Fast and cheap home PC recommendation
Discussion
My 82 year old mother has a Curry's computer that is so incredibly slow, the only thing it needs is a good sledgehammer. I swear the sloth of the machine does not benefit her mental health.
Usual thing. Midi case which when opened has sweet FA inside.
She has Windows 10 so ideally I would like a machine I can slap her existing HDD into.
eBay have "ultrafast" machines for under £300 which would be nice. It's mainly emails, photos and Facebook but with good wireless capability.
Usual thing. Midi case which when opened has sweet FA inside.
She has Windows 10 so ideally I would like a machine I can slap her existing HDD into.
eBay have "ultrafast" machines for under £300 which would be nice. It's mainly emails, photos and Facebook but with good wireless capability.
mike9009 said:
I am going to do the classic PH thing and ignore the question!!
But, does the old computer have an SSD fitted? Might just make the difference for less than £30.
Also, a dose of ccleaner and malwarebytes might kick it back into action. (Both are free)
No. I fitted an SSD to my own computer. A bit quicker but hardly a revelation.But, does the old computer have an SSD fitted? Might just make the difference for less than £30.
Also, a dose of ccleaner and malwarebytes might kick it back into action. (Both are free)
CCleanered to death, it's just a sh*t weak computer.
LuS1fer said:
No. I fitted an SSD to my own computer. A bit quicker but hardly a revelation.
CCleanered to death, it's just a sh*t weak computer.
But is is a sh*t weak CPU, or weak memory - computers can feel bad for different reasons, and machines with not much RAM benefit more from an SSD than machines with lots.CCleanered to death, it's just a sh*t weak computer.
What spec is it, you may simply need to add some memory, which will be far less disruptive for her than migrating to a new machine.
Presumably it's not got a 3rd party AV package on it kiboshing the performance still further?
Maybe a Chromebook?
They are VERY simple and easy to use, similar to an iPad but with a more computer feel to it. I got one for my mum a few years ago and they are great for a non techy older person.
Something like
https://www.johnlewis.com/lenovo-flex-3-chromebook...
They are VERY simple and easy to use, similar to an iPad but with a more computer feel to it. I got one for my mum a few years ago and they are great for a non techy older person.
Something like
https://www.johnlewis.com/lenovo-flex-3-chromebook...
The Mad Monk said:
Where are these cheap PCs with SSD?
I have just looked at the Dell website. PCs with SSD and windows 11 - nothing under £900!
Dell aren't cheap these days. They are where you go for a rock solid work machine that's backed up by good support. I have just looked at the Dell website. PCs with SSD and windows 11 - nothing under £900!
Cheapest option is to build your own. Check out some cheap bulids from PC Part Picker if you want to go down this route.
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/
This is amusing, not for the replies, including the usual idiot suggestions, but for the OP as I'm in a similar situation but my mother is only 81. Her PC has been slow and needing replacing for a few years now (already has a SSD) but a couple of days back she had a potential disk wobble. Problem for me with hunting ( and why I failed during the 8 days of Black Friday/Cyber Monday) is because she also does graphic processing and so ideally could do with a dedicated graphics card, and even for low spec ones that's still adding £400-500 to the price.
Was considering the Dell Outlet as she (and my late father) have had from there before on a number of occasions.
Most annoying thing is actually the fact she has a relatively new laptop, which she refuses to hook up to her monitor; keyboard; and & and use instead. Trying to explain the advantages of multi-screens just goes in one stubborn ear and out the other.
Was considering the Dell Outlet as she (and my late father) have had from there before on a number of occasions.
Most annoying thing is actually the fact she has a relatively new laptop, which she refuses to hook up to her monitor; keyboard; and & and use instead. Trying to explain the advantages of multi-screens just goes in one stubborn ear and out the other.
Which graphics package, and if the built in Intel or AMD GPU on the CPU isn't supported by that package, can you cannibalize the GU from the old machine short term? GPU prices at present are prohibitive.
For example Photoshop's recommendation is a GPU with a score of over 2000 on https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/directCompute.h... and that goes back to some fairly old stuff.
For example Photoshop's recommendation is a GPU with a score of over 2000 on https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/directCompute.h... and that goes back to some fairly old stuff.
nikaiyo2 said:
Maybe a Chromebook?
They are VERY simple and easy to use, similar to an iPad but with a more computer feel to it. I got one for my mum a few years ago and they are great for a non techy older person.
Something like
https://www.johnlewis.com/lenovo-flex-3-chromebook...
Do this, I bought one for my mother and have had no support calls since it arrived......They are VERY simple and easy to use, similar to an iPad but with a more computer feel to it. I got one for my mum a few years ago and they are great for a non techy older person.
Something like
https://www.johnlewis.com/lenovo-flex-3-chromebook...
dapprman said:
Most annoying thing is actually the fact she has a relatively new laptop, which she refuses to hook up to her monitor; keyboard; and & and use instead. Trying to explain the advantages of multi-screens just goes in one stubborn ear and out the other.
