Any simple upgrade worth doing to this PC?

EveryWhere

parcival wrote: »

Agree about Linux.

I changed from Windows Vista to Linux Mint.

It was not exactly difficult but i only do surfing, email and some Office stuff. I have never had any problem managing it and the laptop flies..........I also consider it an upgrade.

I should also say that I run a Windows machine and that causes more work and hassle than maintaining the Linux machine.

Ridiculous.......Trolls.

Zandoni

EveryWhere wrote: »

Ridiculous.......Trolls.

Having a different opinion doesn't make you a troll.

motorguy

mksysb wrote: »

That's all nonsense, the only reason so many people use Windows is because it comes bundled with their machine.

Exactly. So why bother learning something new and force yourself to use products you dont know or understand, when you dont need to?

mksysb wrote: »

If they are starting with a blank SSD it's just as easy, if not easier to install linux, and then they would have the advantage of a superior operating system.

The installs not the problem, its the consequences. It puts you in to a world of incompatibility with mainstream applications. Granted you can get 95% compatibible s/w clones but why bother? Why put up with it?

Why put yourself through it?

And what makes Linux superior for a desktop machine? Its frankly unnecessary.

I'm working in a company at the minute with an estate of maybe 5,000 servers. Approx 4,500 of those are Linux / UNIX machines and some 500 or so are Windows. For big servers Linux / UNIX for me wins hands down. BUT - they're entire desktop estate of maybe 8,000 devices is either Windows or (a minority of) iOS.

Not a pups chance they'd go to Linux, and thats the same all over.

Linux is marginal on desktops and laptops. It had a small chance of going mainstream before the prevalence of SSD and Win10 but its now predominantly used by geeks and odd balls.

motorguy

parcival wrote: »

I should also say that I run a Windows machine and that causes more work and hassle than maintaining the Linux machine.

What extra work and hassle does Win10 create? None that i can see. I have 3 laptops and a desktop varying from 3 months old to 7 years old. All happily running Win10 and SSDs.

And as for "my desktop flies" - if you'd stuck a £20 SSD in it it would have flown anyway without the need to move OS.

mksysb

motorguy wrote: »

What extra work and hassle does Win10 create? None that i can see. I have 3 laptops and a desktop varying from 3 months old to 7 years old. All happily running Win10 and SSDs.

And as for "my desktop flies" - if you'd stuck a £20 SSD in it it would have flown anyway without the need to move OS.

You only need to look at the recent post to see what sort of hassle Windows can create.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6060612/pc-cleanup
That wouldn't happen with linux. Updates don't fill up the disk and apps are very easy to add or remove without having to run other apps to clean them up. The file systems are more efficient and don't need defragging, and there is no need for a virus checker running, slowing things down.

motorguy

mksysb wrote: »

You only need to look at the recent post to see what sort of hassle Windows can create.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6060612/pc-cleanup
That wouldn't happen with linux. Updates don't fill up the disk and apps are very easy to add or remove without having to run other apps to clean them up. The file systems are more efficient and don't need defragging, and there is no need for a virus checker running, slowing things down.

These are arguments from about a decade ago TBF.

If i was trying to eke the last few years of life out of some old dual core PC running a 5400RPM 80GB hard disk, i'd take you point, but with i3, i5 or i7 processors running SSDs, not so much.

I cant remember the last time i'd to "free up space" on a computer TBH. This one has 132GB free of its 256GB disk so i'd say i'm fine for a long time yet. At some point in the distant future i might do a reinstall for !!!!!! and giggles, and that'll get rid of any crud i've installed and forgotten about.

My laptop is sitting at 5% CPU usage and < 1% disk usage.

Heck even my 7+ year old i3 Dell desktop upstairs runs like a dream with Win10 and an SSD. I dont think i've performed any maintenance activities since i bought it nigh on 3 years ago...

If you're running Linux for "performance reasons" you're either kidding yourself or running cringingly old hardware.

poppellerant

I definitely agree with others - instal Windows 10, not Linux. Those trying to argue that you should install Linux are using antiquated arguments which are no longer valid for doing so.

The only time I would install Linux is if the machine had a very poor specification, ie: old CPU with little to no grunt and/or low (<1GB) RAM.

RealGem

britishboy wrote: »

I bought the following PC tower 4 years ago, and wondered if theres any simple upgrades worth doing (Im a technophobe)


HP Pavilion 550-153na

i5-6400 8GB RAM

2TB hard drive
AMD Radeon R5330 graphics card.

It also depends on your budget. By "simple upgrade" you might not want to spend more than £50-£100 or so. But for a bit more you can have the equivalent of a new PC, and not have to do the upgrade yourself. The spec you already have is good.



I paid £130 to have a PC repair man put a new SSD drive in and Windows 10 (from Windows 7). I was hesitant, but he has all 5 stars on several review sites, and a friend thinks of him as her "I.T. department"!



To me it was like having a brand new computer, which I was tempted to do anyway, but funds are limited, so I'm delighted with my "new" PC. Hopefully I can get the guy back to do the same on my other PC, as Support stops for Windows 7 in January 2020.

Cisco001

RealGem wrote: »

It also depends on your budget. By "simple upgrade" you might not want to spend more than £50-£100 or so. But for a bit more you can have the equivalent of a new PC, and not have to do the upgrade yourself. The spec you already have is good.



I paid £130 to have a PC repair man put a new SSD drive in and Windows 10 (from Windows 7). I was hesitant, but he has all 5 stars on several review sites, and a friend thinks of him as her "I.T. department"!



To me it was like having a brand new computer, which I was tempted to do anyway, but funds are limited, so I'm delighted with my "new" PC. Hopefully I can get the guy back to do the same on my other PC, as Support stops for Windows 7 in January 2020.

For something you can easily do it yourself, £130 seems expensive...

DoaM

Cisco001 wrote: »

For something you can easily do it yourself, £130 seems expensive...

Agreed. I did my 6 -year-old laptop earlier this year ... replaced the HDD with an SSD, did a fresh install of W10 via USB pendrive, and put the old HDD in a caddy that fits in the DVD drive slot. (The DVD drive I connect via USB-SATA connector on the rare times I need it).

<£100 all in, and that included a 500GB Samsung EVO SSD (a decent spec drive) which was around £80 back then.