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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Computer help? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Just to round out my options, if I could get together $500 or $600 for a new computer, what could I get for that much? What would you all recommend?
I need MS Publisher, not Word, and Excel, and I'm on the internet a lot both for work and play, but none of that takes a lot of power. But I do tend to collect a lot of stuff on the computer, would like to be able to store all the back years of work, plus quite a bit of stuff I download from emails and the internet, without taxing the system. People do send me a lot of pictures and I now have a scanner so I send some myself. It would be REALLY nice to be able to hear a streaming audio or watch an online video without all the stopping and buffering, but maybe that's because I'm on dialup and not about the computer itself?
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Spending money on an old car is a fools errand and if your not sure what you are doing you could pour money in an old dog of a computer. Even the most basic computer will likely be far better than what you have. I suspect that a geek could make mine work great, but I'm not a geek and my niece is currently on the outs with my geek nephew-in-law, and others I have known don't seem to be around any more, so you may be right, and I just wrote the post at the same time as yours inviting recommendations. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
So a processor, all that pentium stuff, is on those boards in the CPU, and the hard drive collects information or something like that.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I glanced at Open Office but don't want to spend too much time at links since the computer often freezes up when I do. But I can get Publisher there? Have to have Publisher.
Only $400? Wow. Funny you mention AT&T. I've been thinking about going there. I think I will do that.
On a different note, right click on my computer and select properties. Tell me everything that you see on the first screen there. MS Windows XPHome Ed Version 2002 Service pack 2 Intel Celeron processor901 MHz 256 MB of RAM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
PS - The computer I am currently using is almost 8 years old. I've spent less than 150 bucks over the years to keep it running. It's still working fine for me, and you'd be surprised to know how much stuff I do with this baby. I believe it. Geeks know what they are doing.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I guess I have to actually LOOK inside the CPU when I dust it out.
I've seen a hard drive before, before it was put in. But all those boards inside ... I used to have a co-worker graphics designer who was a Beta tester for Corel (Corel is unbelievably complex it seems to me, I played with it once or twice) who would occasionally erupt in a fit of fury at her computer, get up out of her chair and take the CPU apart, doing who knows what with this board and that. It was all very impressive but for all I know it was more to keep the rest of us entertained than truly useful. I could be wrong.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
OK. With that information I'll take a look at Best Buy. Thanks. Yes I already have Celeron, I'd like to do a bit better if possible.
Working months later won't do it. This thing I hope will last years. And if I need more RAM I don't know who could get it for me.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Oy. OK, keep a lookout for single core vs dual core. If dual core is too expensive, though, then what?
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Thanks for the reminder. I use Zip disks. And I will need a modem.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
That makes sense. I'm not going to be branching out into anything too demanding. The few games I used to play I finally erased from the computer because they were addicting. I don't miss them.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I've found that buying new computers don't have to involve getting all the necessary parts. You can pretty much canibalize from the old computer for all the parts you need. IF you are a geek and know what you are doing.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Generally, you get a better deal by buying something that is mid-to-high range in processor speed. The very fastest models are always sold for a premium price that price quickly drops as even faster models come out. And you won't notice processor speed in most of what you are probably doing. But I would say don't skimp on the cache size (has a direct effect on software performance) or on RAM. Newer programs are more and more demanding of RAM and VISTA requires a MINIMUM of 512 dram. This tells you you will probably need 1024 if you are wanting to run more than 2 or 3 programs at a time. Good advice I'm sure, although I don't know what the "cache" is. I'm keeping track of all this however. I always have at least two documents of Publisher, and sometimes many more, plus Word and the internet open at the same time, and sometimes a couple of windows of Excel as well, and may have half a dozen websites open too, minimized. And that's been fine on my system as is until recently. Now I can't even print something while I'm typing or opening or closing a document or the whole thing freezes up. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
ABE: It occurred to me you may have a damaged file in your operating system. Have you tried using 'system restore' to take your computer settings back to a date before you started having these problems? Note: this will not be possible unless you are running XP. Yes I have XP. I did do System Restore early on, I'm pretty sure. But if it's a damaged file, then reinstalling Windows XP would cure that. Maybe I'll yet do that. I know the fewer programs open the better but I really do need to have two docs of Publisher plus Word open at all times, and I use the internet a lot so having that open too is necessary. I can do Excel docs as a separate operation with everything else closed, but that's about the only accommodation I can make without making my job unnecessarily difficult. Right now of course it's a difficult as possible since I only do one task at a time very carefully to avoid a crash. Jazz's suggestion to shut off the msconfig startups was probably the best advice yet. Hardly any freezeups since I did that. But I still don't dare open a link. But I get it: bigger cache, bigger RAM if I can manage it.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I just did the same thing... Question: Is it worth Faith's time to simply replace the motherboard? You can get Pentium D 2.5 GHz motherboards, with internal sound and graphics, and a handful of dram for well under $200. Do you think that might be an option for her? Keeps the same box, all the same drives, same software (without having to reload anything) etc. Problem is I wouldn't know how to install a motherboard and I'd end up paying someone, which is what I've been trying to avoid.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Is your Zip drive internal or external? cause you're not going to find a new computer with an internal Zip drive, cheap CD/DVD burners and the various thumb drives have rendered them obsolete. Uh oh. Thanks VERY much for that reminder. That crossed my mind a few times but then I forgot it. It's internal. Problem there. I'm backing up everything onto Zip disks.
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