Sponsored Links

Upgrade or replace..

Since my PC locked up installing Windows updates and I had no option but to turn it off and on again it has been playing up a bit. So it needs a rebuild. Hasn't been done in years.

When I get to this point I then tend to either upgrade components ("it was quite quick when I first got it") or buy another one, which is where I'm at now.

It's an HP desktop which wouldn't necessarily have been my first choice - as in it wasn't much of a considered purchase, the old one died and I had to have whatever I could get that weekend in the shops.

Looking at the Performance Monitor it would benefit from more memory and a faster drive.

So, this:

Kingston Technology HX316C10FBK2/8 - Kingston HyperX FURY Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) Memory Kit 1600MHz DDR3 CL10 240-Pin DIMM

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00NMXWEEC

at £56, and maybe this:

Seagate ST1000DX001 3.5 inch 1TB Hybrid Internal Solid State Drive

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00ELAVIQ0

at £65.

Seems a no brainer. When I rebuild my PC I always do this with a clean OS onto a clean new HDD so I can always pop the old one back in if anything goes wrong. As it's used for work I can't lose stuff or time.

But..

I don't have a bootable OS disc. I have Windows 8 upgraded from OEM Windows 7 which is on a HDD partition. So all I can do is run a restore. So I'd also need this:

Microsoft Windows

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00FRAE7MU

at £81. As I understand it that would entitle me to upgrade to Windows 10 which I can't wait to get, Windows 8 drives me mad.

That lot adds up to £202. Not bad.

However should I be thinking about simply buying a new machine..
 
I think you would be better off building a new P.C. You can select all the bits you need/want. Do not be fobbed off with what ready built machines that traders are trying to get rid of and generally do not come up to your specs.
 
You haven't said what primary spec (CPU, GPU, Memory etc.) your current system is, thus it's difficult to judge whether or not you'd need a full upgrade.

Otherwise if it's just a work system and the specs aren't too ancient then I can't see any reason not to simply take the path you've proposed. As a rule if you use your PC for long periods each day (e.g. working from home) then it will probably last 3+ years without screwing up and usually the HD, PSU, GPU or Fans are the first things to throw a fit (component life is complicated so it could last for more than twice that, depends on usage etc.). After 5+ years you might notice problems with the odd motherboard component and at that point there's little choice, but this is only if you use the system quite extensively.

Also I quite like the idea of those Seagate hybrid drives, but you won't notice the full benefit from its SSD side until several reboots (trainings) have been done. The only thing that stopped me getting one is I wasn't sure how to manage the drive with regards to defrag etc. I'm assuming you just treat it like a normal HD and the SSD side is kept hidden.. but I'm not certain on that.
 
Sponsored Links
bit steep for 1TB hard drives (western digital), l got mine for around £45 from ebuyer.. granted l dislike some of the dispatch companies but for the price it was pretty reasonable.. also got a 120gb SSD for under £50 that said it was a couple of months back. tho l managed to do a complete rebuild for around £300 (minus hard drives as l was using my old ones, which l recently replaced).
 
Fair point.. maybe it's better to pickup a 60GB SSD just for the OS and then a traditional 1TB drive for storage. Works out around the same price as a hybrid and at least then all your main OS and Apps benefit from the speed boost.
 
I ordered the HDD and the Windows OS and they should be here tomorrow.

I didn't order the memory as I wanted to be sure of compatibility.

And from what I can tell, the motherboard may only be able to deal with 4GB of RAM ruling out the upgrade of that.

Which is a bit of a problem if so, and a bit late now :(

Will try to clarify tomorrow. I have swapped motherboards before and am comfortable with doing so, and that's probably still cheaper together with the other things than buying a new PC.
 
What motherboard model is it Mark? Pretty bad if it can't handle more than 4GB, but that may just be because the manual was produced at the time when 4GB+ wasn't common. The answer is usually to be found in the chipset that your motherboard uses.
 
Sponsored Links
It's this thing

http://support.hp.com/us-en/product...ies/5035310/model/5095549/document/c02773766/

•Chipset: Intel G41 Express

Memory upgrade information

•Supports DDR3 DIMMs only

•Dual channel memory architecture

•Two DDR3 DIMM (240-pin) sockets

•DIMM types:
•PC3-10600 (DDR3-1333)
•PC3-8500 (DDR3-1066)
•PC3-6400 (DDR3-800)

•Non-ECC memory only, unbuffered

•Supports 2 GB DDR3 DIMMs

•Supports up to 4 GB on 64-bit PCs < this isn't clear to me. Per slot, or in total?

•Maximum memory only if using 2GB DDR3 DIMM modules

Though on that page it states the thing has 3GB of RAM when it actually has 4GB.
 
Curious.. the chipset does indeed appear to state that it supports a max of 4GB for DDR3, but it can cope with 8GB for DDR2. Hmm not seen a limit quite like that for a while. I'd be tempted to try 2 x 4GB sticks, but if the BIOS can't recognise it then that might be a problem. Maybe buy something in a local store, at least that way you can take it back and trade for different modules if it doesn't work or if you know an IT friend then ask if they have a spare stick or two to test with.

