should I build a new PC?

[Talal Itani]

My current PC has Pentium 4, 133 MHz bus, overclocked to 150 MHz. I have 1
GB of memory, and 160 GB disk drive. I am opening many applications
together, so I need more memory. I am also running out of disk drive space.
I am split between upgrading memory and drive, and building a new PC.
Please advise me so that I can make the right decision. Thank you.

Talal Itani

 

[Conor]

My current PC has Pentium 4, 133 MHz bus, overclocked to 150 MHz. I have 1
GB of memory, and 160 GB disk drive. I am opening many applications
together, so I need more memory. I am also running out of disk drive space.
I am split between upgrading memory and drive, and building a new PC.
Please advise me so that I can make the right decision. Thank you.

Talal Itani

What do you use your computer for? Apart from the disk space and memory
issues, does it work OK for you?

 

[Talal Itani]

What do you use your computer for? Apart from the disk space and memory
issues, does it work OK for you?

Thanks. It works ok, but I often have to wait on things to happen. I do
desk top publishing, some audio processing. I run accounting software, word
processing. I do much we browsing. I like the idea of a dual processor
CPU, because I often have a task running in the background. I never used
one of the newer PCs, so I do not know if a new PC will improve the speed of
things. I like to get Vista with a new machine, yet a friend told me to
wait on vista, until it stabilizes. So, I do not know what to do yet.

 

[Bob Fry]

I had roughly a similar choice a few months ago, and I built a new PC
because I had never done that and wanted to. But realistically I
could have got nearly as good a PC for a lot cheaper buy just buying
one. True, I got a motherboard that has builtin RAID and I do use that
so I've now got really fast disk access. But 2 or 3 years from now I
don't know that I'd build again.

 

[Bill]

My current PC has Pentium 4, 133 MHz bus, overclocked to 150 MHz. I have 1
GB of memory, and 160 GB disk drive. I am opening many applications
together, so I need more memory. I am also running out of disk drive space.
I am split between upgrading memory and drive, and building a new PC.
Please advise me so that I can make the right decision. Thank you.

Talal Itani

I'd build a new computer. I just built an AMD 64 x2 5000 system, and
I am not waiting on anything, the system is very fast w/ XP. AMD
recently lowered the price of their chips and you can get an AMD 64 x2
5600+ from Newegg.com for $189 ($30 less than I paid for a 5000+ about
3 weeks ago) and SATA drives are getting to be dirt cheap.

Bill

 

[Michael Hawes]

Thanks. It works ok, but I often have to wait on things to happen. I do
desk top publishing, some audio processing. I run accounting software,
word processing. I do much we browsing. I like the idea of a dual
processor CPU, because I often have a task running in the background. I
never used one of the newer PCs, so I do not know if a new PC will improve
the speed of things. I like to get Vista with a new machine, yet a friend
told me to wait on vista, until it stabilizes. So, I do not know what to
do yet.

To see if you are low on memory, open Task Manager, Performance Tab. CPU
usage will show if system busy. Bottom left, if Peak value less than 1Gb
after you have been working system hard, then you have enough memory. See if
you can uninstall any unused programs. Do you use Adaware and Spybot?
Spyware can slow your system a lot. How many Processes running? My system
has 39 at the moment. Try Start - Run - MSCONFIG, Startup Tab will let you
stop things running at startup. If your WinXP install is old, you could try
a fresh install. Abigger disk is not expensive, and would be faster than
your present drive. What speed IS your CPU? P42.8 should be fast enough for
what you describe you do. Do you ever defrag? Try running Full disk check,
or CHKDSK /F from a CMD prompt.

Mike.

 

[Talal Itani]

I had roughly a similar choice a few months ago, and I built a new PC
because I had never done that and wanted to. But realistically I
could have got nearly as good a PC for a lot cheaper buy just buying
one. True, I got a motherboard that has builtin RAID and I do use that
so I've now got really fast disk access. But 2 or 3 years from now I
don't know that I'd build again.

You know, I am thinking about RAID tood, but I am afraid. And I tested some
of the new PCs, without RAID, and applications seem to load and start very
very fast. Maybe I am missing something. Did you do RAID 0?

 

[Talal Itani]

I'd build a new computer. I just built an AMD 64 x2 5000 system, and
I am not waiting on anything, the system is very fast w/ XP. AMD
recently lowered the price of their chips and you can get an AMD 64 x2
5600+ from Newegg.com for $189 ($30 less than I paid for a 5000+ about
3 weeks ago) and SATA drives are getting to be dirt cheap.

Bill

I think you have a good point. I can sink money into the same 4-year old
PC, and not much will change.

 

[Talal Itani]

To see if you are low on memory, open Task Manager, Performance Tab. CPU
usage will show if system busy. Bottom left, if Peak value less than 1Gb
after you have been working system hard, then you have enough memory. See
if you can uninstall any unused programs. Do you use Adaware and Spybot?
Spyware can slow your system a lot. How many Processes running? My system
has 39 at the moment. Try Start - Run - MSCONFIG, Startup Tab will let you
stop things running at startup. If your WinXP install is old, you could
try a fresh install. Abigger disk is not expensive, and would be faster
than your present drive. What speed IS your CPU? P42.8 should be fast
enough for what you describe you do. Do you ever defrag? Try running Full
disk check, or CHKDSK /F from a CMD prompt.

Mike.

My Peak value for memory is less that 1 GB, so I guess I am fine here. I
understand from you, that memory addition will help if that peak value goes
above the memory I have in the system. I regularly uninstall programs that
I never use, but I do not understand why uninstalling programs can make
things faster. I use adware and spybot, but I start them manually and
terminate them manually. I went yesterday to MSCONFIG, and unchecked almost
everything. My WinXP install is very very old, from the first days of XP,
but I hate to rebuild the entire thing. There is some installed software
that I cannot get anymore. My CUP is a P2.4, yet it is overclocked to 2.7
I do defrag regularly. I never do full disk check, I will do that today.

 

[Bob Fry]

I was running RAID5 for several months, but just yesterday migrated to
RAID0...which because I didn't take a disk offline first is not
reversible. Oh well. Neither did I run a benchmark first! But I did
run SiS Sandra after, and I outscore their best comparison. So I
guess my RAID0 is pretty fast. I hate waiting for the damn disk
drives.
--
When this girl at the art museum asked me whom I liked better,
Monet or Manet, I said, "I like mayonnaise." She just stared at
me, so I said it again, louder. Then she left. I guess she went
to try to find some mayonnaise for me.
- Jack Handey