Solve : Build New or Repair Old??

1.	Solve : Build New or Repair Old??
Answer» Been contemplating building my next computer. Then I asked myself "why buy a new case and all new components when I can just replace components when needed?" Unlike a car, the case will never rust out and all parts are modular and replaceable. Assuming I do not want or need a PC much faster or more capable than what I have now, what is wrong with continuing to replace parts? If I build a new PC, I will not get the full value out of the parts I have already replaced. Am I missing something?I put new builds into old cases all the time.It really depends what parts you can actually keep over, and whether it is worth it or not. Assuming you are talking about the HP in your previous thread: To bring it up to date, you would need to replace the motherboard, CPU and RAM all at once due to compatibility issues. Assuming your hard drive and DVD drive are SATA, you could potentially carry them over but I'd imagine your hard drive is pretty old so will be slower than a modern drive. If either of these are IDE, then you would need to replace them. Your power supply would likely still be okay for a very basic office system but not much more, it's also fairly old and not going to be particularly good quality so this would likely be up for replacement too. So all that leaves really is the case and DVD drive. Those old HP cases are nothing special and new cases are fairly cheap anyway - There's also something that just bugs me about having a new, high end machine in an old HP case. So, while it is possible, I wouldn't really say that it is worth it in your situation - You would likely end up saving more money if you were to sell your old PC as it is and use that money to put towards an entirely new system. However, it is worth doing incremental upgrades on certain systems. I change parts in my PC around very regularly so there is no way I would be looking to replace the system entirely every year or so. However, when I built mine, I aimed for it to be easy to upgrade by going for an extremely large, high quality case and top teir power supply. It all really comes down to how many components are going to need replaced at the time. When I last upgraded mine to Ivy Bridge, all I needed to replace was my CPU and motherboard as the rest was still new enough to be able to be kept. Quote from: camerongray on April 19, 2014, 06:27:01 AM Those old HP cases are nothing special ... Eh, I think this depends on the model. I have an HP Compaq d530 CMT. CMT stands for Convertible Minitower. This case has the latch-held, easy-release drive bays and some other nice features. I was tempted to use this case when I built a new system a few months ago but decided to get new case, partly just to get a more modern-looking all-black case but also to keep the old system as an extra computer. The HP Compaq d530 CMT is shown at http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/manualCategory?cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&product=316721& There, you see it configured with optical drives installed for laying the computer on its side on a desk. The optical drives can be re-oriented so that the case can be STOOD up as a tower, as is mine. As with any build / upgrade the best place to start is with a budget..... Then i select components usually in the following order: CPU MBoard Vid Card (if neccessary) PSU HDD Optical drive All other components...Thanks. I would be lost in the desert without you folks. I now see a potentially fatal flaw in my logic. I had not considered compatibility issues with CPU, mobo and RAM. In fact, I thought the CPU was an integral part of the mobo. I just replaced RAM and HardDrive last year. I need a new CD/DVD drive but hardly ever use it. It will read CD's but not DVD's. I'm guessing the DVD laser is shot. As long as I can get drop in replacement parts, I will continue to replace parts if/when they fail. However, if I reach a point where I need to get CPU, mobo and RAM, I may build a new one. I just spent $98 for Win 7 OEM and I want to run it as long as possible. Curious as to your current system specs / make/model etc? Sometimes people are looking for a faster system and come to find out what they have has potential for far more than originally designed. An example would be a cheap AMD Sempron Single-Core system that a client had that the motherboard was able to handle a Quadcore CPU which was far more powerful. And in the end, instead of buying or building a whole new computer, they simply just needed to buy a good used Quadcore off of ebay for $45 and $5 for thermal compound. The heatsink they had with the sempron was actually an overkill heatsink and so they were able to continue using the heatsink that the Sempron had with this Athlon quadcore. For Intel based CPU Computers you can also have such as a socket 775 Celeron system that is showing its age in slowness and maybe the motherboard will support a Core 2 Quad CPU which is a drastic improvement etc. It all depends on what you have to start with for hardware and what that hardware will support. Also it all depends on what the application of the computer is. Is this just for web surfing and e-mail or is this also for gaming? I have performed