Computer RAM question

[7rider]

Regina, I presume you run virus scans and spyware software? Those little nasties can cause a PC to slow down quite a bit.

Also, if you have moved important files off to an external drive, be sure to back them up onto CD, DVD or a second external drive - all drives can fail, and extra disks with tons of storage are very cheap these days.

I've spent way too much time trying to keep elderly PCs running over the years, and have finally realized it's a case of severe diminishing returns! These days, when you can buy a brand new PC box for well under $500 (I bought one a few months ago for $187!) your time is worth more.

My one caution - if you get a PC, DON'T GET VISTA! In my opinion, it is not ready for prime time yet!

I run Norton antivirus, which updates and scans regularly and which I've been told is a pig of a program and may also be the cause of some slow performance. AOL gives us spyware checks, but I wonder about that. DH had his computer guy check our p.c. out recently, and he said it looked fine in the virus/spyware department. Files have been moved to a second internal hard drive, and yeah..I'm overdue for a backup.

Can you even get a new p.c. these days that *doesn't* have Vista??

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Can you even get a new p.c. these days that *doesn't* have Vista??

I think Dell caved in to customer anger and is offering their pc's with windows XP as an option as well. I hear Vista sucks. I'm very happy with XP.

[bikerz]

Yes, you can get a PC without Vista -especially is you go with one of the real cheap boxes. If you want to go with Dell, or someone like that, keep an eye on www.bensbargains.net - there will often be great coupon deals for PCs from Dell. I usually buy from Dell, but I have also gotten very inexpensive PCs from pcconnection.com, buy.com and tigerdirect.com.

For antivirus, I am a huge fan of AVG by Grisoft - both Norton and Mcafee and total resource hogs and I find them very intrusive. AVG has a free personal version, and I now use the very inexpensive SOHO version to protect all of my PCs. I've never had a problem with it.

You'll probably get a nice long life out of your next PC if you go for something that can take 1 gig of RAM or more, and has a big hard drive. If you buy an inexpensive box with 512 meg RAM, see if you can get all that ram on one card in one slot, then use a site like 4allmemory.com or any of the other memory sites to get a compatible card for the other slot. It is often cheaper to buy the PC with less ram, and then buy more RAM from another site.

Good luck!

[Irulan]

I run Norton antivirus, which updates and scans regularly and which I've been told is a pig of a program and may also be the cause of some slow performance. AOL gives us spyware checks, but I wonder about that. DH had his computer guy check our p.c. out recently, and he said it looked fine in the virus/spyware department. Files have been moved to a second internal hard drive, and yeah..I'm overdue for a backup.

Can you even get a new p.c. these days that *doesn't* have Vista??

AOL is also a resource hog and can slow down a system.
New computers are pretty darn cheap with rebates etc, why not just go for it?

Plus, with upgrading a compaq- you may run into issues with the way the hardware is put together, all integrated so that it's not possible to upgrade. Me, I always go with a custom build ( courtesy the geek child) which makes it easy to add/remove/upgrade hardware as long as there aren't compatibility issues.