I am now mabe not about to replace an ageing pc.

Enterprise-D

The old machine is definitely past it's sell by date and needs replacing with a new one. There is no reason to even bother updating, upgrading or carrying out maintenance to get it working at its best. Once a computer is over 5 years old, its usually worth starting to look for a replacement. No idea why people here were suggesting to give it a bit of a "spruce up" - I know its MSE.com, but come on!

An iMac is a good choice, easy to use, great for kids and a solid machine. Apple Macs also retain their resale value for many years longer than a normal Windows PC.

Murielson

Think you have had your monies worth and should move on. I imagine you will see a huge difference in capability with an updated model.

Not here with a specific recommendation but would certainly suggest that when you identify a model you might be interested in then you have a look at the Dell Outlet site to see if tehre are any bargains to be had. Got my daughter a laptop in June and it is proving exceptional value.

http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/dfo/df.aspx?refid=df&s=dfo

Good luck and hope you find what you are looking for. With laptops and PCs there is almost too much choice and actually deciding what to go for can be the biggest problem.

closed

5 or 7 year old pc's work fine for many peoples use, they did the job when purchased, they can do the same now. High Def video, modern games might be out of reach, but browsing, emailing, photo's, word processing etc aren't too tasking

The OP's is particularly (too low - 256+ would be a very different proposition) low on ram which is the main issue, a spruce up or reinstall would alleviate much of the speed issue,

smoky_joe

gonzo127 wrote: »

Well a mac is not a dumb choice so to speak, it is an expensive choice for your stated usage, and since this is a money saving website we will advise you of such

yes expensive but not much more than a comparitive spec all in one, even to buy from the dell refurb site wouldnt be much cheeper by the time i added new moniter and delivery and thats against a new imac.

if space is your biggest issue the acer revo would be a great choice for a hell of a lot less money than a mac as even the top of the range revo is under £350 and it will power through your previously stated usage

never heard of the revo will check it out, space isnt the biggest issue but when i saw the all in one pc,s i new it would free up space from the tower for my printer to sit underneath the desk leaveing the top free off clutter.

If gaming is important (I know you have stated it isn’t but it’s an example) then you need a windows system

yes but i was under the impresion that windows could be ran on a mac as an extra os not to sure on that though.

If security is you biggest concern then a pc with Linux on it is your best bet and is also cheap since the operating system is free and so are most of the programs

security is why i started looking at the mac in the first place as they are pretty good at avoiding most minor viruses.

if you don’t take out the extended warranty any hardware failures that can and do happen (since they use the same hardware that goes into windows and Linux systems these days they have the same sort of failure rate) then it becomes very expensive since you cannot easily DIY mac's

as my pc has lasted 7 years without any hardware issues then i would like to think a new one would last a bit longer than the 1 year warrenty provided, so macs arent diy friendly i didnt know that so is that down to special tooling or other reasons.

Just do not be pushed into believing that a windows system will not last, as really you know they do since your current one is 7 years old, if you are sensible there is very little reason why a windows system will not last

oh i know they last mine has been faultless and i really would have no problem telling anyone how good its been, but and its a big BUT will i be so lucky the with a new one?

asc99c

The Macs aren't DIY friendly because of the operating system. Half the problem with Windows is they try to make something where you just grab a load of components, connect them up and it should work. Apple make certain the thing will work as expected by deciding you just get these particular bits and checking those work. Mac OSX has to work with only a handful of components of Apple's choosing.

Dell make an all-in-one Inspiron One which is half the price of the Mac at £450, but lower spec. Acer have the Aspire Z5700 which is £740 from PC World and it's a touch screen. It's higher spec than the iMac for everything other than graphics card, but it's got a proper PCI-E slot so you can add a real graphics card if that's important.

Some commenters are disregarding the possibility of sprucing up a PC of that age. But actually the Atom CPUs (as used in the Revo) are not significantly faster than the Intel P3 era CPUs. The big difference is the amount of RAM on modern systems would be more like 2GB instead of 128MB. It might be worth checking in with your work's IT department. SDRAM-based PCs are very likely to be going on the scrapheap. If I'm ever looking for stuff from that era, I just ask the guys who replace old PCs to save a couple of components. I'd bet as a minimum you could get hold of 2 x 256MB SDRAM modules and it should significantly revive the performance.

smoky_joe

asc99c wrote: »

It might be worth checking in with your work's IT department.

That made me laugh as i am a gardener for a private estate:rotfl:
I am actually thinking now of mabe getting myself a laptop (or after the 25th borrow the kids)then messing around with this pc just for fun if i cant vastly improve it get a new one next year.

i still like the look of the imac but like a lot of posters have said its pretty strong money for a pc and if one part breaks its curtains or a big repair bill.

closed

Just out of interest, --- ctrl alt del, task manager, performance, whats the commit charge and peak commit.

smoky_joe

closed wrote: »

Just out of interest, --- ctrl alt del, task manager, performance, whats the commit charge and peak commit.

I think i got this right as the numbers keep changeing

total 608820
limit 753208
peak 675388

[Deleted User]

For 5 years I wouldn't recommend an iMac

If the kids do anything worthwhile in secondary/university Windows is pretty much a major requisite even in media/graphic production

closed

See link in post 2, you are using 5 times the installed memory, which is probably why it's slow. half an hours work, and it should be much speedier

If you haven't backed up in 7 years, and have anything important on there, now would be a good time.

Post a hijackthis log first

http://www.trendmicro.com/ftp/products/hijackthis/HijackThis.exe