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93 Comments
- inactive, on 04/03/2009, -0/+50Dugg for the image alone.
- Ommatidia, on 12/12/2008, -1/+39The article might as well have said:
1. Open PC case.
2. Remove everything inside the PC case.
3. Buy all new parts.
4. Put new parts in case.
5. Install OS. - hnazareth16, on 12/11/2008, -12/+46Dugg for ditching Windows.
- fszymanski, on 12/11/2008, -2/+32Just telling you to rebuild your pc..... This is stupid, with the way prices are you can get a pc for 400 bucks and be set.
- Thoal, on 12/11/2008, -2/+23I got an old Thinkpad from work, installed XP and had to spend a day getting every little driver installed and working. A week later I decided to put Ubuntu on it, and it managed to pick up EVERY device without any additional driver download.
- tgc1, on 12/12/2008, -1/+13I always find it funny when family brags to me that they've bought a new computer. After telling me the same story no more than a year ago. And I ask them why they bought a new one, and they said 'cause the old one was slow. *face palm* And then I go look at their computers, that they claim are slow (we're talking Ghz CPU's and the like) and they are chalk full of crap. Start trays 1/3 across the screen. I run msconfig disable all that crap + meaningless services and the computer is noticeably quicker. I tell them it could be back to factory speed if I format and reinstall the O/S. That's when their eyes glaze over.
Idiots. - j3ff86, on 12/12/2008, -0/+10Buried for thinking you need a PCI-E 2.0 slot to run a 9800 GT.
- Manther, on 12/12/2008, -0/+8I didn't notice any putting down of XP, just seemed like an honest experience by a real person. He really just said that it took him a day to get XP working, and no time for Ubuntu... Take what you want out of it, but you seem a little defensive for some reason...
- ansatsu29, on 12/12/2008, -0/+8Dugg too for the thumbnail. Barbecue looks tasty. How about kebabs?
- carve, on 12/12/2008, -0/+8I have an Apple laptop, but when I need Windows I still use an Athlon 550 overclocked to 600 Mhz. that I got in 1998! It gets used at least once a week. It was nearly $1800 back then, with 19" CRT monitor and bleeding edge DVD and CD-RW drives. The only problems it's had are a bad floppy and bad CD-RW- far more reliable than my MacBook in one year. In 2003 it was upgraded to XP with 384 mb of ram and an 80 gb HD. Guess what: for web browsing, typing, and even a bit of photo editing and desktop publishing it still works fine! It's amazing how little we've gained in general use usability in the past 10 years.
- Manther, on 12/12/2008, -2/+10It really is SOO pathetic that you care what other people care about.
- BodomChild16, on 12/12/2008, -5/+13Ubuntu FTW
- Dubbsacc, on 12/12/2008, -4/+11Congratulations, you installed an operating system that collects drivers gradually over time, written by people specifically for this older hardware. While Microsoft requires vendors to supply the appropriate drivers. If the company decided not to continue the hardware past 2000 then it's going to be a little tough to find XP drivers. Those drivers are also written by other people, Microsoft just doesn't go around collecting them.
That's why Linux is great I agree, but really no need to put down XP. - tvanwyk, on 12/12/2008, -0/+6For the last time, learn how to use the word "hack."
- inactive, on 12/12/2008, -0/+6What a ***** article. Also anyone that's not keen on upgrading or building their PC should not be buying RAM like Crucial. Get Kingston, its cheaper, more compatible, reliable etc.
- marcford89, on 12/12/2008, -2/+8If your computer is too old, the graphics card bit might be a bit tough finding something that will actually fit in your motherboard.
- inactive, on 12/12/2008, -0/+5@ Manther
I see you've met Jerrycurly (AKA, Moe the Bully).
He specializes in FILS (Flame In Lieu of Substance). He just referred to you as pathetic. This is the kind of objective analysis that makes this little troll so much smarter than you or I. Let us all bow to his emotional ejaculations, rantings, ravings and his use of caps. - nnagflar, on 12/12/2008, -0/+5Luckily, PCI Express 2.0 is backward compatible.
