Computer help, Want to upgrade OS system
- Thread starter fatride
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scott wile
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- Joined
- Sep 8, 2004
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fatride said:
Buy, install, instant upgrade.
XP upgrades can be a PITA..Make sure you have enough power in the machine to run it well first...and before you do upgrade, make sure you back up or copy important files to a CD or something, in the event something happens during the upgrade..I've only upgraded one Windows ME computer and it sucked..Rest I just back up files, wipe it and start fresh..
Buy a new PC
No joke, a $300 Dell is a very good choice. OK, $350 you will want at least 512 of RAM. XP home upgrade on amazon is now $50 while not a bad price, you will want better performance that older computers (sub 1ghz) can't dish out. So major hardware upgrades are in order. I have built 500mhz machines for some people that had almost no money but I had to put in 756MB of memory and a 7200 RPM drive to make up for the slow processor (new machines would have this anyways).
http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/featured_basdt?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
You could also wait for the black Friday sales and pick up emachine or something if money is tight. Although, you'll may be looking at more money in repair parts down the road.
No joke, a $300 Dell is a very good choice. OK, $350 you will want at least 512 of RAM. XP home upgrade on amazon is now $50 while not a bad price, you will want better performance that older computers (sub 1ghz) can't dish out. So major hardware upgrades are in order. I have built 500mhz machines for some people that had almost no money but I had to put in 756MB of memory and a 7200 RPM drive to make up for the slow processor (new machines would have this anyways).
http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/featured_basdt?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
You could also wait for the black Friday sales and pick up emachine or something if money is tight. Although, you'll may be looking at more money in repair parts down the road.
Do NOT do an upgrade - you will be sorry. It may go OK, but chances are good it won't - or there will be all kinds of quirky things that come up in the future you won't be able to fix.
To run XP - now that they have SP2, you need a minimum of 256MB RAM. In the old days, 128 was enough to get by, but with the latest patches and security updates, the base OS is up to 142MB RAM now.
I would not run anything less then a Pentium III 600Mhz either. If you are not going to do any pictures and video, a 40GB hard drive is enough to get by with a fresh install.
If you do not meet any of these requirements, just replace the box. I don't prefer Dell, they upsell everything and before you are done, its $800 for a PC. Gotta pay for those million dollar commercial spots and bail for the "Dell dude".
I can get Compaq's from Microcenter for $279-$319 all day long. They run AMD 3100+ processors with 256Mb RAM and 80GB HDD. A perfect "parent's" machine IMHO. For the basic web browsing, wordpad typing, emailing older person, its more then enough horsepower and it comes with XP Home, which is fine as well.
Thats my real world experience rolling out machines to the "training wheels" crowd for years.
To run XP - now that they have SP2, you need a minimum of 256MB RAM. In the old days, 128 was enough to get by, but with the latest patches and security updates, the base OS is up to 142MB RAM now.
I would not run anything less then a Pentium III 600Mhz either. If you are not going to do any pictures and video, a 40GB hard drive is enough to get by with a fresh install.
If you do not meet any of these requirements, just replace the box. I don't prefer Dell, they upsell everything and before you are done, its $800 for a PC. Gotta pay for those million dollar commercial spots and bail for the "Dell dude".
I can get Compaq's from Microcenter for $279-$319 all day long. They run AMD 3100+ processors with 256Mb RAM and 80GB HDD. A perfect "parent's" machine IMHO. For the basic web browsing, wordpad typing, emailing older person, its more then enough horsepower and it comes with XP Home, which is fine as well.Thats my real world experience rolling out machines to the "training wheels" crowd for years.
Watch for the Dell deals
Yes, Dell as well as just about every other computer vendor will try to force you to get more hardware and extra crap. I always order online so I don't have to put up with sales people. I picked up one of my machines for less than $420 shipped 2.83 P4HT/80GBSATA/512MB/ 17 inch digital FP and a "free" dell "lexmark" color printer. Just watch the web site for sales and do not allow yourself to blow extra money. If you can find a better deal locally, great, it saves having to wait for the UPS man. I would still look at getting at least 512 MB of ram. You will still want enough resources to allow you to connect through all spyware and adware most home users gather over time. Most of the HP and Compaq machines I have seen lately perform very well. I know this one guy who buys his kids new HP desktops every two years, he has zero complaints about them. In fact, HP replaced one of them just because the hard drive died in it. The first thing I always do is format and perform a clean install to any system. The PC manufactures put so many crap programs on there, you might as well give up 25% of the performance to them. free.grisoft.com for the antivirus and zonelabs.com for the firewall (or any other free secure firewall). The OS reinstall may be a little more than you want to do at this time though?
I always have people create hotmail.com account so they can sign into messenger and allow me to connect whenever they have problems. The technology messenger uses for remote assistance is very much like what Microsoft uses on the higher end terminal servers (licensed from citrix). You will get a very fast link to the machine, if they asked you to pick out a computer, they'll be calling when it doesn't work. Good Lcuk!!
Yes, Dell as well as just about every other computer vendor will try to force you to get more hardware and extra crap. I always order online so I don't have to put up with sales people. I picked up one of my machines for less than $420 shipped 2.83 P4HT/80GBSATA/512MB/ 17 inch digital FP and a "free" dell "lexmark" color printer. Just watch the web site for sales and do not allow yourself to blow extra money. If you can find a better deal locally, great, it saves having to wait for the UPS man. I would still look at getting at least 512 MB of ram. You will still want enough resources to allow you to connect through all spyware and adware most home users gather over time. Most of the HP and Compaq machines I have seen lately perform very well. I know this one guy who buys his kids new HP desktops every two years, he has zero complaints about them. In fact, HP replaced one of them just because the hard drive died in it. The first thing I always do is format and perform a clean install to any system. The PC manufactures put so many crap programs on there, you might as well give up 25% of the performance to them. free.grisoft.com for the antivirus and zonelabs.com for the firewall (or any other free secure firewall). The OS reinstall may be a little more than you want to do at this time though?
I always have people create hotmail.com account so they can sign into messenger and allow me to connect whenever they have problems. The technology messenger uses for remote assistance is very much like what Microsoft uses on the higher end terminal servers (licensed from citrix). You will get a very fast link to the machine, if they asked you to pick out a computer, they'll be calling when it doesn't work. Good Lcuk!!
Dell has great deals if you know what you are looking for! I just bought a dual core pentium with a gig of ram, cd burner 80 gig sata and 19" flat screen for 600.00 for a friend.
If you really want to upgrade to XP on your old machine, post your processor, hard drive and memory specs here! And we can determine if it is woth it! Upgrades from 98 to XP arent that bad!
If you really want to upgrade to XP on your old machine, post your processor, hard drive and memory specs here! And we can determine if it is woth it! Upgrades from 98 to XP arent that bad!
Thanks for all your input guys! Well the only thing I know about the computer is it has a Pentium 3 in it with Windows 98. My Dad brought it home from somewhere. I have not turned it on yet to see what it has in it. Thought I would just buy XP and install that on it.
pIII, im guessing it will probally not run XP. the system probally does not have enough ram. turn it on find out which 98 it is. both are good but SE is the one you want. its probally the best out there other than XP. its stable and it will run most things still. DO NOT INSTALL OR UPGRADE TO ME. you will have nothing but problems with it gaurenteed. ME will only run good on systems designed for it. this is why ME was only availabe as OEM. do not upgrage either, when you upgrade you carry over all the problems the system had to begin with. A fresh install is always the best way to go.
