Computer experts needed, looking to buy a new one!...

Disneyfuel

Hey everyone, looking for a bit of help from people who know more about computers than I do!

My computer is a work horse, it's pretty much on all day, every day. I use heavy programmes such as Photoshop and Premiere Pro (sometimes at the same time!) and both are older versions that are installed on the computer (rather than the cloud stuff they use nowadays!) Nearly everything is stored on an external hard drive 6TB (only 3 used). Computer 1.34 TB free of 1.79TB. When I'm not video editing it's used mostly for the internet and have several tabs open at one time, much like my brain! lol (I currently have 12 open right now)

I'm sure its at least 10 years old, and here are the specs:
*Intel Core i7-2600 CPU @3.40GHz
*Installed RAM: 8.00GB
*Windows 7
*Manu: Advent

I'm pretty sure it was about £600-£700 all those years ago.

Now, during my time using it, it has suffered a corrupt user profile. This is when you literally cannot access your computer at all and you have to follow a ton of instructions to set up a new one that is essentially piggybacking off all the installed programmes in the main profile. It cannot be accessed so I have two sign-ins on start up, but I can only use one.
Master reset wasn't an option because I had/have a ton of programmes/files that I can't get/install again.

The computer is painfully slow, I can sit and wait 10 minutes for programmes to close when I want to shut down. Clicking through browsing tabs can take ages to load. The back fan sounds like it's going to take off. I have cleaned the side one, and all inside the tower but I can't access the back fan without removing the whole back ports etc.

So....do I....get another PC, but all still seems to be similar spec, for similar money - I feel like I'm just replacing like-for-like for the same money and not really getting an upgrade?
Or do I make the switch to Mac (I have an iPhone and iPad) or am I going to hate it after being a PC owner all my life!? What spec budget do you think I need for all my video editing?!

*I already have a laptop with good spec but I leave that at work and I find the screen too small to do my video editing on properly. I'm looking for more of a permanent solution for home.

Thank you in advance for any help/advice you can give.

Neil_Jones

Easy fix:  Put an SSD in it and keep your stuff on an external drive.  You don't need a massive SSD, you're not even using half of that drive as it is.

It's probably upgradable to Windows 10 as well.

booneruk

Neil_Jones said:

Easy fix:  Put an SSD in it and keep your stuff on an external drive.  You don't need a massive SSD, you're not even using half of that drive as it is.

It's probably upgradable to Windows 10 as well.

On the other hand, CPU technology has come a long way in the last 10 years, so if the money is available I'd suggest a new build.

Even a current gen i3/low end AMD Ryzen will be significantly faster for video editing and other Photoshop/Premier pro operations. 32GB of ram rather than 8GB would help massively with general multitasking. An SSD in any system is a must these days. Combine these three elements and the OPs experience will be transformed.

Although, unless the OP is able to reinstall the Adobe software from original media, or stomach the Creative Cloud subscription costs, a clean install of Windows onto a new PC might be off the table.

Disneyfuel

Neil_Jones said:

Easy fix:  Put an SSD in it and keep your stuff on an external drive.  You don't need a massive SSD, you're not even using half of that drive as it is.

It's probably upgradable to Windows 10 as well.

Thanks, my laptop has SSD, not sure this alone would fix all the problems with my current desktop though, especially as I have never installed any new hardware before- I might make it worse LOL

I did get the option to install this many years ago but stupidly declined (I was scared of the new layout!) but trying to get anything to upgrade from the options in 'system' is impossible, just constant errors, so not sure where to now get the windows 10 and have it actually work!

booneruk said:

Neil_Jones said:

Easy fix:  Put an SSD in it and keep your stuff on an external drive.  You don't need a massive SSD, you're not even using half of that drive as it is.

It's probably upgradable to Windows 10 as well.

Although, unless the OP is able to reinstall the Adobe software from original media, or stomach the Creative Cloud subscription costs, a clean install of Windows onto a new PC might be off the table.