- icexe, on 12/12/2008, -0/+5Assuming you want to stick with Windows and don't want to spend money on upgrades, I'd recommend doing a PC "tune-up" and optimization:
- turn off the bells and whistles, if you have XP, install TweakUI and set the menus and windows to open immediately instead of sliding or fading into view. You'd be amazed how much snappier Windows will seem afterward.
- disable services you don't need.
- Instead of reinstalling windows, uninstall all the crap you don't use anymore, then use a good registry/system sweeper like CCleaner to clean out all the junk (run it several times until it reports no issues found). You'd be surprised how many hundreds of megs of .tmp, .chk, broken registry keys, browser cache file, and orphaned files Windows accumulates over time.
- defrag
- install all the latest drivers
- If you have Symantec anti-virus or system protection "software", get rid of it immediately, and install something that uses less resources, like AdAware and Avast or NOD32. Nothing brings a system to it's knees faster than that piece of Bloatware.
- try overclocking your CPU a bit
- give the system a good dusting and cleaning. Dust can cause your system overheat, which can lead to components working slower or causing errors. Besides, a clean computer will look like a new computer.
By the way, this is a good service to offer people if you want to make some quick and easy bucks on the side. - aspec, on 12/12/2008, -0/+5Aside from the recommendation in buying a 64 bit OS to take advantage of your 4 gig ram upgrade (really?), I don't think the idea was to take all the advice in aggregate. I believe the intent was to give suggestions to people if they had not already done these things. And to fill time while the other guy was out.
Reinstalling your OS is often the cheapest way to get extra system performance. Everything except DDR3 and RDRAM is available for dirt cheap now, and a new video card does go a long way if you're still using one of those crappy onboard chipsets that intel and nvidia used to stack on every OEM motherboard.
None of these options runs close to the $350 that the lowest end pc at best buy would cost you. Your system might still outperform those low end systems as well, considering that you'd do well to upgrade the RAM and probably video card in the bottom of the line system. Neither would you be hassled about services plans.
/Just sayin' - underdog5004, on 12/12/2008, -0/+5I don't get the whole "My computer is obselete in 2 years" meme
I've got a Pentium D (3.4Ghz) and 3Gb of RAM
that processor is over 5 years old and it is fast enough for pretty much anything (tremulous, sauerbraten, Compiz, etc...)
I've never felt that my computer "got slower" over time. It's just not the nature of Soldid state circuitry to slow down over time. Hell, cool it and you can make it go faster!
I also use a 500Mhz Celeron for file servering. Sorry for any typos but the digg comment boxisn't expanding with the length of the comment. and yeah, Iknow I probably could have typed it up in open office and pasted it in....shutup
I'
I n - InfernoX, on 12/12/2008, -2/+6Maybe if the article mentioned overclocking I could digg it. Sorry, upgrading the hardware inside your PC is not "getting more miles out of your old PC" and is in fact building a new one.
- coldkill3r, on 12/12/2008, -0/+4Should I switch the socket to the AM2?
- darkNiGHTS, on 12/12/2008, -2/+6Spend $1800 on a computer today and you'll definitely notice a difference.
- SchmuckofNI, on 12/12/2008, -1/+5Not necessarily true, the radeon 3200 onboard graphics card seems to work great and I can play every game I have thrown at it.
- ClevelandBrown, on 12/12/2008, -0/+4Even better, if you have at least $800, these days you can build a very nice system. Which can even run crysis at high settings.
- inactive, on 12/12/2008, -0/+4i saw the remains IRL
and which one has the comic font on top? - Fyrezerk, on 12/12/2008, -0/+49. Use BP fuels, with Invigorate.
- Manther, on 12/12/2008, -0/+4I'm going AM2 for myself this Christmas... A friend's got it, and he couldn't be happier... I've never been disappointed with AMD.
