Help Me Replace My Windows Computer

In My Humble Opinion
81

But we’re back to the question: why would those processes be using CPU and disk bandwidth?
It’s true that occasionally you get a lot of activity caused by updates, but those run at boot time and finish once they’re done.

Once the system has been up for a while and finished any update activity, there shouldn’t be any processes consuming significant CPU or disk bandwidth if you don’t have any user apps open.

The OP’s problem still sounds a bit suspicious?
There are viruses that disguise themselves as system processes…?

82

I bet it’s just swapping. 8 GB isn’t much these days. Or maybe it’s bloatware/adware, as you suspected, but if they’re going to replace the system anyway, it’s not worth troubleshooting.

Most home Windows installations seem to inevitably end up in this state after a few years =/ Whenever I use someone else’s Windows PC, it always feels like I’m walking into an overflowing bathroom.

And Microsoft doesn’t really care to help consumers keep it clean and try to prevent bloatware over time. They’d much prefer you just buy a new computer…

83

In the last 30 years I don’t think I have ever replaced a bad CPU. I have replaced main boards in laptops that have failed that might have been due to a CPU that doesn’t work, but if the diagnostic is “Failed to POST” it is just classed as a board replacement.

84

But why would it be swapping? If a process is not running, it won’t need extra virtual memory: no page faults etc… it’s suspended.

Of course bloatware and adware are almost unavoidable these days, and they all run updaters in the background. I remember in the days of XP when I could clean things up to only about 10 running threads… those days are gone forever…

I blame the BSD UNIX people for introducing the idea of userspace ‘daemons’ for stuff that should probably have been done in the kernel, but was easier for undergrads to prototype in userspace…

But we digress. Probably time for a different thread about that?

85

Who cares about value? They’re not investments; they’re just a tool.

What counts is functionality, and in general what @Railer13 is doing is really lightweight use. - looking on the Dell site, it looks like pretty much anything in the $1000-ish range is going to be more than they absolutely need, but would give some cushion for future needs.

And you absolutely can build it better yourself. Not necessarily cheaper, but dramatically better for about the same money, because you can prioritize the things you care about, and ignore the rest. Or you can go cheap, then upgrade piecemeal as you can afford it. Can’t really do that with a canned PC from a store.

86

Yeah, upgrading RAM is up there with the easiest of home improvement projects- changing a doorknob is FAR more difficult and finicky. The work is in the prep- making sure you get the right kind.

The actual installation is just snapping the new modules into their sockets and tweaking your BIOS, if that’s even necessary. I don’t think it would be on my current motherboard, as long as I got more of the same memory that I’ve already got.

87

Yep, I heard back from the local computer shop, and I think I’m going to purchase a unit from them. I’ll probably do so next week.

One thing that I like is that the machine will have Windows 11 installed…and nothing else. No Office 365, no McAfee, etc.

In the meantime, if anybody wants to continue this discussion, have at it. I’m finding it interesting!

88

Eh? I dunno about you, but I ain’t rich. I want my tools to be reasonably priced for their functionality, whether it’s a computer, a car, a cordless drill, or a hammer.

That’s especially the case with computers, whose performance worsens over time as its hardware stays the same but software and websites get more bloated and new OSes stop supporting older hardware. Periodic replacement is a common practice.

Even if you’re made of money, there’s no sense spending it on things that won’t help your current uses (like a GPU for the OP) rather than just setting that money aside for a better replacement system (or piecemeal upgrades) in a few more years.

The OP gave a price range. The lower end of that can already meet their needs, with room to spare. The higher end of that is excessive for the stated uses. The OP’s needs are very, very basic. There’s nothing wrong with that, they just don’t need a superpowered workstation.

Yes, you can get one of these bad boys for $10,000+, but it’ll only be marginally faster for the things the OP is doing on an everyday basis. It’s like buying a Ferrari (or whatever fancy cars they make these days) for your 15-min commute to work on the local roads.