many upgrades as well as installed all modern guts into old computer cases to know the tricks. Main reason for using older computer cases was that I liked the case and so I bothered to convert them to universal from OEM front panel wiring etc, and drilled the power supply holes to be universal in the case. But also that I also figured, why send an old computer case to landfill when its not flawed in any way. I have a tendency to resist planned obsolescence, and so I use stuff beyond the intended life expectency of the DESIGNERS such as my 16 year old Honda Civic EX that I service myself and its a good cheap vehicle, whereas most people would have gotten rid of it when the gas tank needed to be replaced etc and jumped into a $25,000 car payment vs paying $200 for a gas tank and either INSTALLING it yourself orpaying a garage 2 hours labor to do it for you. I dont like to waste money and so I stretch the life of computers when it makes sense to do so, however there are also computers out there that would never work with a heavier processing demand and that is when its no longer worth spending money and its time to buy ( new ) or ( new used ). As far as selling old computer and applying the money towards a new build that sometimes makes sense, however with how cheap new lower end computers are these days, its not an easy sell to get much out of an old computer especially if its just the computer without the display and everything else. And then there is also the issue with getting all personal info off of the old computer so that the next owner(s) whomever they may be would never get personal info. One procedure I follow with all used computers that I sell or give away free is that I never hand them off with the original hard drives in them. I retain my hard drives, and place a good used hard drive in them that came from elsewhere in which I will install the OS clean to that drive and so my data never leaves my control. You can get a good used hard drive for around $10 to place into the system and keep your original hard drive.Dave, you and I are kindred spirits. I drive a 99 Avalon and do all of the repairs myself, including wheel alignments. I love DIY and hate throwing anything away that still has useful life. My PC enjoys a very unchallenged life. I do my personal finances, email and relatively light internet surfing & purchasing. Do not know why, but the speed of my PC varies quite a bit. When it is operating fast, it is more than sufficient. When it is in slow down mode, it can be annoying. I have Yahoo as my home page and sometimes it takes quite a while to load. Think it has something to do with either IE or MSE because our IPAD is much faster. Also, opening up a Yahoo news story seems to take forever. My ISP is Verizon FiOS. I have a 7 year old HP a1600n with 1GB RAM. I have a 250 GB WD HD I paid $11 for (after a $50 Amazon rebate). I am not looking to upgrade performance except if an upgrade is required to get it to consistently run at the fastest speeds it runs today. http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&docname=c00749157 http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00757531&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en#N116For your computer needs, hardware wise its still plenty. Only concern with future use is if you feel comfortable using Windows XP without security update support since you mention purchases and finances etc. Your system has the Athlon 64 x2 2.0Ghz (Dual-Core) CPU. 1GB RAM is ok for Windows XP if that is the OS that is still on this system. The good thing is if you wanted to run Windows 7 on this system later on, it would run Windows 7, however I'd go with the 32-bit version since your system can only take up to 4GB of RAM. RAM for this system is also not very expensive. I have 2 similar computers at home and was able to upgrade one of them to 3GB of DDR2 667Mhz RAM for $25 buying good used RAM off of Amazon, in which I bought 2 x 1GB sticks and 2 x 512MB sticks to have matched pairs and 3GB which is the maximum for 32-bit Windows 7. The integrated Geforce 6150 LE GPU is starting to show its age out there. So videos will lag and Netflix or other streaming sites may cause a lag effect to be seen. This can be resolved pretty inexpensively if needed with a modern lower end video card that would score 10x or greater in benchmark results to that of this integrated GPU. You might have a PCI Express slot available on this motherboard to support a video card upgrade if needed. I have a similar motherboard with same Geforce 6150 LE integrated GPU, and I installed a ASUS ATI Radeon HD5450 with 512MB Video RAM for just $30 brand new. Far better performance than the integrated video for watching Netflix and videos online which use to be choppy with the weak 6150LE. As far as computer speeding up and slowing down it could be a number of things causing this. If you have other computers connected to the internet connection and the speed doesnt vary ( such as the iPad is faster as you stated ) then it can be assumed that there is a process that is running at the local computer that is slowing down performance such as a virus scan or malware etc. If its been years since this computer was installed clean with Windows, I have found that