Appreciate if those who know such things could cast an eye over this...
Dell desktop (new 2007) with... Intel® Pentium® Processor E2140 Dual core (1.60 GHz, 800 MHz FSB), 2gb ram, 200gb harddrive, onboard video & sound, DVD RW, several USBs, XP Pro with licence/discs. Software clean reinstall.
I need a spare room PC for the very specific purpose of web browsing, web based mail, Office 2007 (Word & Excel mostly). No gaming, video editing or photo manipulation. It will be added to our existing wi-fi and I have a usb thingy to do that.
It's £75 with keyboard, mouse & 17" widescreen LCD monitor. Sound OK for price and my intended use?
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fine
At some future date Win 7 install (easy) would make start up (a bugbear with XP) much faster .. It's a doddle.
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OK thanks, may give it a go then.
As it has just been cleaned/reloaded would it be easier/safer to load Windows 7 onto it before I add any other data/programs? I'm assuming at the moment it just has Windows XP, no other programs at all.
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Yeah, spec is fine, I use older machines than that on a daily basis. Yes in principle if I was upgrading to WIn7 I'd do it first - although personally I wouldn't bother, if you want faster boot then power down the machine to 'standby' rather than a full power down/up.
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Looks OK to me. My desk based home laptop is similar age spec and fine for things you mention. Will run you tube OK and do basic photo manipulation too. Keep start up programmes to min and run CCleaner regularly.
Only thought is whether a PCI wireless card would be better than USB for the wifi connection.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sun 14 Apr 13 at 10:05
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Decided to buy, at £65 in the end so can't go that far wrong.
I do have an alternative to wi-fi I might try, we have a pair of powerline units that worked well in the previous house.... one hard wired to the BT hub and the other to the PC upstairs.
The wi-fi is a little overused feeding the main PC, two laptops and daughters friends when they are here saving on their mobile phone broadband allowance. If I understand it correctly that is constantly dividing up data speeds?
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>> The wi-fi is a little overused feeding the main PC, two laptops and daughters friends
>> when they are here saving on their mobile phone broadband allowance. If I understand it
>> correctly that is constantly dividing up data speeds?
But even carved up, its not going to flow slower than the slowest part of your connection, the broadband connection. If you had 20 people all streaming Iplayer at once you may have issues!
If you are going to install win 7, do it now - a clean formatted install.
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Ahh OK, that's good to know about the wi-fi... so I can use either wi-fi or powerline whichever suits me I guess?
This machine has XP Pro. Start up times are not an issue for me so would Windows 7 advantage this old machine at all for the stated use in my first post?
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My desktop is 8 years old, has a Pentium 4 processor and 1.5 GB ram. Installed W7 about 6 months ago and it runs just fine, except photograph processing can take a little time and loading Office programs take a second or so longer than I would prefer.
Web is fine - but I am hard-wired to the router.
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>> This machine has XP Pro. Start up times are not an issue for me so
>> would Windows 7 advantage this old machine at all for the stated use in my
>> first post?
Well I wouldn't shell out for it, but If you have a copy I would use it and load it, its a more secure all round better OS, and its quite snappy on older hardware.
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>> This machine has XP Pro. Start up times are not an issue for me so
>> would Windows 7 advantage this old machine at all for the stated use in my
>> first post?
No Microsoft security patch support for XP from next year. Obviously use IE9 for now or perhaps Chrome for continued security support in the future.
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>> No Microsoft security patch support for XP from next year. Obviously use IE9 for now
>> or perhaps Chrome for continued security support in the future.
>>
Er, that'll be IE8 (horrors). No 9 or above on XP.....
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>> if you want faster boot then power down the machine to 'standby' rather than a full power down/up.>>
Far better and safer to use Hibernate, which Saves the status quo and Reboots at the same point. Using Standby can mean the loss of data etc if there's a power failure or other problem. A proper Shutdown, say at the end of the day, can then be done as normal.
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The processor is quite slow, but you might be able to find something like an E6500 on ebay cheaply enough. My office PC is an E4500, 4GB RAM, 500GB HD, and that is a bit slower than I would like but then it is a bench machine as well and I use it to test software etc. That said I am used to my I3 with 16GB of RAM at home.
Could probably do with a reinstall but after my holiday I will upgrade it to a modern 1155 system.
If you just need to use it for basic web stuff then it is more than fine.
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Well its home, up & running OK. Just loaded Google Chrome, MSE and updated Adobe etc. No issues noticed.
>>>The processor is quite slow
Yes it is a second or few behind our other machines when zooming in on Google maps for example. But with regular browsing, Ebay etc it seems fine. Going to load our Office 2007 in a moment and as long as Word/Excel performance is OK we'll call it a keeper.
Thanks for advice.
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>> Going to load our Office 2007
For which you have a licence? :-)
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>>>For which you have a licence?
Indeed. Bought it from Software4Students about 4yrs ago for £45 through kids school, licence for up to 3 machines and this new to me PC is the 3rd.
You're prodding the wrong guy! There are not knowingly any non-licenced computer programs in this house. I've paid for every bit of my music too.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Sun 14 Apr 13 at 21:39
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One thing I have noticed it is quite rare to come across unlicenced software these days, I take the view that sort of people who have pirated everything are the people who want something for nothing and are not good customers!
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>> One thing I have noticed it is quite rare to come across unlicenced software these
>> days,
>>
You may not know. The professionally pirated stuff is very difficult to spot these days.
I have a copy of Office 2010 at home that I am fairly sure isn't 100% kosher. For a start it was cheaper than it had any right to be and secondly the box came in "Ingram Micro" shrink wrapping, which is always a red flag on MS products. Nearly all the bent Win 7 copies with technet licenses came with Ingram wrap.
The box, paperwork and DVD is 100% vanilla, right down to the CD edge scalloping and holograms. The only giveaway is the license sticker. This looks perfect until carefully inspected with a magnifying glass, at which point it becomes apparent that the printing on the minute security strip down the middle isn't quite there.
If I hadn't been fairly convinced it was bent due to the price and wrapping, I'd never have spotted it. MS have sunset their old OGA (Office Genuine Advantage) programme, so as it works, it'll keep on working.
Last edited by: TeeCee on Wed 17 Apr 13 at 08:42
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Ingram Micro is a very legit source though isn't it?
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It is, one of the largest supplier of genuine MS products in the world, including India and the far east sooooooo the hookey MS products don't come from Ingram, they have counterfeit Ingram stickers on to make them look genuine....
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Surely with the windows one though, if its a pirated technet key it would soon be on the black list?
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Yeah but you dont find out till you have installed it do you. They have your money already.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 17 Apr 13 at 19:32
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>> That said I am used to my I3 with 16GB of RAM at home.
Out of sheer curiosity, what on earth do you do that needs 16GB of RAM?
And don't forget that if you work for a company with a site license for Office, you can pick up a copy for yourself for £12 of either the Windows or Mac version.
Last edited by: Fursty Ferret on Sun 21 Apr 13 at 13:10
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Was just spare RAM I had around, so rather than having used RAM I couldn't resell it is better in my system. As the saying goes you can never have too much RAM!
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As the saying goes you can never have
>> too much RAM!
>>
Randy old goat...:-)
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Cheap old PC choice? - madf