Yes this is my struggle. My Photoshop is CS5 on a disc - laptops and computers don't even have disc drives anymore lol
And my premiere pro was a lucky score when torrents were running and reliable LOL - so not sure how to get these again without downloading a massive virus. The £50 a month Adobe package is honestly ridiculous to me...

booneruk

booneruk said:

Neil_Jones said:

Easy fix:  Put an SSD in it and keep your stuff on an external drive.  You don't need a massive SSD, you're not even using half of that drive as it is.

It's probably upgradable to Windows 10 as well.

Although, unless the OP is able to reinstall the Adobe software from original media, or stomach the Creative Cloud subscription costs, a clean install of Windows onto a new PC might be off the table.

Yes this is my struggle. My Photoshop is CS5 on a disc - laptops and computers don't even have disc drives anymore lol
And my premiere pro was a lucky score when torrents were running and reliable LOL - so not sure how to get these again without downloading a massive virus. The £50 a month Adobe package is honestly ridiculous to me...

You could get an external (USB) DVD drive, and you could roll the torrent dice again. Not sure if those old versions will play nice with Windows 10/11 though!

Disneyfuel

booneruk said:

You could get an external (USB) DVD drive, and you could roll the torrent dice again. Not sure if those old versions will play nice with Windows 10/11 though!

Hmmm yes, good point! I honestly don't know how people afford Premiere pro monthly, can't afford to lose my little old versions so I seem a bit stuck!

I had no idea torrent sites were still running, thought they all got shut down!

km1500

one thing you might want to consider (since it is on all day) is power consumption.

Tiexen

Even if you have the installation disc and serial for Photoshop it may not activate, Adobe used to let you download old versions with a common activation code but that's not available any more.

Affinity Photo is good and reasonably priced.

facade

What you can try, I'm not 100% it is A Great Idea though, is this-

Get a new ssd.

Clone the windows drive to it.

Get it installed and working.

Sign into microsoft and deactivate windows on your PC.

Get a nice "newer" PC, something with an i5-8400, i5-9400, i5-10400, I'd avoid 11 & 12th gen with old graphics software, some of it relies on old versions of direct x that were removed from 11the gen intel cpus.

(avoid earlier than 8th gen, as win 11 doesn't support them, and that effectively limits the lifespan to 2 years)

Put the ssd in the "new" machine and hope.

Windows 10 is quite robust and will do a good job of sorting itself out onto the new hardware.

Sign into microsoft and reactivate your "new" pc.

onomatopoeia99

Disneyfuel said:

The computer is painfully slow, I can sit and wait 10 minutes for programmes to close when I want to shut down. Clicking through browsing tabs can take ages to load. The back fan sounds like it's going to take off. I have cleaned the side one, and all inside the tower but I can't access the back fan without removing the whole back ports etc.

Given the spec you posted, while about 12 years old it should not be anything like that slow, even on a spinning disk.  The computer I replaced a couple of years back was running the same processor (actually the unlocked version, but I didn't overclock it) and its performance was fine.  So I suspect there are other problem(s), possibly too much crapware installed over the years slowing it down (the usually reason when friends have come to me for help with the so-called "windows slowdown problem" - one had four BHOs installed, for example).

If you're not confident upgrading yourself then buying new would be a better bet.  A modern i7 will be so much better than a second generation - looking at headline things like clock speeds or even numbers of cores misses the huge improvements that have been made in efficiency in the intervening decade.  

I'm curious why you never took the windows 10 upgrade.

Newcad

Windows 7 is past the End-of-Life now, which gives you the problem that it is no longer going to be 'secure', and it's going to get harder to get compatable software.
But updating to a newer Windows version means that your existing older software may not run on it.

And of course changing to Mac gives the same compatibility problem, but more so.

So it looks that if you want to get up to date then you will have to get the software up to date as well as the hardware.

Before buying new kit there is one thing that you may want to consider.

You can still legally update Windows 7 (or 8 or 8.1) to Windows 10 for FREE, Microsoft have never actually turned the Free upgrade off, they just stopped advertising it.

See this for how to do it: https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-how-you-can-still-get-a-free-windows-10-upgrade/

Of course Win 10 is also due to become E-o-L in 2025, so you may instead prefer to make the jump and get a new machine that is compatable with Windows 11.