backing up data to an external hard drive and then wiping the drive clean and installing Windows fresh brings new life to an older computer if the problem is not hardware related. If you still have the system recovery discs that came with this system or you burned when the system was new, I'd suggest backing up all data and then installing the OS and applications back to the system clean. This will start the system with a clean slate 99.9% of the time. Also, I have worked on a number of similar model/age HP computers and this model may have a hardware flaw. The hardware flaw is that capacitors with bad electrolyte were manufactured that leak, dry up, or explode. The symptoms of these capacitors failing can cause a computer to act speedy and then sluggish, as well as lead to lock ups or blue screens of death depending on the SEVERITY of the problem. Usually you can identify these quickly and easily by removing the cover to the computer and looking at the capacitors on the motherboard. You may need to use a flash light to see them, but your looking to verify that the capacitors on the motherboard have flat tops to them and are not swelled on top or leaking a yellow or brown grime from their tops. If you find that your system has this problem, it can be resolved if your good with a soldering iron, however most people consider it to be terminal cancer for a motherboard with this problem. Some people have found this problem and continue to operate their computers for months or even years, but the capacitors that have leaked are no longer functioning as they were designed and so they can cause ripple or dips in power from voltage regulators etc or short and smoke or explode. If the capacitor tops of your capacitors are all still flat and no leakage of electrolyte then you may have been lucky at getting a motherboard in a system that was manufactured with a better capacitor. More info here as well as pictures on identifying bad caps here: http://www.badcaps.net/ As far as your computer goes, my suggestion would be a clean install of the OS if you have the discs to do so. If you never burned these discs you may still be able to burn them to CD or DVD today. Some systems only allow a 1 time burn of this recovery set. Others allow you to do it multiple times. As well as some systems have a recovery partition only, and in order to install clean, you need to use a utility on the drive to build the C: partition clean from D: For the fact that you mentioned you upgraded to a 250GB WD HD, I am assuming that you may have installed clean to this hard drive. Also instead of using Internet Explorer with Windows XP, I would like to suggest using Firefox with Windows XP as for Firefox will continue to be updated for web security threats, while continued use of IE is going to lead to web sites that EVENTUALLY complain that your not running a newer enough version as well as there are security risks associated with continued use of IE with XP. As far as MSE ( Microsoft Security Essentials ), while this was a good antivirus/antimalware in the past, It FAILED Certification testing, not detecting as much as 39% of the current malware as of the test in December 2013. So I have moved all my systems over to AVG The Free edition for antivirus. AVG immediately found some issues as well that MSE did not detect on my system that were not false positives, but were unwanted lower risk malware on the rating system. http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/security/386185/microsoft-security-essentials-misses-39-of-malware-in-dennis-test Hoping you inspect your system and find that it does not have the capacitor problem and can get many more years of use out of it after a clean install to make it fresh again. Lastly here is a link if you want to upgrade to 3GB of RAM cheaply adding 2GB to the 1GB you already have. http://www.amazon.com/OptiPlex-GX280-DDR2-533-PC2-4200-Upgrade/dp/B002ZOZJK0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397947492&sr=8-1&keywords=pc2-4200 I took advantage of a similar offer on amazon to upgrade my wifes HP to 3GB of RAM, and then I upgraded her to Windows 7 32-bit from XP. XP can also run on 3GB of RAM as well if you want to stick with Windows XP a little longer. However if you find a good deal on a Windows 7 upgrade, its good to know that memory is cheap if needed. Also upgrading to Windows 7 32-bit SP1 from Windows XP SP3, I noticed that the computer runs overall better. I ran the system with 3GB of RAM on XP Pro SP3 for about 2 weeks before upgrading to Windows 7 and XP just acted like it didnt really take full advantage of the extra memory installed. Yet Windows 7 32-bit on 3GB of RAM on a similar aged Dual-Core CPU to yours felt like a whole new computer. Windows 7 32-bit would sit idle using about 700MB of RAM, and when she is multitasking she might use up to 2GB of the 3GB of RAM, but I have yet to see her system starving for memory even when multitasking. My thoughts on Windows XP SP3 is that it has been so heavily patched over the last 13 years that its performance is lagging. I have noticed differences in performance of XP with a laptop for example running a Pentium III 600Mhz with 512MB RAM that runs fast at clean install XP Pro SP2, and then after all the updates