As for building it, sure, you can optimize parts here and there, but it only increases the maintenance surface that the OP has to personally handle, which is what they’re trying to avoid. And realistically, for a basic system like this, the only big boost they’re likely to get over a COTS prebuilt is going from a SATA to a fast NVMe SSD, but even Best Buy’s cheapest refurbs have that now. And going from their old mechanical HDD to a recent SSD of any sort is going to be such a huge boost already. The other stuff is mostly CPU and RAM, which might +/- 10-15% difference realistically, and probably not even that, especially single-threaded. If the OP doesn’t want to tinker, it’s not worth it. It might make sense for gaming PCs and professional workstations, not for the basic “I just need a computer for web and photos and spreadsheets” use case.

89

Great! If it helps, feel free to have them send you a spec sheet beforehand if you want any of us to look it over (edit: or maybe don’t, unless you want it to be nitpicked to death :slight_smile:). But it’ll probably be fine.

Yay! I’d leave Microsoft Defender on if I were you (it comes with Windows), but yeah, don’t add other antivirus on top of it. Most of them are worse than the actual viruses.

90

DDR5-4200? Are you insane???

/s

91

Good idea, and I just asked them for one. The website says “Intel i5 12400, 16GB RAM, and a 1TB SSD”.

Had already planned to do so!

92

That sounds perfectly reasonable for what you need. You could ask them about 32GB but I think it’s probably good as it for what you describe.

93

I had both at work and in my home - my personal computers. Sorry if the language in my post was not clear about that. I was also part of the IT department at work, though, so there’s that as well.

94

They can upgrade it to 32 GB…for additional money, of course.

95

What struck me when I replaced my old desktop (I got 10+ years out of it) last year is how NONE of the new out of the box computers or laptops I looked at my local store had optical drives.

Do they even sell PC games on CD/DVD anymore or is it all download/streaming?

96

Some markets still have games on optical disks, in particular Germany and eastern Europe I believe. But in general, it is digital downloads only.

Even games we released on DVD were really just a jump-start on installation; you immediately had to go online and install the latest patch and and expansions you’d bought. They were basically a Steam activation key in a box, you could throw the DVD away.

97

Aside from some intentionally retro box sets and your Office Depot 1000-in-1 game collections, it’s pretty much all downloads these days. Often, a boxed AAA game for PC will just be a download code in the box and the box only exists so Grandma has something to wrap for Bobby’s birthday/Christmas.

But if someone actually needs an optical drive, you can buy a USB external optical drive for maybe $25-$30

98

Not than those affected Intels, not by a long shot!

Over a 90-day period, Level1Techs found 1,584 crashes due to a decompression error in an unnamed game developer’s crash database. Out of that, 1,431 of the crashes were from the Core i9-13900K and Core i9-14900K. Keep in mind this is for all crashes in this 90-day period. For context, AMD’s CPUs in totality represented only four errors in the database over this period.

Before you think that Intel is just overrepresented, Level1Techs found that AMD CPUs make up about 30% of CPUs in the data, despite representing only 0.25% of crashes. Just the Core i9-13900K and Core i9-14900K alone — ignoring all other Intel CPUs — make up over 90% of the crashes.

99

If the OP is buying a 14th gen i9 for email and photo organizing, we need to have a talk for bigger reasons than potential CPU instability :smiley:

100

Nevermind optical drives, many otherwise single-player games these days require an always-online DRM check even after they’re installed. The pirates have it better…

You still can get internal 5.25" Blu-ray/DVD drives if you really want one, but many PC cases won’t even fit them now. And what are you going to put in there anyway? Most places are phasing out physical movie DVD sales & rentals too. Do they still sell music on CDs? (I honestly don’t know)

The consoles are similarly moving towards digital downloads only. There are also streaming services like GeForce Now, PSNow, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Luna, etc. where you don’t even have to run the game itself on your computer anymore. And much of the industry is moving towards the rental/subscription or at least live service model altogether, except maybe the indie games and a few diehards like Larian (Baldur’s Gate).

It’s not always a bad thing, though. Games that used to require a $2000 high-end gaming PC and a $60 purchase can now be played with a $100 Chromebook plus a $20 GeForce Now subscription and another $15-$20 game subscription service, which also gets you access to hundreds of other titles.