Need a new computer for basic stuff

Ader1

Hi,

I'm looking to buy a computer.....probably second hand which will allow me to search the web and possibly look at some youtube videos. That sort of stuff. So, someting pretty basic really. Could you guys suggest to me what I would require in terms of memory and hard-drive etc and which operating system. Oh yes, I wouldn't have to get anything extra such as keyboard and monitor etc. I'm looking to purchase something reasonably local off ebay. Thank for your advice.

neilmcl

Your budget would be good to know?

flashg67

Virtually any modern PC will do I think. You can find something under £50 if you;re on a tight budget.

If you're used to Windows, then stick with that, ideally Windows 7 or 10.
4GB Ram minimum. Hard drive not too important unless you need to store lots of videos etc, say minimum 250Gb

I've found the Dell small form factor PC's reliable, example http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DELL-OPTIPLEX-780-USFF-Intel-Dual-Core-2-8-GHz-4-GB-RAM-250GB-HDD-DVD-Windows-7-/282028301190?hash=item41aa325b86:g:HKsAAOSw6n5Xvb2H

or for a faster processor / more memory but a bit more £'s, have a look at

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Optiplex-7010-USFF-i3-6GB-RAM-320-HDD-Win-7-/272410528647?hash=item3f6ceecb87:g:NgcAAOSwFe5X1FZS

John_Gray

You are linking not to Small Form Factor (SFF) Optiplexes but Ultra Small Form Factor (USFF), which, historically at least, have separate in-line power bricks rather than an inbuilt power supply and which were occasionally unreliable because they tended to overheat.

Whether the more modern Optiplexes are better I cannot say, since we now always buy second-hand SFF models!

Ader1

Thanks for all your replies. I'd like to spend under £100 if possible. I'll check those links tommorow. Have to be up really early. Starting a new job.

Cisco001

New PC
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Zoostorm-Celeron-G1620-Dual-Core-Desktop-PC-320GB-HDD-4GB-Win-8-WiFi-DVD-RW-/262703155371?hash=item3d2a5408ab:g:M3IAAOSw4GVYGyKE

If you go for a used one, personally would suggest £120 with 2nd gen i5 quad core with 4 GB RAM.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-Compaq-6200-Pro-SFF-Desktop-PC-Intel-i5-2400-3-10GHz-4GB-250GB-DVD-RW-Win-7-/182338951097?hash=item2a743f97b9:g:oL0AAOSw-itXqZI4

googler

£19.99 for a barebones refurbished Dell with no HDD or power supply.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DELL-GX520-SFF-OPTIPLEX-BAREBONES-PC-2-8GHz-1GB-RAM-NO-HD-OR-POWER-SUPPLY-/291024229207?hash=item43c2655357:g:KIgAAOxy4t1SklhP

Add £50-60 for a solid-state drive, maybe another £20-30 for matching power supply through eBay, install a free download OS such as Linux, and you're in at under your budget with a PC that will fly.

For your purposes, you don't actually NEED the recent versions of Windoze, and anything from XP onward would suffice - again, available cheap through eBay. Don't believe the doom-mongers who say that XP is insecure. Just use a browser such as Chrome, Firefox or Opera (not IE), and you'll be fine. I'm running two XP machines without issue

EDIT - I see that these base units come with an XP licence already. There are others who regularly post here who can tell you what that entails in terms of installing XP from a second-hand disc.

Fightsback

googler wrote: »

For your purposes, you don't actually NEED the recent versions of Windoze, and anything from XP onward would suffice - again, available cheap through eBay. Don't believe the doom-mongers who say that XP is insecure. Just use a browser such as Chrome, Firefox or Opera (not IE), and you'll be fine. I'm running two XP machines without issue

Avoid XP like the plague as it hasn't been supported for two years, look for Win 7 or above machines. There are rafts of critical vulnerabilities (notably kernel front parsing) that have affected all current versions of windows and most likely XP, these are drive by download vulnerabilities. Don't waste your money on an XP machine, plenty of second hand Win 7 machine available at reasonable prices.

googler

Fightsback wrote: »

Avoid XP like the plague as it hasn't been supported for two years, look for Win 7 or above machines. There are rafts of critical vulnerabilities (notably kernel front parsing) that have affected all current versions of windows and most likely XP, these are drive by download vulnerabilities. Don't waste your money on an XP machine, plenty of second hand Win 7 machine available at reasonable prices.

...and this is based on how many XP machines in your household?

Fightsback

googler wrote: »

...and this is based on how many XP machines in your household?

The XP installs that are safely locked up in VM's. I'm not that stupid or reckless to allow anything else to wander around my network.

By the way when does FF and Chrome support end for XP ?

googler

Fightsback wrote: »

The XP installs that are safely locked up in VM's. I'm not that stupid or reckless to allow anything else to wander around my network.

By the way when does FF and Chrome support end for XP ?

No idea, but according to you, support ran out on my setup two years ago, and I've had two years without incident. Even Malwarebytes reports nothing of concern.

Let's leave the readers to decide whether you're making much ado about nothing or not.