New(ish) PC Advice Please

[clarion]

I have a desktop PC which I bought with my redundancy money, so probably 2006.

It's a bit crap, and dying.  I've tried (with kind help from folk on here) to revive it, with limited success, and I think I just need something new.

So I'd appreciate advice from the wise heads on here, who know a lot more than me about ICT.  Anyway, here are the parameters:

1.  Funds are strictly limited, but I can reuse peripherals (as long as I can persuade bothe printer & scanner to behave).

2.  I'm not very IT literate.  I can use applications, but I have never been able to get to grips with computers, so I want something simple.  Previously, I had XP as the OS, and installed free shareware for office/browsing duties.

3.  Storage is in external hard drive.

4.  Must have umpteen USB ports and then a few.

What I want to do with it is this:

a. Browse internet, post on fora, buy too much stuff off ebay & other online retailers (current PC needs a dodgy dongle to speak to the rest of the world)

b. Play DVDVDs and music, including streaming digital radio (current PC has completely given up on this).

c. Scan, upload and process photos in JPG and RAW.  Maybe print, too, sometimes.

d. Occasionally create documents - letters, spreadsheets and the like.  That'll be covered by OpenOffice or equiv. (but must be MS compatible for work purposes).

e. Very occasionally, use Skype or equiv for telephone calls.

f. Syncing my Nokia Lumia phone.  I know this shouldn't be difficult, but I've never managed to sync any phone with any computer.  Ever.

No gaming at all. Well, maybe the odd game of dominoes if someone's written a decent one by now.  Or chess, I suppose.

I think that's it.

Until I think of summat else

Any suggestions?  And, no, however cheap it is, I do not intend to build something myself from a box and a series of cards, as I'd make such a pain of myself needing expert guidance all the way through both the selection of the parts and the construction.

Over to the panel.

[clarion]

It does occur to me that someone wanting more out of a computer than I do might be throwing out something that would suit me fine, in which case, I'd be interested in buying.

[Polar Bear]

And likewise, somebody wanting less from a computer than you, or somebody able to repair and upgrade one, might be interested in buying your system box.   

[clarion]

They might. 

And I would gladly pass it on to anyone who can do more with it than I, though I fear it would need stripping out to an empty box and everything else chucking.

[Biggsy]

Any new bottom-end desktop PC would do all you want, Clarion.  The world is your lobster.  RAW processing would benefit from a more powerful CPU of a more expensive PC, but that's not essenitial.  Depends if you want the luxury of high speed.  You won't need a new monitor and keyboard, so find retailers who will sell you just a main unit.

I doubt that the 2006 PC couldn't be up to the job.  Is there anyone who could take it for a few days to reinstall an operating system and tune it up for you (and maybe change one or two components)?

[clarion]

Speed would be a novelty, since the existing unit is remarkably slow.

I'd be willing for anyone to take it to have a poke around and refresh, but I had help from a forumite, including replacing the sound card, downloading new CODECs and remotely accessing the machine, but we couldn't get the DVD playing (or any music) going again.  Even Youtube vids crash after about a second or so.

[Martin109]

It's a bit unclear whether the poor performance you report is due to low-grad spec or degraded software and possibly bugs/viruses.

Perhaps you could post the basic specifications.  Someone'll be along in a minute to tell us how to do that.  I might know with Linux, but not with Micro$haft Windoze!

[Biggsy]

The spec of any 2006 PC is likely to be good enough for Clarion's needs.  The operating system and drivers should be reinstalled from scratch - then, once setup properly, it will seem like a new computer.

I believe it only makes sense to buy a new PC if you want a significant step up from what the old one could be like, not from what it's like now.  In that case I suggest something with an Intel i3, i5 or i7 CPU.  The make of computer is unimportant, just the computer's spec and the reliability of the retailer is important.

[clarion]

I did forget to add that we wanted to use the PC for mapping and syncing with the GPS (when we find it )

[Bledlow]

I have a 20th century scanner & a printer bought in 2007 (but a dated model even then) running on a 2012 Windows 7 PC.

The printer won't do networking (it did under XP), but otherwise works perfectly.

The scanner doesn't do Win7 - but it's happy running on XP inside VirtualBox, which is free. A little fiddly, but we don't do much scanning, so that's a minor drawback.

If the old computer is kept, it might be worth giving it as much memory as it'll take, if that hasn't already been done. Too much memory hungry software nowadays.

Mapping & passing files back & forth to a GPS should be no problem with either XP or Win7. I do it now, & did it in 2009 with my old XP machine.

[Woofage]

I've got a couple of AMD based motherboards, c.2008/9 (I think) each with 4GB RAM if they're any good to you.

[clarion]

I have no idea at all if they are of any use to me at all.

That's part of the problem.