and SP3, it starts to crawl. I was almost starting to think that Microsoft was trying to kill off XP by crippling its performance with the slow down between SP2 and SP3 now brought. And SP0 and SP2 there was no drastic slow down in performance to a Pentium III 600Mhz with 512MB RAM and 40GB IDE HDD. Thanks Dave, a lot! I recently upgraded to Win 7 and do weekly back-up images on an external HD with Macrium Reflect. Also, I have a new video card coming...EVGA GT 610. I will check-out the capacitors. I built a few Heatkits back in the day and have repaired a few circuit boards over the years. No biggie to replace caps. I run a full Malwarebyte scan weekly in addition to the MSE scans. No bad actors discovered. Thought about buying more RAM but was under the impression it would not help very much....could be wrong on this. Edit: I see the free AVG does not have a firewall. Doesn't that concern you? Quote Edit: I see the free AVG does not have a firewall. Doesn't that concern you? I have 2 firewalls ( 1 x Hardware & 1 x OS ) Hardware Firewall ... The router has a hardware firewall and the router is flashed with DD-WRT which is a very solid feature rich and secure alternate for a normal router. OS Firewall ... All my systems that are Windows XP and Windows 7 are using their built in firewalls and have had no problems using them. I tried the Firewall feature with the trial of the Pro version of AVG and it caused problems actually. I have 2 systems with a cross over cable between them and even with permissions set between a XP and Windows 7 system for the Windows XP system to share folders with the Windows 7 system which has them as mapped drives, everything was working good with these 2 systems and secure with their own built in firewalls and joined to same work group etc. When the Pro Trial Version of AVG was tested I no longer had my mapped drives ( folders ). Going in and trying to make an exception to this to allow for the share between these 2 systems, no features to do so even when looking in advanced tabs etc. So I figured that the AVG Firewall which comes with the Pro version is not really intended for use in a small office with systems with shares between drives over a private network, such as my cross over cable with static IP addresses. So I uninstalled the Pro version and am just using the free version without the firewall, and just using the firewalls that are built into the OS which are pretty secure, especially since none of the systems are sitting on the other side of the router on the DMZ where the risk of running a OS firewall comes at the risk of a zero day attack. *The biggest risk with a ( weak, disabled, or no ) firewall on a system is if your connecting directly between a Modem and Computer without a secured Router in between to protect the system(s) from port scanning, which can lead to intrusions and overflows etc to hack a system remotely. Good to hear your running Windows 7 on it. If you only have 1GB of RAM though, thats really tight for Windows 7 and I'd suggest upgrading to 3GB. At 1GB of RAM your hard drive is likely being overworked with it trying to make up for the needed memory. And while the memory I linked states its for a Dell, it would also work in an HP. 3GB of RAM would give it breathing room for multitasking and will reduce the OS relying so much on the HDD for the virtual memory of the swap file. Here is a link to your motherboard: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00757531&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en#N146 The good thing is that it appears to support Dual-Channel Memory Mode. If you have 2 x 512MB sticks now and add 2 x 1GB sticks you will be running 3GB in Dual-Channel Memory mode. If you are running on a single-stick of 1Gb RAM, then your bottlenecking the full performance of the memory bus by running in Single-Channel memory mode.Dave, I thought the RAM memory sticks had to be identical or at least installed in pairs? Right now I have to 512 MB sticks. Should I get 2 1GB sticks for my other two slots?If your RAM is the PC2-4200 512MB sticks, you can add 1GB sticks of the same speed to these 512MB sticks and so you can have 2 x 512MB sticks and 2 x 1GB sticks and have 3GB of RAM, and it should be happy. As far as mixing brands etc, you can do that. Most of the time it works flawlessly, although sometimes RAM doesnt like to play with others. Its a rare occasion that like speed and spec memory doesnt work with each other. I have even had systems running problem free even confirmed with memtest86 on 3 mismatched sticks, but all the same speed and mixed sizes such as 1 x 128MB DDR 266 stick of Hynix, 1 x 512MB DDR266 Crucial Stick, and 1 x 256MB DDR266 HP stick to give a old Pentium 4 that only supported 266FSM memory as much memory as possible which I had on hand without spending money which came to the strange memory count size of 896MB because even though 768MB was plenty, why have a 128MB stick collecting dust not used..LOL Can't believe you have an Avalon...Dave, I have DDR2 PC-2 5300 sticks, 2 512MB Crucials. Patio, why are you surprised at my Avy? Back when I was still working I drove a big luxury car (Lexus LS400 which I bought new in 1995). Now I am an old retired smuck who belongs in an old Avalon.

