How much computer do I need?

In My Humble Opinion
21

How much memory are you actually using? I think that even 512 MB might be too little these days, with all the stuff we run in the background. Does Crucial’s scanner indicate that the PC can take 2x 512 MB?

If your PC uses less than 512 MB, upgrading to 512 MB would be a solution until your requirements change upwards. Adding memory is dead easy. Turn the PC off, completely unplug it if necessary, and get it at a comfortable work height. Open it, and you will see two long slots with tabs (usually white) at either end. Ground yourself by touching a radiator or something. Remove the 128 MB DIMM by pressing on the tabs, and insert the new DIMM in its place. The DIMMs are keyed, so they’ll only go in one way round. The tabs will pop up and lock the DIMM into place. Close up the PC and plug it all back in. When you power on the PC you may get a message saying that the amount of memory has changed; you’ll likely have to press a key to acknowledge. Tweaking the pagefile requires a little more information from you.

22

Okay, clearly the netbook is a shitty idea – that option is off the table.

Which leaves me with three options – in increasing order of $$, they are to add memory; buy a new desktop unit (keeping the current monitor, keyboard, mouse, all of which are okay … other than people laughing at my bulky old monitor); buy an inexpensive laptop.

I don’t really need a laptop – I don’t travel that much, and I’m not really the “hang out drinking lattes at Cosi” [local chain with free Wifi] type, and not just because I don’t drink lattes. It would be nice, but let’s take that option off the table also.

So – add memory or buy a new CPU – perhaps the one Engineer Dude linked to yesterday.

Quartz’s questions here seem relevant:

Using more memory than I’ve got, apparently (we’re talking 10 minutes or so to start up, seriously, and I have just about nothing on the machine – have deleted all photo and music files, e.g.).

I’m not at home right now, so don’t remember exactly what Crucial said, beyond the recommendation – are there limits on a machine of how much memory you can add without blowing up other shit?

If not, it sounds like adding a big ol’ memory, um, thingie might be the answer – even if significantly more than $35, it would be less than a whole new CPU, right?

Are there other factors than price that need to be considered here?

Between those two choices, which do you recommend?

23

Yes and no.

There is a limit to the amount of memory you can have and it is only usually limited by not having enough physical space to put the sticks in. If you have two slots, you can put in two sticks.

Nothing should be blowing up if you put in too much. Though I imagine if you were to merely buy even 2GB of RAM you’d be fine.

24

I’ve got two slots, apparently – that much I do remember. So I could take out both of the sticks I’ve currently got and put in two big sticks and I’d be good?

(And – obviously I’m not afraid to ask the dumb questions here – do I need to worry about what’s “on” the other sticks? Where is the data I have on the machine?)

25

Yes it would be that simple. Take the two you have now out, put in the two new ones. No data lost or anything of the sort. The stuff you save is to your hard drive, not the RAM.

26

I agree with astro. If you have a spare $400 bucks or so replace your desktop keeping the peripherals. Otherwise figure out your current specs so that we can advise you about the bottlenecks.

27

You can try diagnostic software like this one for that, assuming you use Windows XP. I haven’t tried it, it was the first free app I found but it seems capable enough.

28

As I say in the OP, I could come up with the money, but I would really prefer not to – so that “if” is pretty significant.

29

I see. I can’t say whether you’d be completely happy with only more RAM and an OS reinstall but I think the best value for money would be buying a second hand 775 socket system. That’s a type of Intel CPU mechanical socket. It’s being gradually replaced so it doesn’t have bleeding edge prices but the performance is still more than adequate for your purposes.

30

Is this the same thing as one of the options already discussed, or is this a third option?

31

That’s the “buy a used desktop” option Reply suggested before.

32

Ah. I thought that had been shot down as requiring that I know what the hell I was doing.