[Biggsy]

How about a Dell Vostro 270?  Being in the "for work" range, they come with the option of Windows 7 rather than Windows 8.

http://www.dell.com/uk/business/p/desktops-n-workstations.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=bsd&~ck=mn#!facets=40186~0~3280677,40186~0~3317863&p=1&sort=price

[PH]

Any suggestions?  And, no, however cheap it is, I do not intend to build something myself from a box and a series of cards, as I'd make such a pain of myself needing expert guidance all the way through both the selection of the parts and the construction.

There is a middle way
Buy a bundle, that's motherboard, CPU, cooler and memory.  Built and tested ready to drop in and connect drives to.  OK, if you've got older IDE drives you may need to upgrade to SATA or use a converter. If you're not confident doing it I'm sure you can find someone with a spare hour or two.  If you're on a budget it make no sense to buy the parts you already have unless there's something wrong with them.
I use Scan computers, decent prices and service, watch out for the daily deals.
http://www.scan.co.uk/value-hardware-bundles

[Gattopardo]

Can pop over and have a look in return I would like to see clarifly.

I run a dual core that seems to do everything fine.

Have a spare one kicking about if needs be.

[ghostrider]

How about this

[Jakob]

Another vote for any Intel i3,i5 desktop PC. (i7 would be overkill, IMO). Get 1 or 2 ports of USB 3.0 if you can, but it's not critical.
Windows 7 is currently a better option than Windows 8, but that might change when 8.1 comes out.

Forget rescuing your 2006 PC...even Macs from that era are mostly worthless.

[Polar Bear]

How about this

Decent enough but needs more ram as running Win7. 

[pcolbeck]

Another vote for any Intel i3,i5 desktop PC. (i7 would be overkill, IMO). Get 1 or 2 ports of USB 3.0 if you can, but it's not critical.
Windows 7 is currently a better option than Windows 8, but that might change when 8.1 comes out.

Forget rescuing your 2006 PC...even Macs from that era are mostly worthless.

Not so. The core2duo came out in 2006. The PC I am writing this on is from 2006 and has a core2duo and is fine for Windows 7 (though I'm booted into Linux right now). 4GB of RAM would help make things snappier but it should be fine. A decent graphics card alos takes the load off (and by that I mean a £30 one - that will be much better than an onboard graphics chip).

I am more worried about Clarion saying storage is an external hard drive. If he means he is booting and running Windows of an external HD as perhaps the original internal one died than I am not surprised its slow.

A reinstall from scratch (with a reformat of the hard drive) would be the first thing I would do and then by careful not to install loads of guff.

[Kim]

A machine from 2006 may be fine now, but if you're going to all this effort, it'd be better to future-proof it a bit.  I'd also be concerned about all the spinny stuff being on the wrong end of the bathtub curve.

What Moore giveth, Gates taketh away.

[StuAff]

My Mac Pro is 2006 vintage and still feels quick 95% of the time on 95% of jobs (x264 encoding of 1080 video sucks, let alone blu ray encodes...) But then it does have dual dual-core Xeons, a Radeon 4870 and 11GB of RAM. I'm thinking of getting one of the new ones, but the 2006 will be kept on.

[clarion]

Can pop over and have a look in return I would like to see clarifly.

I run a dual core that seems to do everything fine.

Have a spare one kicking about if needs be.

I do think I need someone to eyeball the poor old thing, before buying new intestines.  So that would be a helpful plan.  Besides, anyone can come over and cuddle  the wean (so long as they don't mind a bit of puke).

Kim's idea of future proofing is something I have in mind, which is why I want to be sure I'm not throwing money at something that's going to die soon anyway.  I'm concerned that, even with the new sound cards and all the work put in, it wasn't possible to revive that function.

Anyway, best to assess it before we go any further.

[Woofage]

I have no idea at all if they are of any use to me at all.

That's part of the problem.

Fair enough, but if you find someone willing to perform a brain transplant on your existing box you're welcome to one of them for the price of postage.

[pcolbeck]

I do think I need someone to eyeball the poor old thing, before buying new intestines.  So that would be a helpful plan.  Besides, anyone can come over and cuddle  the wean (so long as they don't mind a bit of puke).

This is the best plan. Essentially a PC will work as fast now as it did seven years ago running the same software (or similar stuff). Age doesn't slow it down or stop things working, digital electronics don't age that way they either work properly or they don't.
Windows however gradually accumulates cruft as you install and de install stuff and generally mess around with it. It gets slower and slower and you get a whole bunch of old and new drivers for things on there fighting and stopping some things working. A reinstall from scratch will make it as fast as when new. A new PC will suffer exactly the same fate eventually.
You may of course have a few failed bits (USB ports etc) but if your on a budget I would recommend a reinstall first.
If you aren't happy doing it yourself then bribe someone who is to do it for you. A barter system involving cake and hugging babies should prove successful.

[Canardly]

Have a look here

http://www.itcsales.co.uk/