PC - Upgrade myself or buy new?

getmore4less

Probably worht spending a bit of time on this one to gain a bit of experience.

backup first.

Then open the case and consider a couple of the cheap suggestions.

even going through a reinstall exercise will be usefull and may solve 90% of the slow issues anyway

As has been said the machine has some life for basic stuff.

How old is the lad, might be good opportunity to get him involved in this sort of stuff

square_bear

Thank you for all the offers of help and advice, really appreciated.

With a litle help from a friend and some vouchers have decided to buy new.



Is it easy enough to transfer my data from the old PC to the new?

NiftyDigits

square_bear wrote: »

Thank you for all the offers of help and advice, really appreciated.

With a litle help from a friend and some vouchers have decided to buy new.



Is it easy enough to transfer my data from the old PC to the new?

What did you get and how much did you pay?

boliston

With PCs buying new is the best option - I normally keep my old one as a spare as second hand pc's over about 3 years (my usual upgrade cycle) have pretty much lost all their value.

NiftyDigits

boliston wrote: »

With PCs buying new is the best option - I normally keep my old one as a spare as second hand pc's over about 3 years (my usual upgrade cycle) have pretty much lost all their value.

What kind of nonsensical generalisation is this?

Parva

NiftyDigits wrote: »

What kind of nonsensical generalisation is this?

In todays world, a pretty good one. PC's are so cheap pre-built now and if you only want them for general day to day emails, buying and selling on Ebay and maybe a few Skype calls or something then you are going to get a far better PC for a few hundred ££'s than you ever will throwing the same money at a 2+ year old PC for the same functionality.

I add a caveat here, gaming PC's are a whole different animal, my gaming PC is 2 years old and cost me over £1000 to build but even now, it holds its own with more recent stuff. That said, I know I could really upgrade it and spend another £200 on the graphics card alone just to speed it up some more but similarly, as a gamer, I also realise that everything else will need upgrading at some point so I'll run this into the ground and build a new one when the time is right.

The moral of the story here is whether you spend £200 or £1000 on a PC, beyond about 12 months it's definitely worth looking into starting afresh, beyond 2 years, I wouldn't think twice.

Parva

zaax wrote: »

XP is the problem and I would put UBUNTU on and see.

And here comes the Linux brigade. You do realise that people like you making comments like this are what actually puts people off of Linux? I've done Linux in various distros (Ubunto, Red Hat to name but two) but the leap from Windows to such an OS is not the walk in the park that you think it is. Yes, I can do it and I know many others who can and I'm sure Linux will get ever more user-friendly but Windows it is not.

PenguinJim

Parva wrote: »

I add a caveat here, gaming PC's are a whole different animal, my gaming PC is 2 years old and cost me over £1000 to build but even now, it holds its own with more recent stuff. That said, I know I could really upgrade it and spend another £200 on the graphics card alone just to speed it up some more but similarly, as a gamer, I also realise that everything else will need upgrading at some point so I'll run this into the ground and build a new one when the time is right.

The moral of the story here is whether you spend £200 or £1000 on a PC, beyond about 12 months it's definitely worth looking into starting afresh, beyond 2 years, I wouldn't think twice.

I admit I only game in 1200P, but my £600 PC turns three at the end of this month (sssh! I'm planning a surprise party!), and it's still a great PC. I'd even left the 2500K underclocked for years (until Dark Souls' Blighttown :P), and now it's up to stock. I'm always prepared to turn shadows down from "high" to "medium" on my humble 560, but haven't had to do so yet. In fact, I'm rather disappointed - I do enjoy a good upgrade! I wish it wasn't completely pointless.

Either you're a 1440P+ gamer (congrats! £200 27" Korean import? I'm having a hard time resisting those myself), you have 120Hz to sate, or you chose some awful parts a couple of years ago.

NiftyDigits

Parva wrote: »

In todays world, a pretty good one. PC's are so cheap pre-built now and if you only want them for general day to day emails, buying and selling on Ebay and maybe a few Skype calls or something then you are going to get a far better PC for a few hundred ££'s than you ever will throwing the same money at a 2+ year old PC for the same functionality.

I add a caveat here, gaming PC's are a whole different animal, my gaming PC is 2 years old and cost me over £1000 to build but even now, it holds its own with more recent stuff. That said, I know I could really upgrade it and spend another £200 on the graphics card alone just to speed it up some more but similarly, as a gamer, I also realise that everything else will need upgrading at some point so I'll run this into the ground and build a new one when the time is right.

The moral of the story here is whether you spend £200 or £1000 on a PC, beyond about 12 months it's definitely worth looking into starting afresh, beyond 2 years, I wouldn't think twice.

Goodness me.....another one.

Why on earth would you need to spend £200 upgrading a two year old PC that is used for "general day to day emails, buying and selling on Ebay and maybe a few Skype calls"??

My seven year old PC can cover this easily. I've spent perhaps £60 on it over those seven years on more RAM, a Graphics card and an extra HDD.

esuhl

Parva wrote: »

In todays world, a pretty good one. PC's are so cheap pre-built now and if you only want them for general day to day emails, buying and selling on Ebay and maybe a few Skype calls or something then you are going to get a far better PC for a few hundred ££'s than you ever will throwing the same money at a 2+ year old PC for the same functionality.

I add a caveat here, gaming PC's are a whole different animal, my gaming PC is 2 years old and cost me over £1000 to build but even now, it holds its own with more recent stuff. That said, I know I could really upgrade it and spend another £200 on the graphics card alone just to speed it up some more but similarly, as a gamer, I also realise that everything else will need upgrading at some point so I'll run this into the ground and build a new one when the time is right.

The moral of the story here is whether you spend £200 or £1000 on a PC, beyond about 12 months it's definitely worth looking into starting afresh, beyond 2 years, I wouldn't think twice.

I totally disagree. My PC must be about 6 years old and is still one of the fastest machines I've used. The case, PSU, drives (4 of which came from even older PCs), fans and CPU cooler are fine. The RAM is fine if I happen to get a compatible motherboard.

For the same money as a mid-level "disposable" pre-built machine, I can get a top-of-the-range motherboard & CPU (and maybe RAM).

If you buy the right parts in the first place, upgrading can be more cost-effective than binning old PCs when you want something better. It all depends on what you've got to start with, and whether you're happy to invest in certain components (case, PSU, drives, video cards, etc.) that you will be able to re-use, or whether you want the cheapest stuff now, which may be less "upgradeable".

Horses for courses...

In the OP's case, it sounds like there may not be much that can be salvaged (except the drives) from the old PC, so buying new may be the way to go.