The easiest solution might simply be to turn up with a docking station and a second charger.If you have a good enough laptop, whatever the perceived benefits of not docking it are, they're going to be outweighed by the hassle of needing to synchronize files, settings, licenses etc across two machines.
Just turn it into a Chromebook for free using CloudReady, you can try it from a USB drive in advance too.
https://www.neverware.com/freedownload#intro-text
https://www.neverware.com/freedownload#intro-text
dapprman said:
This is amusing, not for the replies, including the usual idiot suggestions, but for the OP as I'm in a similar situation but my mother is only 81. Her PC has been slow and needing replacing for a few years now (already has a SSD) but a couple of days back she had a potential disk wobble. Problem for me with hunting ( and why I failed during the 8 days of Black Friday/Cyber Monday) is because she also does graphic processing and so ideally could do with a dedicated graphics card, and even for low spec ones that's still adding £400-500 to the price.
Was considering the Dell Outlet as she (and my late father) have had from there before on a number of occasions.
Most annoying thing is actually the fact she has a relatively new laptop, which she refuses to hook up to her monitor; keyboard; and & and use instead. Trying to explain the advantages of multi-screens just goes in one stubborn ear and out the other.
What graphics packages does she use? GPUs these days are for 3d and video work.Was considering the Dell Outlet as she (and my late father) have had from there before on a number of occasions.
Most annoying thing is actually the fact she has a relatively new laptop, which she refuses to hook up to her monitor; keyboard; and & and use instead. Trying to explain the advantages of multi-screens just goes in one stubborn ear and out the other.
LuS1fer said:
My 82 year old mother has a Curry's computer that is so incredibly slow, the only thing it needs is a good sledgehammer. I swear the sloth of the machine does not benefit her mental health.
Usual thing. Midi case which when opened has sweet FA inside.
She has Windows 10 so ideally I would like a machine I can slap her existing HDD into.
eBay have "ultrafast" machines for under £300 which would be nice. It's mainly emails, photos and Facebook but with good wireless capability.
For normal computing use - basic office tasks, emails, online shopping, video channels, social media etc - I haven't found many limitations with ancient hardware as long as it has a modern operating system such as W10 or W11, an SSD and 8GB of RAM.Usual thing. Midi case which when opened has sweet FA inside.
She has Windows 10 so ideally I would like a machine I can slap her existing HDD into.
eBay have "ultrafast" machines for under £300 which would be nice. It's mainly emails, photos and Facebook but with good wireless capability.
Lack of RAM seems to be just as likely to bring an old computer to a stop as an old HDD.
Also I found recently that Norton was causing a significant amount of hesitation/stuttering with Windows 11 which hadn't been noticeable before changing W10 -> W11.
I bought a 'virtually a non runner' Windows 7 computer last year and it was indeed so slow it was unusable. I had planned to strip it for parts but decided to look at Task Manager which showed 2GB of RAM completely full even at idle.
Added a second 2GB RAM module from my bits box and the machine became a usable light-duty computer.
Increased its RAM to 8GB and fitted an SSD, and for basic everyday computing there's no noticeable difference between what it can do (it's an old Pentium dual core) compared to my wife's fancy one-year-old Hewlett-Packard (Intel-SSD, AMD Ryzen 7 octa-core, modern graphics card, 16GB RAM etc).
In fact, her HP is rather unstable (frequently locks up, freezes, crashes etc) whereas the old computer worth 1/30th as much has no issues.
Edited by RVB on Friday 3rd December 16:47
LuS1fer said:
No. I fitted an SSD to my own computer. A bit quicker but hardly a revelation.
CCleanered to death, it's just a sh*t weak computer.
The SSD, was it one of the Samsung cheap ones that has a very fast burst read rate but then a horrific sustained read rate? Or similar? They get horrible reviews. CCleanered to death, it's just a sh*t weak computer.
I ask because going from HDD to SSD absolutely should be a revelation in most cases. PCs I've upgraded have gone from over one minute boots to 6 or 7 seconds to the desktop.
Saying that, if it's a celeron I'm not sure anything would help.
Griffith4ever said:
I ask because going from HDD to SSD absolutely should be a revelation in most cases. PCs I've upgraded have gone from over one minute boots to 6 or 7 seconds to the desktop.
Saying that, if it's a celeron I'm not sure anything would help.
Changing from HDD to SSD in a Pentium dual core reduced boot time to desktop from ~50s to ~14s.Saying that, if it's a celeron I'm not sure anything would help.
Also the HDD would be running near 100% for about another minute after booting to desktop compared to SSD which lasts about 10s.
So time until HDD finished all it needed to do was about 2 minutes compared to SSD around 25s.
Edited by RVB on Friday 3rd December 17:56
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