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From: UCLAN on 22 May 2010 14:15
Paul wrote:

>> My system is 6-years old. For normal home (non gaming) use, what is
>> today's
>> preffered CPU? Intel's Core i3? i5? AMD's Athlon II? AMD Phenom?
>>
>> 3G RAM? 6G RAM?
>>
>> If I go with a "ready made" box, HP? Dell?
>>
>> Thanks.
>
> With regard to RAM, I noticed a news item within the last couple of
> days, that said one of the majors is changing their machine
> configurations, due to a shortage of RAM. So the ready-made
> computers might come with less RAM on their own, as the impact
> of a RAM shortage is digested.

Or that a ready-made already in someone's stock may not be affected by
this malady?

[...much great info snipped]

Thanks. I've saved for later digestion.
From: kony on 22 May 2010 15:11
On Fri, 21 May 2010 21:40:26 -0700, UCLAN
<invalid(a)invalid.com> wrote:

>My system is 6-years old. For normal home (non gaming) use, what is today's
>preffered CPU? Intel's Core i3? i5? AMD's Athlon II? AMD Phenom?

Yeah, one of those ;).

They all do the job, you can see benchmarks online for your
most demanding applications to see if any particular
architecture is the best value, but basically nail down a
budget, pick a few nice motherboards with the features you
need, then what is left in the budget tells you which of the
above models of CPU to compare against when looking at the
benchmarks.


>
>3G RAM? 6G RAM?

For another 6 years of use? Go with the 6GB, assuming
you'll be moving to a 64bit OS, or go with 3GB if you're
staying 32bit.


>
>If I go with a "ready made" box, HP? Dell?
>
>Thanks.


Yeah, one of those ;)

Again you have to pick features and budget, plenty of people
are happy with various OEMs and sware off a different OEM
from random chance or defect. No easy answer to this one
as we don't even know if you want a full sized ATX,
microATX, mini or flex ATX, something slimline, something
like a notebook w/o a screen and keyboard with no upgrade
possiblity beyond memory and CPU.

Generally speaking if you never plan to upgrade the system,
the biggest fault with low-end OEM systems is the rear fan
failing (within 6 years as per your current system age), or
random HDD failure early on or after 4+ years.

Personally I would go with any major brand and a standard
mATX case if going OEM, or full ATX if running dual gaming
video cards but you didn't mention that so I assume not.
Otherwise, buy what's on sale, you can easily save $200 by
picking based on a good discount rather than sticking with
one brand... or get a system worth $200 more for the same
discount price... though you may find it more cost effective
to get one with the least amount of memory possible then
upgrade that yourself. Likewise with many other line-item
feature options except premium versions of Windows will be
cheaper already bundled with the system than bought
separately most of the time.

From: Man-wai Chang to The Door (33600bps) on 22 May 2010 23:38
On 5/22/2010 12:40, UCLAN wrote:
> My system is 6-years old. For normal home (non gaming) use, what is today's
> preffered CPU? Intel's Core i3? i5? AMD's Athlon II? AMD Phenom?
> 3G RAM? 6G RAM?

Would you watch HDTV?
Do you need to run CAD/CAM kind of applications?
Would you be using Photoshop or Illustrator kind of applications?

> If I go with a "ready made" box, HP? Dell?

The good thing about buying HP/Dell is a copy of cheap Window$!


--
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From: philo on 23 May 2010 00:30
On 05/22/2010 01:05 PM, UCLAN wrote:
> philo wrote:
>
>>> My system is 6-years old. For normal home (non gaming) use, what is
>>> today's preffered CPU? Intel's Core i3? i5? AMD's Athlon II? AMD Phenom?
>>>
>>> 3G RAM? 6G RAM?
>>>
>>> If I go with a "ready made" box, HP? Dell?
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>
>> For "normal" home use, if you have a 6 year old machine then you might as
>> well keep using it for a few more years.
>>
>> What, specifically do you think a new machine will do that your
>> present one
>> does not.
>>
>> If your present machine is doing the job then just keep it...
>>
>> OTOH: If it's a bit on the slow side maybe all you need is a bit more RAM
>
> It's got it's maximum RAM - 1GB. The HD is showing signs of age. Lots of
> bad sectors, etc., and is small (60 GB), the CPU is old/slow (Athlon XP at
> 2.1GHz), I'm getting LOTS of intermittent problems in much of my software -
> websites suddenly not opening properly (no graphics), Word giving me "not
> enough memory" error message when I try to open, Adobe Reader failing to
> open files (or even displaying the "OPEN" file selections), Thunderbird
> refusing to add attachments to mail, and more. In all instances, just
> closing
> affected application and then re-opening solves problem.
>
> Add up all the negatives and system age, and being sick of trying to fix
> things, I figure a new computer is called for. I will be keeping my present
> monitor, speakers, modem, keyboard, etc., so I figure a PC only in the
> $600 or under range is possible.
>
> Any clues to any of the above?


I guess that justifies a new machine

a dual core cpu with 3 gigs of ram and the 32bit version of Win7 should
do the job
From: kony on 24 May 2010 17:20
On Sat, 22 May 2010 11:05:15 -0700, UCLAN
<invalid(a)invalid.com> wrote:

>It's got it's maximum RAM - 1GB.

Did you upgrade the CPU at some point? I ask because the
typical motherboard chipset from the 2.1GHz Athlon XP era
supported at least 1GB per memory slot even if the
manufacturer didn't provide support enough to relist that
later, though of course it may need a certain memory density
or lower to detect it all.

Via KT400 or later, nForce2, both definitely support 1GB per
slot or more, though I don't recall much about the SIS
chipsets of the era.


>The HD is showing signs of age. Lots of
>bad sectors, etc., and is small (60 GB), the CPU is old/slow (Athlon XP at
>2.1GHz), I'm getting LOTS of intermittent problems in much of my software -
>websites suddenly not opening properly (no graphics), Word giving me "not
>enough memory" error message when I try to open, Adobe Reader failing to
>open files (or even displaying the "OPEN" file selections), Thunderbird
>refusing to add attachments to mail, and more. In all instances, just closing
>affected application and then re-opening solves problem.

Obviously with bad HDD sectors you need at a minimum a new
hard drive and possibly to reinstall some apps or even the
OS if files have been corrupted, but another thought is some
of your symptoms almost seem more like what you would see if
you had simply ran out of hard drive space... including if
you are close enough to that happening that when you launch
an app, what little free space remains is taken up by an
increase in pagefile size.

>
>Add up all the negatives and system age, and being sick of trying to fix
>things, I figure a new computer is called for.

Maybe, but I'd still get a hard drive and do a fresh OS
install even if you move to a new box for primary uses.
While that system is slow by today's standards it is still
plenty fast enough for many common uses.


>I will be keeping my present
>monitor, speakers, modem, keyboard, etc., so I figure a PC only in the
>$600 or under range is possible.
>
>Any clues to any of the above?

$600 or under is definitely possible.
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