Answer»

Been contemplating building my next computer. Then I asked myself "why buy a new case and all new components when I can just replace components when needed?" Unlike a car, the case will never rust out and all parts are modular and replaceable. Assuming I do not want or need a PC much faster or more capable than what I have now, what is wrong with continuing to replace parts? If I build a new PC, I will not get the full value out of the parts I have already replaced. Am I missing something?I put new builds into old cases all the time.It really depends what parts you can actually keep over, and whether it is worth it or not. Assuming you are talking about the HP in your previous thread:

To bring it up to date, you would need to replace the motherboard, CPU and RAM all at once due to compatibility issues.
Assuming your hard drive and DVD drive are SATA, you could potentially carry them over but I'd imagine your hard drive is pretty old so will be slower than a modern drive. If either of these are IDE, then you would need to replace them.
Your power supply would likely still be okay for a very basic office system but not much more, it's also fairly old and not going to be particularly good quality so this would likely be up for replacement too.

So all that leaves really is the case and DVD drive. Those old HP cases are nothing special and new cases are fairly cheap anyway - There's also something that just bugs me about having a new, high end machine in an old HP case.

So, while it is possible, I wouldn't really say that it is worth it in your situation - You would likely end up saving more money if you were to sell your old PC as it is and use that money to put towards an entirely new system.

However, it is worth doing incremental upgrades on certain systems. I change parts in my PC around very regularly so there is no way I would be looking to replace the system entirely every year or so. However, when I built mine, I aimed for it to be easy to upgrade by going for an extremely large, high quality case and top teir power supply. It all really comes down to how many components are going to need replaced at the time. When I last upgraded mine to Ivy Bridge, all I needed to replace was my CPU and motherboard as the rest was still new enough to be able to be kept. Quote from: camerongray on April 19, 2014, 06:27:01 AM

Those old HP cases are nothing special ...

Eh, I think this depends on the model. I have an HP Compaq d530 CMT. CMT stands for Convertible Minitower. This case has the latch-held, easy-release drive bays and some other nice features. I was tempted to use this case when I built a new system a few months ago but decided to get new case, partly just to get a more modern-looking all-black case but also to keep the old system as an extra computer.

The HP Compaq d530 CMT is shown at http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/manualCategory?cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&product=316721& There, you see it configured with optical drives installed for laying the computer on its side on a desk. The optical drives can be re-oriented so that the case can be STOOD up as a tower, as is mine. As with any build / upgrade the best place to start is with a budget.....
Then i select components usually in the following order:
CPU
MBoard
Vid Card (if neccessary)
PSU
HDD
Optical drive
All other components...Thanks. I would be lost in the desert without you folks. I now see a potentially fatal flaw in my logic. I had not considered compatibility issues with CPU, mobo and RAM. In fact, I thought the CPU was an integral part of the mobo. I just replaced RAM and HardDrive last year. I need a new CD/DVD drive but hardly ever use it. It will read CD's but not DVD's. I'm guessing the DVD laser is shot. As long as I can get drop in replacement parts, I will continue to replace parts if/when they fail. However, if I reach a point where I need to get CPU, mobo and RAM, I may build a new one. I just spent $98 for Win 7 OEM and I want to run it as long as possible.
Curious as to your current system specs / make/model etc?

Sometimes people are looking for a faster system and come to find out what they have has potential for far more than originally designed.

An example would be a cheap AMD Sempron Single-Core system that a client had that the motherboard was able to handle a Quadcore CPU which was far more powerful. And in the end, instead of buying or building a whole new computer, they simply just needed to buy a good used Quadcore off of ebay for $45 and $5 for thermal compound. The heatsink they had with the sempron was actually an overkill heatsink and so they were able to continue using the heatsink that the Sempron had with this Athlon quadcore.

For Intel based CPU Computers you can also have such as a socket 775 Celeron system that is showing its age in slowness and maybe the motherboard will support a Core 2 Quad CPU which is a drastic improvement etc.

It all depends on what you have to start with for hardware and what that hardware will support. Also it all depends on what the application of the computer is. Is this just for web surfing and e-mail or is this also for gaming?

