Computer - PC experts please (1 Viewer)

[steve69]

My desktop PC is now 10 years old and still functioning OK - ish.
Is it time I bought a new one?, or is there any way I can restore the speed using one of the many clean-up applications that you could recommend.
I currently use Ccleaner as well as the PC-provided disk cleanup. Naturally I also have the "Avast" anti virus.
I've had my eye on an all-in-one unit. Any recommendations there please? Preferably below £500.
I don't do any gaming and rarely stream anything outside of youtube.

 

[berni109]

If it does what you want and it's not too slow trying the paid version of 'advanced system care'.
Or backup your data to external disk and re install windows.
Or backup then change to Linux system.

 

[Widge]

Unless you have loads of different programs installed, the most likely cause of speed issues will be the hardware not coping, you can improve performance by adding more memory or upgrading to a solid state hard disk.

Another possibility is to move away from windows to one of the many flavours of linux which will cope with the older hardware better than windows.

My suggestions above will probebly help, but you will need some technical knowledge to do it yourself, and it will likely only be a short term solution.

So sadly i think it is probably time to bite the bullet and replace it.

 

[Odd job]

My old pc was very slow, it was not able to be upgraded to windows 11, so I looked for a new one. I got a reconditioned Dell on Amazon for £120, I've had it for months now and it's working well so far

 

[Hettie's Crew]

Have you considered having a laptop instead of a PC. We had a PC, then an Apple IMac, then an Apple iMac 24 (the flat one), all desktops.
Once we bought a laptop we used the desktop less and less to the point we no longer have one. Whilst we preferred Apple stuff and have iPads, iPhones and a MacBook, we bought a windows lap top each (HP) and decided if we wanted large screen we’d buy a desktop monitor for anything that may require a large screen. There’s a huge range of specs, makes and sizes, there are much better people than me to advise what but we went for £500 HP’s direct from their website, 15” touch screen, 512gb SSD, 8GB ram, more than enough for what we need.
Plus you can take it away with you.

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[St3v3]

Buy an SSD and reinstall windows. It will be like day and night....

 

[Jev88]

The bottle neck on older computer will almost definitely be the hard drive. Switch to an SSD drive and double performance.

 

[Minxy]

Apart from what's been said above as you have an old processor it's never going to match those from the last few years so upgrading it is always going to be just a stop gap and personally I don't think it's a sensible thing to spend money on as it won't be cheap to do.

If you aren't adverse to a laptop then have a shuftie at them, I got a Lenovo recently from Argos which was on offer and it's brilliant and I can obviously take it away with me, something which I couldn't do with a desktop pc. If you want a larger monitor then you can get one quite cheaply to link to the laptop.

Hubby has an 'all in one' unit which he got for £100 and whilst it's not the fastest being an older one he loves it (he hates laptops!)

 

[Otter Spotter]

My Scan computer was built in 2016 and it’s slowed down in start up and will not take Windows 11 so I asked Scan if it could be upgraded and they said, keep it another 18 months or so til Windows 10 support ends then consider paying a new computer, it will be far better than adding new bits to an old system. He could have sold me a new motherboard and a new graphics card but gave free advice instead.

 

[Jev88]

My Scan computer was built in 2016 and it’s slowed down in start up and will not take Windows 11 so I asked Scan if it could be upgraded and they said, keep it another 18 months or so til Windows 10 support ends then consider paying a new computer, it will be far better than adding new bits to an old system. He could have sold me a new motherboard and a new graphics card but gave free advice instead.

I used to work closely with Scan Computers many years ago - great , honest team of people. The owner used to bung a £10 to the car park security of Bolton's ground and thrash his Nissan Skyline around it on a Friday night for fun.

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[scotjimland]

this is my view ..

what you spend on upgrades would be better spent on a new PC or indeed laptop

throwing money at an old PC is just a 'stop gap filler,' only delaying the inevitable ..
no matter what SSD drive you fit, your old hardware may not support the latest Windows 11 updates ..and security patches.. vital if using your PC for online purchase , Banking etc ..

I have an old iMac circa 2016 .. it's now called a 'legacy' model and cannot run the latest MAC OS .. so I bought a new MacBook Air for everyday use, but keep the iMac for photo managing as it has lovely big 27 in screen

If I were buying a Windows machine I would consider a Dell, they are decent laptops and have an outlet shop with refurbished models , all with full warranty

Dell Outlet Shop

 

[Gellyneck]

Apart from what's been said above as you have an old processor it's never going to match those from the last few years so upgrading it is always going to be just a stop gap and personally I don't think it's a sensible thing to spend money on as it won't be cheap to do.

You'd better sit down!

OK, have you done that?

Totally agree, now there's a first and no thanks for getting you to sit down first required!

I used to work closely with Scan Computers many years ago - great , honest team of people. The owner used to bung a £10 to the car park security of Bolton's ground and thrash his Nissan Skyline around it on a Friday night for fun.

We used to travel down from Glasgow every year for a function in Manchester and used to call into Scan to collect loads of computer bits. Used to build our own desktops at that time.