33

One thing to watch out for is disk space. If you like to download and save stuff–legally, of course–you will be surprised at how fast you can eat up the gigabytes. The same is true if you need to run professional quality apps like software development tools, graphics, sound engineering/recording and so on. Disk space tends to leak away over time through reinstallations and revisions–that is, it doesn’t really just vanish, but it can be difficult and time-consuming to recover. My wife’s computer’s HDD has about 200GB total and she’s hardly used any of it, but then she only uses it for letters, word processing, Facebook, etc. I have SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2010 on my current machine, whose HDD has only 68GB total, and I’ve only got about 21G left. I do have more than just those two things, but those are the main ones.

Keep in mind that whatever you think you need for accessing the Internet will probably not be enough in five years, because the average bar of what webpage operators expect their client systems to be able to handle keeps rising. You probably already know this with your old computer. Not much good for Google Street View, is it? For these things you are looking primarily at RAM (the memory that is directly connected to the CPU and most readily available), and processing speed. I would say, as an absolute minimum you would need at least 2G RAM for any medium to heavy duty processing needs, and only if there is room to add more RAM cards. And I wouldn’t want to use a system any slower than what I’m on right now–1.73GHz dual processors. (This is my older, slower machine that I had to take out of mothballs due to a power-supply problem with my main one).

34

One additional option that hasn’t been mentioned yet is buying a used Mac Mini.

Would Mac OS X be acceptable, twickster, or are you intent on sticking with Windows? If you’re unfamiliar with computers and security, a Mac is far less vulnerable to viruses and spyware (and the resulting slowdowns they often cause)… and for under $400, you should be able to find a recent used one.

One downside is that you might have to track down a copy of Microsoft Office for Mac (if it doesn’t already come with it – many used computers have Office installed).

35

Oh right… I suppose so. Good point.

Do try the Crucial suggestion then if money for a full upgrade is a concern. Maybe buy 512MB, replacing the 128MB stick for a total of 512 + 256. Still it’s a bit like replacing a worn out transmission on a gas guzzling rust bucket of a car. It’s harder to go wrong buying RAM so I’d say buy used if you can but now the hassle might not be worth it. In any case just make sure the memory type you get is compatible with your system (SDRAM, DDR RAM, DDR2, etc). The memory speed is not as crucial (no pun intended) but there’s no harm in choosing wisely either.

Let us know if you find out any specs like what kind of processor, chipset, memory, graphics or hard disk you have.

36

Okay, according to Crucial, I can only go up to 512MB, (can’t do dual channels, can’t do ECC memory). So it sounds like a new CPU would be a better bet.

37

With regard to the memory, if the memory slots can only take 256 MB, putting in a 512 MB stick is unlikely to work.

But I’ll repeat the question: how much memory are you actually using? Can you please go into the Performance tab of Task Manager as I detailed earlier and give us the figures? Because if you’re using over 384 MB and less than 512 MB then upgrading to 512 MB will be a very cheap fix for you; otherwise it’s a waste of money. You can then upgrade to a new box later when you’re feeling more profitable.

But I’ll give you an even cheaper partial fix until you get yourself sorted: leave the computer on 24/7. That way you won’t have any startup issues.

38

Physical memory: 361644 total (approx 25000-45000 available)
Commit charge: approx 637,000 (limit 718756, peak 659908)

At this point I’m leaning towards getting a new CPU, since I could do that for $300, which was what I was willing to spend for a netbook (which turns out not to be what I want, of course). Plus, with a newer computer, I could do things like upload to Photobucket, which I can no longer do because they upgraded from the old “browse” upload to the new kind that I totally don’t understand. I also can’t attach shit to Yahoo emails anymore because they upgraded the upload. Both of those would possible with a newer machine, right?

39

This indicates that upgrading your memory to 512 MB will not resolve your problems.

Yes, I recommend that as the way forward. Do be sure that it has at least 1 GB memory, preferably 2 GB. Newer software tends to be more memory-hungry.

I’m not familiar with those, so I can’t comment.

40

Anyone see any reason why this one wouldn’t be a perfectly fine solution to my problems?