As for the mention of 64Bit.. this relates more to the fact that 32Bit installs of Windows have trouble addressing more than 4GB of ram and you need to do a 64Bit windows install if you plan to make use of more than 4GB.
 
Thanks. I must admit I'm somewhat out of my depth here.

The Windows disc and the drive would/will be useful anyway and the option still remains to upgrade the motherboard, or to replace the entire thing. I'm thinking that the former is cheaper. I'm not fussy about the case, the fans still work and run silently, it does what it needs to do.

Then I think about upgrading the motherboard and wonder if it then needs a new PSU to cope with it - I recall this being the case before. Before being about 7 years back. Then, I bought a bundled motherboard + processor + memory (not this PC, the one that preceded it, in which oddly enough, the motherboard died). So I look at those, and realise I really have no idea what the performance metrics are.

For example, this would seem to work:

Intel i3 3220 Dual Core 3.3GHz, Gigabyte GA-H61MA-D2V, 8GB DDR3 1333MHz Bundle

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-3-3GHz-Gigabyte-GA-H61MA-D2V-1333MHz/dp/B00B4XE70Q

£199

.. and then I wonder how that performs compared to what I have and the minefield of what else is available. Is it "good"? For the money?

The current processor is Intel E5800 dual core @ 3.20GHz. The only external PCI device is an NVIDIA GeForce GT610 which I assume (!) will work with it.

So if I'm looking to spend maybe that much on a new board/processor which comes with memory, would that be a good buy? Is it still the default choice to buy Intel and not AMD? (That opinion may be 10+ years out of date). I've been out of this for so long I feel like a pensioner who has never had a PC before and who has wandered into PC World.
 
Hehe I know how you feel there Mark, it's easy to lose track with the mass of different model codes and other underlying changes. Even I can suffer that problem, mainly because computing power seems to improve much more slowly than it did a decade ago and so I rarely feel a desire to upgrade as frequently. Back to the issue at hand..

In regards to the PSU, I guess it depends what ATX version it states because over the past 10 years there has been a chance in both the form of some connectors and the main power supply cable pin numbers for the mainboard. However they did design the newer PSUs with backwards compatibility in mind, thus it may not be an issue.

On most boards made in the past decade or so the primary ATX power cable usually has 20 + 4 pins (24), which allows it to connect into either a 20 pin or 24pin ATX PSU socket on the board. Also there's usually a blocky square 4 pin CPU power connector. If your PSU has those and can output around 400 Watts+ then you can probably cope with most concerns. Remember too that SATA hard disks etc. have those flat power connectors, but they've been around awhile already and you can get adapters in Maplin etc. so that's not a showstopper.

As for the board you link, it will be a bit faster but I wouldn't expect that specific i3 CPU to break the mould in terms of performance gains over what you have. I tend to consider a low-end i5 as the lowest entry point, but since then Intel has refreshed their line-up with newer Haswell CPUs. Also note that the motherboard is a Micro ATX, which is quite small (no problem if your case can handle mATX and most can). But the showstopper for me would be that memory, nowhere does it say who made it and I don't trust unbranded ram.

If you're not bothered about gaming / GPU power then a motherboard that includes the newer Intel i3-4330 might be a better bet as it comes with a half-decent integrated GPU (HD4600). You can save about £10 and go for a i3-4160 (uses HD4400 GPU.. a fair bit slower), but I think the i3 4330 is worth paying that little extra as even their top-end i7's use the HD4600. In the real-world the 4600 performs about as well as an AMD Radeon 5870 GPU, which is a few generations old but is still impressive by integrated GPU standards.
 
Sponsored Links
I've had issues with Gxx Express boards, if you had posted that earlier I would have said go for a new build. In fact EVERY bad board I have had in the last 10 years was built around Intel chipsets.

Faster RAM etc can only make incremental speed improvements if the mobo is the main bottleneck.
 
Top
Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Vodafone UK ISP Logo
Vodafone £24.00 - 26.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
NOW UK ISP Logo
NOW £24.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Plusnet UK ISP Logo
Plusnet £25.99
145Mbps
Gift: £50 Reward Card
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £17.00
200Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Youfibre UK ISP Logo
Youfibre £23.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Sponsored Links
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (6026)
  2. BT (3639)
  3. Politics (2721)
  4. Business (2439)
  5. Openreach (2405)
  6. Building Digital UK (2330)
  7. Mobile Broadband (2146)
  8. FTTC (2083)
  9. Statistics (1901)
  10. 4G (1816)
  11. Virgin Media (1764)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1582)
  13. Fibre Optic (1467)
  14. Wireless Internet (1462)
  15. 5G (1407)
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms  ,  Privacy and Cookie Policy  ,  Links  ,  Website Rules