/my2cents - regeya, on 12/12/2008, -0/+3In all honesty, that's why I bought an entirely new rig for the first time in 10 years this year. For the price of trying to get another machine up to snuff, I could build a new 64-bit system. No-brainer, really, and I now have something which I can upgrade piecemeal again, hopefully; if not, hopefully prices will stay low.
- tvanwyk, on 12/12/2008, -0/+3Defragging is no panacea. It sure as hell won't clear up hosed and glutted registry hives.
- dkla, on 12/12/2008, -0/+3Tell your two friends to stop looking at pr0n... :)
- Meocross, on 12/12/2008, -0/+3Digging for the same.
- nnagflar, on 12/12/2008, -1/+4I hate it when it doesn't fit.
- Truth3, on 12/12/2008, -1/+4I can almost taste the lead poisoning from here. Yummy!
- inactive, on 12/12/2008, -1/+4#9 Just get a cheap new pc... These days 400$ laptops are way higher in terms of standard that 2000$ was back in the day... Spend that 400 and you'll save yourself a headache.. Trust me, spending days and money trying to tweak your old p3 will make you a better geek but won't get things done. The internet has become too heavy.
- robbie32, on 12/12/2008, -0/+3Most of these aren't "hacks." They're upgrades. You're better off just buying an entirely new computer since new hard drives, video cards, and memory won't be compatible with your old motherboard anyway.
- centran, on 12/12/2008, -1/+4by the time I get to the point of ditching windows I just build a new machine.
However, there is still use for the old machine. I do ditch windows for linux. The old machine become my new "server". You don't need a really fast computer if you are not installing a GUI on it. - dimension89, on 12/12/2008, -0/+3ZING!
- Th3_anOmoLy, on 12/12/2008, -1/+4I do it with Ubuntu.
- Technopundit, on 12/12/2008, -1/+4That's because they threw away their reinstall disks.
- CoolHandLuke, on 12/12/2008, -0/+3That's what she said!
- rolf, on 12/12/2008, -0/+3Unless it's a netbook, a $400 fullsize notebook is going to be a clunker. Minimum video and the CPU may be (probably is) a desktop CPU crammed into a notebook - with the already minimal batteries that these things come with, it's going to have no real portable battery life. Spend a little more for something that can actually be used as a notebook, and not just a more portable version of a crappy desktop.
- TheBuzzKiller, on 12/12/2008, -0/+3I would start at the last choice #8. It's free, easy-ish, and works even better on slightly older hardware. I just tossed MythTV on my old laptop, hooked it up to my TV (using S-Video), and now have a decent Media Centre/DVD Player/etc.
- darkNiGHTS, on 12/12/2008, -1/+4I have a $30 8400gs that works fine for everything but new games.
- tvanwyk, on 12/12/2008, -1/+3Sounds like a reason to not use Vista. For a basic desktop environment, a basic integrated video chipset made in the last three years should be enough. And that's one of the problems of Vista.
That notwithstanding, a decent video card these days is not that expensive, so call it $450 + five minutes to pop the case open and seat a card in a socket. - shinkou, on 12/12/2008, -0/+2The only thing I disagree with is "4. Get a Bigger Display". I don't know for the rest of you, but the BSoD is already annoying enough on a 15" monitor. :(
- FlyingCaveman, on 12/12/2008, -0/+2I think you just said Linux is easier to use than Windows.
Actually, I think it is. That's who the article was written for, people who ARE too ignorant to use Windows. That's why the first step is too re-install everything. Its the quick and lazy way for the people who aren't going to get to the other steps dealing with Windows tweaks and hardware upgrades or ever going to learn how to maintain their windows install.
Its ironic, I'm smart enough to use windows, yet I'm so lazy that I'd rather run Linux. Just think of all the time I'm not going to waste with product activation, de-fragging, registry clean-up, running anti-virus or re-installing my OS.
Hey, I think the chicken is done.!
- tgc1, on 12/12/2008, -0/+2They don't even know what a reinstall disk is.
- tvanwyk, on 12/12/2008, -0/+2You really must have a fossil on your hands if the hypothetical computer in question doesn't have a board with either a PCI or AGP bus.
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