Computer Advice

[Andrew Longman]

I have a 9 year old Dell Dimension 4100 I keep in our kitchen for the kids to use for homework, surfing and games (nothing intense, think Train Simulator, Legoland and Rollercoaster Tycoon, that's about it.). It is not loaded up with applications or files. Just very basic.

It was given to us by a friend several years ago who was upgrading. Its been just fine for our needs.

Lately, however it is getting slower and slower. Last night it took 4 hours to back up my daughter's modest iTunes library to an external hard drive. And what I assume is the internal hard drive has been making an ever louder persistant groan. My wife has done the latest Norton spyware sweeps, clean ups and defrags, but performance is unchanged.

My wife is ready to hit the door to buy a new computer. I, of course, being of inquiring mind and little money, need to pause and ask if it would be worth investigating the cause of the slow down.

Thoughts?

[redmist]

i'd try some other virus and spyware apps besides norton, norton kind of sucks as far as i'm concerned. you might wipe it and reinstall windows if you have a copy, maybe pick up a new hd, if that one is making a groaning sound probably means it's on it's way out.

[dando]

Sounds like the OS might need a repair install, and I'll bet the HD is close to failing if it's also 9 years old. What OS are you running? Win98? IIRC, XP is ~7 years old. How much data was being written for the backup? How much space is available on the HD?

For a copuple of hundred $, you can get a refurbed Dell from the Dell outlet:

http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/topics/global.aspx/arb/online/en/InventorySearch?c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh

Cripes, my first real PC cost me more than that just to upgrade the RAM from 4MB to 8MB. Insane!

I just bought a couple of sticks of RAM to extend our PCs for the next 2-3 years. I thought about going to a Mac, but the wife wants to investigate a franchise opp since she's sick of her job. No new toys for daddy. :-(

-Kevin

[dando]

i'd try some other virus and spyware apps besides norton, norton kind of sucks as far as i'm concerned. you might wipe it and reinstall windows if you have a copy, maybe pick up a new hd, if that one is making a groaning sound probably means it's on it's way out.

Yes, AVG is very good for both.

http://free.grisoft.com/

I saw a guy from Staples on the local news yesterday claiming that Norton was vastly superior to the 'free stuff'. BS!

-Kevin

[Insomniac]

I have a 9 year old Dell Dimension 4100 I keep in our kitchen for the kids to use for homework, surfing and games (nothing intense, think Train Simulator, Legoland and Rollercoaster Tycoon, that's about it.). It is not loaded up with applications or files. Just very basic.

It was given to us by a friend several years ago who was upgrading. Its been just fine for our needs.

Lately, however it is getting slower and slower. Last night it took 4 hours to back up my daughter's modest iTunes library to an external hard drive. And what I assume is the internal hard drive has been making an ever louder persistant groan. My wife has done the latest Norton spyware sweeps, clean ups and defrags, but performance is unchanged.

My wife is ready to hit the door to buy a new computer. I, of course, being of inquiring mind and little money, need to pause and ask if it would be worth investigating the cause of the slow down.

Thoughts?

I'd figure out who the manufacturer of the internal hard drive is and download their disk diagnostics and see if the hard drive is fragged if it's making abnormal noises. I'd also guess that given that the PC is 9 years old, it probably has USB 1.0 ports which tops out at a maximum throughput of 1.5MB/s and may even be as slow as ~187.5KB/s. (i.e. It may've taken that long with USB 1.x ports on a brand new PC.)

[Sean Malone]

format c:/s

Seriously. Wipe it and reinstall your OS. Even M$ says you should do it once every 12 months. I try to do mine twice a year.

I have to do my daughters two or three times a year.

[Stu]

get rid of norton, thats a huge system hog.

[Insomniac]

format c:/s

Seriously. Wipe it and reinstall your OS. Even M$ says you should do it once every 6 months. I try to do mine twice a year.

I have to do my daughters two or three times a year.

Nothing I hate more than doing that. Now my solution is to quit installing software. ;)

[Sean Malone]

Nothing I hate more than doing that. Now my solution is to quit installing software. ;)

I used to have a love / hate relationship with reformatting. back in the Win9x days it was a total pain in the ass but at the same time fun as hell and incredibly frustrating and satisfying at the same time. I remember blocking off an evening, gathering my 100 or so 3.5 floppies and have at it. late into the morning I'd be sitting at my fresh desk top after fighting trying to get my video drivers installed.

Now my wife, daughter and I each have our own laptop with the OS on a partition. I reformatted my daughters this past weekend with a couple of clicks. In less then 30 minutes I was done. Most of that time was just establishing the wireless connection and printer. So easy it's boring.

My dad sent me this today..."There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who get binary and those who don't."

