneficial.
I by all means am not a computer techie, however when I have a problem I find out how to eliminate it.
A magazine is available Smart Computing great info in laymen s terms.
A great web site with question and answer forums, which I use frequently.
Hope this helps

[suesjools]

Not a techie here, but the above advice sounds great, definitely worth a try.

If you do need to get a new laptop, I'd recommend a Toshiba; mine is 5 years old now, and other than replacing the initial hard drive 2 years in, (had my puter guy do it), it's worked beautifully ever since, knock wood.

Oh and I also use Malwarebytes, (free download, recommended by my puter guy), to check and remove spyware, adware, etc. once a week or so, think this helps a bit with keeping speed up.

Good luck and best wishes for many sales to all,

[rokins_toys]

Hi,

My good old computer is getting slower and I think towards the end of it's heavily used life!
I don't really want to spend oodles on another one (not yet anyway!) and wondered if anyone could tell me if the following sounded any good? I only need it for usual stuff, internet, a few programs I use, nothing hardcore, and it's advertised as a starting price of £30?

[[AMD Athlon 64bit Duel Core 4200 2.21 Ghz Tower Unit Computer Amd 64bit Duel Core 4200 2.21 Ghz processor 4GB Ram Radeon 1550 Graphics Card Express BioStar Mainboard TF5 A2+ nVidia nForce 520/560 Chipset IDE x 2 & Sata II x 4 Hard Drive Controllers Lan Gigabit Realtek 7.1 ALC888 HD Audio Sound PS/2 Keyboard & Mouse 6 x USB Ports Back of Tower Plus 2 x USB Ports on top of Tower 250 GB Hard Drive 2xDvd/RW Rom Drives with Litescribe With original Windows Microsoft XP Pro Media Centre with Licence + Discs + Driver Disc All freshly been reloaded ready to go]] Cheers, Angie

Speed on a computer is determined by processing power, available memory (RAM) plus the memory capacity of the graphics card when online as well as the speed of the hard drive (RPM).

Personally, the computer you are on about above, I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. I would go for a computer with a processor that is minimum 3.2 or minimum 3.4ghz with boost facility like mine is. I would not have anything under 1GB on graphics memory with access to shared memory from the computers RAM. 4GB RAM is ok but in all honesty I would go for something that has 6GB ram as standard (like mine was, and can take mine up to 16GB ram if I wanted to), I would go for a minimum 500GB on hard drive with a minimum of 7200 rpm (the speed the hard drive works at so it's faster at finding things and accessing them) and for £300-£400 you can get a far better computer than the one you mention above and with Windows 7 which is far superior to Windows XP. You can even get refurbished computers from places like PC World which are far superior to the one you describe above lol..

Most people think they will only use their computer for limited things, but as time goes on, you find you use the comptuer more, install more programs which take up hard drive space and RAM, more processing power gets used etc and before you know it, you're computer is running like a snail in no time at all. Sometimes the cheaper alternative is not the best alternative, especially with computers.

You can always go for the above computer, but if it were me, I'd be upgrading it to Windows 7, replacing the hard drive with a minimum 500GB or 1TB and I'd be getting more RAM for it if it has the space. RAM modules come in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB forms and the one you have mentioned is only 4GB RAM so it is probably 2x 2GB RAM modules with 2 free slots for 2 more RAM modules so if you bought two more 2GB RAM modules you'll take it up to 8GB RAM and 2GB RAM modules are really cheap probably about £12.00 each on average depending on where you go but you got to make sure you get the right type as there are 2 different connection types.

The above "sounds like a nice computer" for the price, and if you can get it for the £30 plus whatever the shipping is, it will be cheaper to upgrade. 250GB is not a lot on a hard drive these days, so that would be the first thing to change for me on the above. 500GB internal hard drives are cheap enough as well these days and if the above computer has space and the connection for an extra hard drive, you can either buy another 250GB hard drive and fit it in if you can still buy 250GB drives or buy a 500GB hard drive taking the above computer up to 750GB between the two drives.

But hey, the processor lets the above computer down so although if you get the above computer it may seem fast to you for a few months, but as you put stuff on it, with the limited hard drive capacity, with it's limited processing power, it will be running like a snail by Christmas lol. Upgrading processors is quite costly, so you'd be better off buying a better model than the one that's on offer.

The above computer would be like a lap top for my desk top to use hehe.. But I do have a computer that is a year old, still running fast as anything and most describe my model of computer as the Astin Martin's of computers ) And it cost me a fortune too, but I need the power and speed it delivers..

[JaBek1]

I make it a point to do a complete restore of both my systems at least once a year, usually twice a year. Of course I keep copies of all my data files on a separate external hard drive. I reload all programs from disc or download from source site. This helps to keep junk from building up & slowing things down. This is something that my true geek friends taught me.

[meebo1]

As we are talking computers, has anyone an idea how to retrieve data from a broken external hard drive? Daughter 'borrowed' mine and now it has stopped working. Don't know what she did with it