I have performed many upgrades as well as installed all modern guts into old computer cases to know the tricks. *Main reason for using older computer cases was that I liked the case and so I bothered to convert them to universal from OEM front panel wiring etc, and drilled the power supply holes to be universal in the case. But also that I also figured, why send an old computer case to landfill when its not flawed in any way. I have a tendency to resist planned obsolescence, and so I use stuff beyond the intended life expectency of the DESIGNERS such as my 16 year old Honda Civic EX that I service myself and its a good cheap vehicle, whereas most people would have gotten rid of it when the gas tank needed to be replaced etc and jumped into a $25,000 car payment vs paying $200 for a gas tank and either INSTALLING it yourself orpaying a garage 2 hours labor to do it for you. I dont like to waste money and so I stretch the life of computers when it makes sense to do so, however there are also computers out there that would never work with a heavier processing demand and that is when its no longer worth spending money and its time to buy ( new ) or ( new used ).

As far as selling old computer and applying the money towards a new build that sometimes makes sense, however with how cheap new lower end computers are these days, its not an easy sell to get much out of an old computer especially if its just the computer without the display and everything else. And then there is also the issue with getting all personal info off of the old computer so that the next owner(s) whomever they may be would never get personal info.

One procedure I follow with all used computers that I sell or give away free is that I never hand them off with the original hard drives in them. I retain my hard drives, and place a good used hard drive in them that came from elsewhere in which I will install the OS clean to that drive and so my data never leaves my control. You can get a good used hard drive for around $10 to place into the system and keep your original hard drive.Dave, you and I are kindred spirits. I drive a 99 Avalon and do all of the repairs myself, including wheel alignments. I love DIY and hate throwing anything away that still has useful life. My PC enjoys a very unchallenged life. I do my personal finances, email and relatively light internet surfing & purchasing. Do not know why, but the speed of my PC varies quite a bit. When it is operating fast, it is more than sufficient. When it is in slow down mode, it can be annoying. I have Yahoo as my home page and sometimes it takes quite a while to load. Think it has something to do with either IE or MSE because our IPAD is much faster. Also, opening up a Yahoo news story seems to take forever. My ISP is Verizon FiOS. I have a 7 year old HP a1600n with 1GB RAM. I have a 250 GB WD HD I paid $11 for (after a $50 Amazon rebate). I am not looking to upgrade performance except if an upgrade is required to get it to consistently run at the fastest speeds it runs today.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&docname=c00749157

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00757531&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en#N116For your computer needs, hardware wise its still plenty. Only concern with future use is if you feel comfortable using Windows XP without security update support since you mention purchases and finances etc.

Your system has the Athlon 64 x2 2.0Ghz (Dual-Core) CPU. 1GB RAM is ok for Windows XP if that is the OS that is still on this system.

The good thing is if you wanted to run Windows 7 on this system later on, it would run Windows 7, however I'd go with the 32-bit version since your system can only take up to 4GB of RAM. RAM for this system is also not very expensive. I have 2 similar computers at home and was able to upgrade one of them to 3GB of DDR2 667Mhz RAM for $25 buying good used RAM off of Amazon, in which I bought 2 x 1GB sticks and 2 x 512MB sticks to have matched pairs and 3GB which is the maximum for 32-bit Windows 7.

The integrated Geforce 6150 LE GPU is starting to show its age out there. So videos will lag and Netflix or other streaming sites may cause a lag effect to be seen. This can be resolved pretty inexpensively if needed with a modern lower end video card that would score 10x or greater in benchmark results to that of this integrated GPU. * You might have a PCI Express slot available on this motherboard to support a video card upgrade if needed. I have a similar motherboard with same Geforce 6150 LE integrated GPU, and I installed a ASUS ATI Radeon HD5450 with 512MB Video RAM for just $30 brand new. Far better performance than the integrated video for watching Netflix and videos online which use to be choppy with the weak 6150LE.

As far as computer speeding up and slowing down it could be a number of things causing this. If you have other computers connected to the internet connection and the speed doesnt vary ( such as the iPad is faster as you stated ) then it can be assumed that there is a process that is running at the local computer that is slowing down performance such as a virus scan or malware etc.

If its been years since this computer was installed clean with Windows, I have found that backing up data to an external hard drive and then wiping the drive clean and installing Windows fresh brings new life to an older computer if the problem is not hardware related. If you still have the system recovery discs that came with this system or you burned when the system was new, I'd suggest backing up all data and then installing the OS and applications back to the system clean.

This will start the system with a clean slate 99.9% of the time.