[Cam]

Ubuntu or Fedora it. D/L the live versions that can be run from CD and see how they go.:)

[Insomniac]

I used to have a love / hate relationship with reformatting. back in the Win9x days it was a total pain in the ass but at the same time fun as hell and incredibly frustrating and satisfying at the same time. I remember blocking off an evening, gathering my 100 or so 3.5 floppies and have at it. late into the morning I'd be sitting at my fresh desk top after fighting trying to get my video drivers installed.

Now my wife, daughter and I each have our own laptop with the OS on a partition. I reformatted my daughters this past weekend with a couple of clicks. In less then 30 minutes I was done. Most of that time was just establishing the wireless connection and printer. So easy it's boring.

My dad sent me this today..."There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who get binary and those who don't."

I did it all the time until about a year after I started working. Computers are no longer fun. I just want the thing to work. I don't have the desire to fiddle and tinker anymore. I hate re-installing applications and backing up e-mail and reconfiguring crap. How do you get past all that? I get annoyed by an install that takes 10 minutes and a reboot.

[Audi_A4]

check out tiger direct and get a new box for under $300

[Sean Malone]

I did it all the time until about a year after I started working. Computers are no longer fun. I just want the thing to work. I don't have the desire to fiddle and tinker anymore. I hate re-installing applications and backing up e-mail and reconfiguring crap. How do you get past all that? I get annoyed by an install that takes 10 minutes and a reboot.

No, I'm with you. that's why I replaced all of my towers with notebooks.

[dando]

I did it all the time until about a year after I started working. Computers are no longer fun. I just want the thing to work. I don't have the desire to fiddle and tinker anymore. I hate re-installing applications and backing up e-mail and reconfiguring crap. How do you get past all that? I get annoyed by an install that takes 10 minutes and a reboot.

I'm with you. I used get a charge out of that shizzle, but now it just drains me. :( After the dealio I just went through with that horked user profile, I'm about ready to go back to BPC daze. :irked:

-Kevin

[Insomniac]

No, I'm with you. that's why I replaced all of my towers with notebooks.

But how do you reformat/restore your notebook in 30 less than minutes with little work?

[Sean Malone]

But how do you reformat/restore your notebook in 30 less than minutes with little work?

I can use either the Sony or HP system console to format and reinstall the OS to factory fresh. These utilities are outside of Windows. A couple of clicks and poof, it done.

[Insomniac]

I can use either the Sony or HP system console to format and reinstall the OS to factory fresh. These utilities are outside of Windows. A couple of clicks and poof, it done.

And it doesn't disrupt your other installed applications?

[Sean Malone]

And it doesn't disrupt your other installed applications?

Yeah, it wipes the HD and reinstalls the OS and the factory software (Norten Trial, various movie/picture utes etc).

[Insomniac]

Yeah, it wipes the HD and reinstalls the OS and the factory software (Norten Trial, various movie/picture utes etc).

That's the part I hate. Going from a clean install to getting everything set up again. I prefer to limit what I install, leave my PC on 24/7 and use hibernate on my laptop. :)

[dando]

That's the part I hate. Going from a clean install to getting everything set up again. I prefer to limit what I install, leave my PC on 24/7 and use hibernate on my laptop. :)

You might want to look into Drive Image. It's a good utility to create a default drive image from which you can restore. However, any incremental installs won't be present unless you update the default image as well as the current install.

http://www.drive-image.com/

I'm not an expert with it, but folks I've worked with previously swear by it.

-Kevin

[Insomniac]

You might want to look into Drive Image. It's a good utility to create a default drive image from which you can restore. However, any incremental installs won't be present unless you update the default image as well as the current install.

http://www.drive-image.com/

I'm not an expert with it, but folks I've worked with previously swear by it.

-Kevin

It seems similar to Norton Ghost which I used way back. I'd install Windows and all my usual Apps, get all the updates and make an image. It certainly made reformatting quicker, but I still had to back stuff up and install other updates and what not afterwards.

I need to remember to slipstream updates into the installation if I ever do a clean install though.

[dando]

It seems similar to Norton Ghost which I used way back. I'd install Windows and all my usual Apps, get all the updates and make an image. It certainly made reformatting quicker, but I still had to back stuff up and install other updates and what not afterwards.

I need to remember to slipstream updates into the installation if I ever do a clean install though.

Yes, similar, but these peeps actually like DI over Ghost. :) And yes, it's still work to keep images up-to-date, but if you don't install any apps, that's no biggie. :)

-Kevin

[Insomniac]

Yes, similar, but these peeps actually like DI over Ghost. :) And yes, it's still work to keep images up-to-date, but if you don't install any apps, that's no biggie. :)

-Kevin

I shouldn't say I don't install any applications. I should say if I install something, I have no plans to uninstall it. I no longer try stuff out to see what I think.