 

[Al n Val]

I’ve built dozens and dozens of Windows based pc’s for myself family and friends over the years, everyone needs virus protection and eventually clogs up and slow down

The last 8-10 years i’m apple based, 27” Imac, 15” Macbook pro, 12” Ipad pro, ipad and iphone 15 pro.

None of these items have ever had a problem, ever, and are as fast as xxxx

Imho windows is ok but Apple is fantastic

 

[steve69]

That's all great info from all of you.
I keep getting messages to the effect of 6Gb of junk etc. can be removed by paying £X for a "professional " upgrade to my installed cleaners. I get the impression I would be wasting my money. Thoughts?

 

[scotjimland]

That's all great info from all of you.
I keep getting messages to the effect of 6Gb of junk etc. can be removed by paying £X for a "professional " upgrade to my installed cleaners. I get the impression I would be wasting my money. Thoughts?

scam.. scam scam ... delete and block

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[Gellyneck]

I get the impression I would be wasting my money. Thoughts?

Correct.

Only way to really clean it is wipe the hard disc and do a fresh reinstall after backing up your data.

 

[meanders]

Correct.

Only way to really clean it is wipe the hard disc and do a fresh reinstall after backing up your data.

And if doing that install an SSD.

I have four laptops (three dedicated to specific jobs) and a tower. The tower dates from 2012 and over time has had a second processor, n=maxed out memory, and most recently a SSD with Windows 10. I do all my video editing on it as it has both a 1394 firewire port and dedicated card to read from my old, but still working well Sony and Sharp camcorders. I still have the SCSI array running but added the old mirrored system disks to the array. It dual boots into XP when needed for one very specific piece of software that doesn't run under W10. No laptop now comes with Firewire and despite having bought two different 1394 to USB adaptors neither works reliably. Oh and it still has a working 5.25 and 3.5 floppy drives that have come in useful when presented with a disk and asked if I can retrieve the video of Great Aunt Maud's last Christmas outing and the like! Last one I did was a video of Christmas on board a nuclear sub on the way back from the Falklands War that was on a poor copy VHS. I could not have done that with the laptop alone despite it being many times more powerful.

Without doubt the best upgrades you can make for performance are memory upgrades then a SSD for your system drive at least.

But my message is that you need to double check there is nothing you use on that machine that you need and cannot be replicated on a new machine. Other than that I agree, that in the absence of such functions, it's probably unlikely to be economically upgradable.

 

[Just smiffy]

I haven’t use a computer or laptop for around 10yrs, they look like steam engines to me now….

iPad…..

 

[scotjimland]

I haven’t use a computer or laptop for around 10yrs, they look like steam engines to me now….

iPad…..

yeah.. I also use an

 

[MattR]

My desktop PC is now 10 years old and still functioning OK - ish.
Is it time I bought a new one?, or is there any way I can restore the speed using one of the many clean-up applications that you could recommend.
I currently use Ccleaner as well as the PC-provided disk cleanup. Naturally I also have the "Avast" anti virus.
I've had my eye on an all-in-one unit. Any recommendations there please? Preferably below £500.
I don't do any gaming and rarely stream anything outside of youtube.

What do you like / want to do with your computer? Would you appreciate the opportunity to have the computer when you are travelling? How often would you be expecting to use the computer?

I've got around 20pcs that I'm responsible for at work... The older ones are approx 7 years old and have had new SSDs and ram upgrades. They are still slow and I'm requesting a budget to replace them over the next couple of years. They are fine for basic editing of media files but increasingly struggle with more complex tasks.

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[steve69]

What do you like / want to do with your computer? Would you appreciate the opportunity to have the computer when you are travelling? How often would you be expecting to use the computer?

I've got around 20pcs that I'm responsible for at work... The older ones are approx 7 years old and have had new SSDs and ram upgrades. They are still slow and I'm requesting a budget to replace them over the next couple of years. They are fine for basic editing of media files but increasingly struggle with more complex tasks.

I like to have a PC at home. I have a 10" Samsung A6 tablet for travelling, as well as my android smartphone.
I'm not bothered about streaming as such, although I do youtube a bit. Basically just for everyday browsing & reading really.
I use open office (Apache) for word processing now and again.
Not much else other than that really. Definitely no gaming.

 

[MattR]

I like to have a PC at home. I have a 10" Samsung A6 tablet for travelling, as well as my android smartphone.
I'm not bothered about streaming as such, although I do youtube a bit. Basically just for everyday browsing & reading really.
I use open office (Apache) for word processing now and again.
Not much else other than that really. Definitely no gaming.

I'd consider using your tablet more..
I don't think you can connect the A6 to an external monitor directly but you might be able to cast it using a Chrome cast. You should be able to use a separate mouse and keyboard for easier manipulation. Unless you have specific software requirements, your tablet can easily do what you've listed.

 

[Brummie64]

I'd recommend backing up all your data etc... and wipe the hard disk and then re-install Windows and all your applications, swap the disk for a solid state drive too, if it's not already one.
But I know from experience this a long process maybe a day or 2, and you need to know what you are doing, else risk data loss.

I've worked in IT for years, and used to do this every year or 2 for my home PC/Laptop , but the past 6/7 years I have switched to a MacBook that I use for photo and video editing, because Apple kit just works, not cheap but worth it for me.