*Also, I have worked on a number of similar model/age HP computers and this model may have a hardware flaw. The hardware flaw is that capacitors with bad electrolyte were manufactured that leak, dry up, or explode. The symptoms of these capacitors failing can cause a computer to act speedy and then sluggish, as well as lead to lock ups or blue screens of death depending on the SEVERITY of the problem.

Usually you can identify these quickly and easily by removing the cover to the computer and looking at the capacitors on the motherboard. You may need to use a flash light to see them, but your looking to verify that the capacitors on the motherboard have flat tops to them and are not swelled on top or leaking a yellow or brown grime from their tops.

If you find that your system has this problem, it can be resolved if your good with a soldering iron, however most people consider it to be terminal cancer for a motherboard with this problem. Some people have found this problem and continue to operate their computers for months or even years, but the capacitors that have leaked are no longer functioning as they were designed and so they can cause ripple or dips in power from voltage regulators etc or short and smoke or explode.

If the capacitor tops of your capacitors are all still flat and no leakage of electrolyte then you may have been lucky at getting a motherboard in a system that was manufactured with a better capacitor.

More info here as well as pictures on identifying bad caps here: http://www.badcaps.net/

As far as your computer goes, my suggestion would be a clean install of the OS if you have the discs to do so. If you never burned these discs you may still be able to burn them to CD or DVD today. Some systems only allow a 1 time burn of this recovery set. Others allow you to do it multiple times. As well as some systems have a recovery partition only, and in order to install clean, you need to use a utility on the drive to build the C: partition clean from D: For the fact that you mentioned you upgraded to a 250GB WD HD, I am assuming that you may have installed clean to this hard drive.

Also instead of using Internet Explorer with Windows XP, I would like to suggest using Firefox with Windows XP as for Firefox will continue to be updated for web security threats, while continued use of IE is going to lead to web sites that EVENTUALLY complain that your not running a newer enough version as well as there are security risks associated with continued use of IE with XP.

As far as MSE ( Microsoft Security Essentials ), while this was a good antivirus/antimalware in the past, It FAILED Certification testing, not detecting as much as 39% of the current malware as of the test in December 2013. So I have moved all my systems over to AVG The Free edition for antivirus. AVG immediately found some issues as well that MSE did not detect on my system that were not false positives, but were unwanted lower risk malware on the rating system.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/security/386185/microsoft-security-essentials-misses-39-of-malware-in-dennis-test

Hoping you inspect your system and find that it does not have the capacitor problem and can get many more years of use out of it after a clean install to make it fresh again.

Lastly here is a link if you want to upgrade to 3GB of RAM cheaply adding 2GB to the 1GB you already have. http://www.amazon.com/OptiPlex-GX280-DDR2-533-PC2-4200-Upgrade/dp/B002ZOZJK0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397947492&sr=8-1&keywords=pc2-4200

I took advantage of a similar offer on amazon to upgrade my wifes HP to 3GB of RAM, and then I upgraded her to Windows 7 32-bit from XP. XP can also run on 3GB of RAM as well if you want to stick with Windows XP a little longer. However if you find a good deal on a Windows 7 upgrade, its good to know that memory is cheap if needed.

Also upgrading to Windows 7 32-bit SP1 from Windows XP SP3, I noticed that the computer runs overall better. I ran the system with 3GB of RAM on XP Pro SP3 for about 2 weeks before upgrading to Windows 7 and XP just acted like it didnt really take full advantage of the extra memory installed. Yet Windows 7 32-bit on 3GB of RAM on a similar aged Dual-Core CPU to yours felt like a whole new computer. Windows 7 32-bit would sit idle using about 700MB of RAM, and when she is multitasking she might use up to 2GB of the 3GB of RAM, but I have yet to see her system starving for memory even when multitasking. My thoughts on Windows XP SP3 is that it has been so heavily patched over the last 13 years that its performance is lagging. I have noticed differences in performance of XP with a laptop for example running a Pentium III 600Mhz with 512MB RAM that runs fast at clean install XP Pro SP2, and then after all the updates and SP3, it starts to crawl. *I was almost starting to think that Microsoft was trying to kill off XP by crippling its performance with the slow down between SP2 and SP3 now brought. And SP0 and SP2 there was no drastic slow down in performance to a Pentium III 600Mhz with 512MB RAM and 40GB IDE HDD.
Thanks Dave, a lot! I recently upgraded to Win 7 and do weekly back-up images on an external HD with Macrium Reflect. Also, I have a new video card coming...EVGA GT 610. I will check-out the capacitors. I built a few Heatkits back in the day and have repaired a few circuit boards over the years. No biggie to replace caps. I run a full Malwarebyte scan weekly in addition to the MSE scans. No bad actors discovered. Thought about buying more RAM but was under the impression it would not help very much....could be wrong on this.

