Buying a cheap PC

liam_h

Hi all,

Looking to buy a cheap PC for a family member for around £200, maybe push to £250. I thought this would be quite easy, but it appears not! :mad:

He only really uses the PC for internet browsing, with the most taxing thing he does being steaming video such as SkyPlayer. For some reason his Windows XP machine has suddently started to really struggle when playing video in full screen - the processor just goes mental at 100%, IE using the vast majority of the resources.

The PC is over 6 years old anyway so it's time for an upgrade. But is it possible to get a PC that will happily stream video in full screenmode for less than £250?

gonzo127

have you done a 'clean' out of the system using the how to clean up a slow or infected pc thread?

do you have enough ram or a seperate graphics card as most video service can use hardware acceleration which takes some of the strain from the CPU

otherwise £200-250 for a new system with windows will always be hard as a windows license costs ~£70 on its own which doesnt actually leave much money for the other parts. although there are a few about http://www.ebuyer.com/338534-zoostorm-home-media-desktop-pc-7873-0400 for example

however with this in mind going refurb would probably be th best option as a lot of refurbs still come with a 12 month warrenty such as dell outlet and argos ebay (and if you really wish to risk it pc world have a refurb section with 12 month 'warrenty')

fwor

If the old PC is going to get binned anyway, and it really is only used for browsing, a no-cost, quick option would be to replace XP with something like Linux Mint and see how that runs.

Yes, the icon you click to start the browser will be in a different place, but other than that, not much different, and a whole lot quicker than going through the "clean up Windows" 20-stage rigmarole...

If you still want to replace, a "corporate refurb" should be adequate from somewhere like Morgan Computers. £200 will get you a decent spec Core 2 Duo with LCD monitor.

TakeThis

You just missed these. Keep your eye on the website. A few might reappear.

andy2004

why would they need to buy a new os, just use the old os, if the old computer is going in the bin. jeez.
you didnt say you current specs either. whether the computer is a single core or 2core, how much memory, etc, it could be a simple case of just taking out the old motherboard and putting in a new one.
http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/motherboardbundles/mbb-44104a.html
a quad core processor, onboard ati graphics, and 4gb of memory £145.00
all you need from the old computer psu, hdd and dvd-rw,
psu to power, hdd to run the os and dvd-rw to put it in. assuming that your old stuff is sata not pata, i think the above motherboard only has a sata connections.
Using your old xp you would only see 3gb of memory, and upto 512mb would be given to the graphics card via the bios.
the onboard graphics on this motherboard is good enough to play hitman bloodmoney at 1440x990 screen resolution i know i have the same onboard card.
if your hdd and dvd-rw are pata you can buy an ide to sata bi-directional adapter better than a ide to sata adapter as if you buy the wrong one you'll have to send it back, which would make your ide a sata device.