Worth upgrading and if so what?

itwasntme001

Hi there.


My dad uses a fairly old Windows 10 PC - a Dell Studio XPS 8100 i5 2.8ghz 760, 4GB RAM, WDC 500GB HDD, ATI Radeon HD 5400 series.


He seems fine with it as it is but when i was on the PC it felt quite slow to load windows and opening applications/browsers etc (hear the hard drive working really hard quite often + the latest windows major update took forever to complete). I am thinking of whether it is worth spending a bit of money to upgrade parts to make it faster with the obvious things being the RAM and hard drive (to solid state). Or is it better to save the money up to buy a brand new PC (if say the motherboard/processor are too old)? My dad only uses the PC for browsing/streaming on the internet and basic productivity apps (office etc). No gaming or video editing at all.



Unfortunately windows does not have the experience index tool anymore so i can not find what the limiting factors are, but what do you think is the limiting factors and is it worth upgrading? If so what interface/type of the component would be compatible for the PC model?


thanks

J_B

I would guess that fitting an SSD would speed it up considerably.


Maybe wait till more experienced folks than me come along, who will tell you the finer details of what to do.


Start by backing everything up .... (of course you already have a back up, don't you )

googler

Start with the RAM to 8Gb.

That's the easiest upgrade, and doesn't require faffing with software. Just a plug-in.

See how that goes before stepping into deeper water

Check the Recycle Bin. I looked at someone's PC a month or so ago with similar symptoms to you, a Win 8.1 machine with 4Gb, and they hadn't emptied the Recycle Bin since 2011 ..... emptied that, doubled the RAM to 8Gb, and it's flying along now.

Neil_Jones

Recycle Bin doesn't count towards total used storage space on a drive.
The upgrade to 8Gb benefits depends on what the machine is used for. For basic internet and a spot of typing you don't need anything fantastic and 4Gb will probably suffice.

A replacement SSD will do wonders.

itwasntme001

Neil_Jones wrote: »

Recycle Bin doesn't count towards total used storage space on a drive.
The upgrade to 8Gb benefits depends on what the machine is used for. For basic internet and a spot of typing you don't need anything fantastic and 4Gb will probably suffice.

A replacement SSD will do wonders.

Thanks Neil. Is the base PC fine and not worth replacing? You think SSD (and possbly RAM upgrade to 8GB) is all it needs to see a big performance improvement?

that

have a look here https://www.dell.com/community/Desktops-General-Read-Only/Dell-XPS-8100-SATA-3/td-p/4150299

it says it is sata2 with no ahci? so you will not get 6mb/s and no native command queuing. I would still buy a sata3 board for about £10 from ebay though - only if you was to purchase an ssd.

For low power usage 4mb should be enough. In task manger look at the performance tab

EveryWhere

itwasntme001 wrote: »

Hi there.


My dad uses a fairly old Windows 10 PC - a Dell Studio XPS 8100 i5 2.8ghz 760, 4GB RAM, WDC 500GB HDD, ATI Radeon HD 5400 series.


He seems fine with it as it is but when i was on the PC it felt quite slow to load windows and opening applications/browsers etc (hear the hard drive working really hard quite often + the latest windows major update took forever to complete). I am thinking of whether it is worth spending a bit of money to upgrade parts to make it faster with the obvious things being the RAM and hard drive (to solid state). Or is it better to save the money up to buy a brand new PC (if say the motherboard/processor are too old)? My dad only uses the PC for browsing/streaming on the internet and basic productivity apps (office etc). No gaming or video editing at all.



Unfortunately windows does not have the experience index tool anymore so i can not find what the limiting factors are, but what do you think is the limiting factors and is it worth upgrading? If so what interface/type of the component would be compatible for the PC model?


thanks

The limiting factor is simply the HDD. Fitting an SSD(just unplug the leads from the current HDD and plug them into the SSD) and clean installing Windows 10 to it, will do the trick.
You can buy an extra SATA lead from eBay for a £1 or £2, in order to connect the old HDD up as a secondary internal drive.

He won't be bothered by the lack of AHCI and SATA II limitation. He'll still be able to achieve up to 285/275 MB/s read/write sequential. Far in excess of what he is achieving now.
I would suggest changing to RAID Mode in the BIOS before installing Windows 10 to the SSD.
Do check now as to how it is currently set.

He might want to export his Bookmarks etc, from the Browser he is using, to a USB Flash drive.

https://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/ssd/series/MX500 are good. You can check Amazon in order to get them slightly cheaper.

If you just want cheap, the Lexar NS100 costs just £36.99 for 480 GB; https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B07HNCWCNL

A Chinese company bought the Lexar brand in 2017, from Micron(the makers of Crucial products). So it's a Lexar in name only.

Dime_Bar

As above SSD, RAM to 8GB and a fresh install on Windows 10 will work wonders.

Personally I've never had any issues with cheap SSDs so the one linked to above would be my choice.

When reinstalling Win10 might be worth double check what AV he uses and what other ancillary programmes get installed, keep it as lightweight as possible.

googler

Neil_Jones wrote: »

Recycle Bin doesn't count towards total used storage space on a drive.

Didn't say that it did.

Clearing it provided a noticeable increase in speed, even before upgrading the RAM, which is what the OP is actually looking for.

Neil_Jones

itwasntme001 wrote: »

Thanks Neil. Is the base PC fine and not worth replacing? You think SSD (and possbly RAM upgrade to 8GB) is all it needs to see a big performance improvement?

You don't need all singing all dancing specification just to type a Word document and go on the internet. The age of the computer will limit the speed you get off an SSD due to the limitations of the board inside but it will still be faster than a mechanical drive. Also note that when the machine eventually keels over and dies you can reuse the SSD in the future

Neil_Jones

googler wrote: »

Clearing [Recycle Bin] provided a noticeable increase in speed, even before upgrading the RAM, which is what the OP is actually looking for.

Shouldn't make any difference whatsoever. More likely AV software was going through the bin.