Edit: I see the free AVG does not have a firewall. Doesn't that concern you? Quote

Edit: I see the free AVG does not have a firewall. Doesn't that concern you?

I have 2 firewalls ( 1 x Hardware & 1 x OS )

Hardware Firewall ... The router has a hardware firewall and the router is flashed with DD-WRT which is a very solid feature rich and secure alternate for a normal router.

OS Firewall ... All my systems that are Windows XP and Windows 7 are using their built in firewalls and have had no problems using them.

I tried the Firewall feature with the trial of the Pro version of AVG and it caused problems actually. I have 2 systems with a cross over cable between them and even with permissions set between a XP and Windows 7 system for the Windows XP system to share folders with the Windows 7 system which has them as mapped drives, everything was working good with these 2 systems and secure with their own built in firewalls and joined to same work group etc. When the Pro Trial Version of AVG was tested I no longer had my mapped drives ( folders ). Going in and trying to make an exception to this to allow for the share between these 2 systems, no features to do so even when looking in advanced tabs etc.

So I figured that the AVG Firewall which comes with the Pro version is not really intended for use in a small office with systems with shares between drives over a private network, such as my cross over cable with static IP addresses.

So I uninstalled the Pro version and am just using the free version without the firewall, and just using the firewalls that are built into the OS which are pretty secure, especially since none of the systems are sitting on the other side of the router on the DMZ where the risk of running a OS firewall comes at the risk of a zero day attack.

*The biggest risk with a ( weak, disabled, or no ) firewall on a system is if your connecting directly between a Modem and Computer without a secured Router in between to protect the system(s) from port scanning, which can lead to intrusions and overflows etc to hack a system remotely.

Good to hear your running Windows 7 on it. If you only have 1GB of RAM though, thats really tight for Windows 7 and I'd suggest upgrading to 3GB. At 1GB of RAM your hard drive is likely being overworked with it trying to make up for the needed memory. And while the memory I linked states its for a Dell, it would also work in an HP. 3GB of RAM would give it breathing room for multitasking and will reduce the OS relying so much on the HDD for the virtual memory of the swap file.

Here is a link to your motherboard: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00757531&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en#N146

The good thing is that it appears to support Dual-Channel Memory Mode. If you have 2 x 512MB sticks now and add 2 x 1GB sticks you will be running 3GB in Dual-Channel Memory mode. If you are running on a single-stick of 1Gb RAM, then your bottlenecking the full performance of the memory bus by running in Single-Channel memory mode.Dave, I thought the RAM memory sticks had to be identical or at least installed in pairs? Right now I have to 512 MB sticks. Should I get 2 1GB sticks for my other two slots?If your RAM is the PC2-4200 512MB sticks, you can add 1GB sticks of the same speed to these 512MB sticks and so you can have 2 x 512MB sticks and 2 x 1GB sticks and have 3GB of RAM, and it should be happy. As far as mixing brands etc, you can do that. Most of the time it works flawlessly, although sometimes RAM doesnt like to play with others. Its a rare occasion that like speed and spec memory doesnt work with each other. I have even had systems running problem free even confirmed with memtest86 on 3 mismatched sticks, but all the same speed and mixed sizes such as 1 x 128MB DDR 266 stick of Hynix, 1 x 512MB DDR266 Crucial Stick, and 1 x 256MB DDR266 HP stick to give a old Pentium 4 that only supported 266FSM memory as much memory as possible which I had on hand without spending money which came to the strange memory count size of 896MB because even though 768MB was plenty, why have a 128MB stick collecting dust not used..LOL Can't believe you have an Avalon...Dave, I have DDR2 PC-2 5300 sticks, 2 512MB Crucials.

Patio, why are you surprised at my Avy? Back when I was still working I drove a big luxury car (Lexus LS400 which I bought new in 1995). Now I am an old retired smuck who belongs in an old Avalon.

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