Our home computer has been running slowly for a long time now. I tried erasing everything and starting from scratch about 3 months ago but the problem still persisted. I didn’t think the computer was that old, but when I checked my purchase history at NewEgg, it showed I was already pushing past 4 years on this PC. $360 later I had an almost entirely new machine. For the techies who read (is that just Joe?), I ended up with:
- Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 Allendale 2.4GHz
- 4 GBs Ram
- Pioneer DVD +/- RW
- nVidia GeForce 8400GS 256
- Abit AB9 Pro Motherboard
After about 4 hours, the machine was up and running with Windows XP installed and patched up, Network/Video/Sound drivers updated, and Firefox installed. This morning I got down to tweaking Firefox with my favorite add-ons. Next up is getting Microsoft Office and iTunes installed.
Sa-weeeet!
I noticed you didn’t go after the hard drive though. Hard drive access time is usually one of the major factors in perceived slowness. Something to think about anyway…
The hard drive was replaced a little over a year ago when the old one started acting up. I have a 200 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200. I was looking at the Western Digital VelociRaptor however. I just couldn’t justify the upgrade while this one is relatively new and working still.
I am in the market for a working old hard drive however. All my old pieces still work, so if I can find an HDD and Monitor, I can start experimenting on a Linux system.
I can get you a 17″ CRT if you want it. I might be able to dig up a 20GB hard drive — I don’t know if that’s big enough for Linux or not..
If the monitor is free, I’m there. The 20 GB would be big enough to get started on I would think, so if there’s one of those lying around as well, that would be great.
I’ll see if I can get the monitor in Alicia’s car. The hard drive might take a little while…
Okay…you two just left the rest of us in the dust!!! 🙂
Seriously, though – $360 doesn’t sound that bad to me. I’m assuming you did all the labor yourself…
Thanks a lot Joe!
Eric: Yes, I did do all the labor myself. It’s usually a 70/30 mix of fun and frustration. The shopping part takes the longest because I worry that I’ll get pieces that don’t play nicely together. The frustration usually comes from getting the heatsink on the CPU correctly. This one was the easiest in a long time to get done though.