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Solve : So My PC Is 9 Years Old And I Need Advice... A LOT of Advice!? |
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Answer» I have an emachines T3624 that I bought brand new from Best Buy in 2005. It has Windows98 XP on it of course. All I basically use my pc for is I have an emachines T3624 that I bought brand new from Best Buy in 2005. It has Windows98 XP on it of course.Just to be clear, Windows 98 and Windows XP are two completely different Operating Systems. Your system almost certainly has Windows XP; Systems weren't shipped with Windows 98 much after 2002 or so. Quote (1) to sell a few postcards on ebay, so I have a printer/scanner too.For your purposes, I don't think a new PC should be necessary. If security is a concern, you could do all of those things with a Linux machine.(EDIT: I should clarify: Linux is a Operating System that you could use INSTEAD of Windows XP, not an actual machine) The trade-off, of course, is an investment of your time to learn that system, so it depends if that is worth it. Quote I will have to buy a used one, but want to do so through a reputable dealer like walmart where I can at least get some kind of warranty! Quote I need to know if most desktop pcs still have ports for a telephone line as it looks like I will be having to switch to a dial-up ISP like netzero or such to save money.Computers have never had these ports "built in". These ports- the Telephone jacks, that is- are part of a device called a 'Modem'. For some time, computers came standard with a modem. Even my laptop (~2008 or so) has a modem connection. They have not, however, typically been included in desktop machines for some time, instead being replaced for ethernet on a add-on card or more recently the system board. Modems are however relatively inexpensive. ADDITIONALLY, if your current machine has a Modem it might be possible to remove the modem card and install it in the new system. Quote When I was looking on walmart's site about buying a used pc, they mentioned trading in your old pc and getting money for it. What can I do to get as much of my personal info off of my pc as possible before doing something like that? I don't want my pc to go in a landfill either afterall!Though I Suppose this depends on the person I personally avoid throwing out any of my PCs. At the very worst I end up storing them in a closet. I also suspect that Wal-mart would probably be using the trade-in thing to get old computers which they then refurbish and resell, probably for more than they bought it from you. If you still want to you can use a tool called DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) Which you can burn to a disc. It will completely clear your hard drive of any data. Another alternative- and because I tend to be a preserver- is to simply remove the hard drive entirely. Be sure you have all the data you want from the drive, especially in the first case. Quote And what is the earliest Windows OS I should be willing to accept on a pc? I know that 98 XP is OUT!Vista. You won't be able to buy a new PC with anything older than Vista anyway. You'll usually end up with 7 or 8. Quote My 9 year old pc is still working. I've never had a problem with it. I'm using it as I type this now! But I guess that I have to face reality since 98 XP is "gone".IMO, if the PC still works, and it is not powerful enough for Vista or Later to run well (2005 means no I would expect). I do not see a problem with sticking to Windows XP in this particular case. It is less than ideal but if money is truly tight you should not feel that you are in a position where you are "forced" to buy a new system. An alternative worth exploring before you decide to buy a new PC- especially if money is tantamount- would be to try a Linux distribution and see if that can fit your needs. As I mentioned this would still "cost you" in terms of time taken to learn it, but it would still leave you with a heavier wallet (or more digits in your bank account), so could be worth exploring before spending money. If you decide to try the Linux route I'm sure many members of this forum who are familiar with it could help guide you through it to help you determine if it would fit your requirements. And in regards to the parts, it is fairly easy- you compared it to removing a transmission, but is quite a bit simpler than that thankfully. And again I'm sure if you decide that could be a option we would be more than happy to try to help you through the process of taking say the Modem card from your current system and bringing it forward to a new system, if you decide to go that route. It could save you 10-20 dollars for the USB Modem Camerongray mentioned, so could be worth it. Could my pc support a windows 7 on it you suppose? The info I see on the front of the pc tower read: 330 processor 2.66 GHz 256k L2 Cache 533 MHz FSB 60GB Hard Drive 256MB I remember that I bought and installed extra RAM and put in my pc about 5 years ago. I think it doubled whatever it came with.... As you can so clearly see, I am truly pathetic when it comes to understanding computers! I am 50 years old and I did not even have any exposure to pcs until the early 2000's. I was so naive that I thought the monitor WAS the pc itself! LOL! What little bit I have learned about my pc, I have mostly learned on my own and it has been very slow going as I learn much better when I am shown rather than reading instructions or being told what to do and I really don't have anyone with the time to show me and I can't take lessons either. You guys are really kind to so patiently explain these points to me and I appreciate it a LOT! But I have to be honest and let you know what you're dealing with here! For example, how in the world I forgot that WIN98 and XP weren't the same is beyond me!! I truly did know that at one time, but I forgot. It's heck getting old! Linus sounds great but I'm afraid that this old dog might better stick to what she knows (which is already only a smidgen!) Maybe I better just buy another used pc with WINDOWS 7 on it and try to keep my DSL as long as I can. I get a free cell phone through the gov't. with 250 minutes a month. I wish they had free internet like that for low income/fixed income folks. I've been on disability for 20 years and I'm thankful for all my blessings. I consider your advice among them. Thank you all! BreadcrumbThat PC is unfortunately far to old to run 7. The cost of a Windows 7 upgrade would also be way more than the machine is worth.The PC that I'm on right now, is 9 years old. I built it myself in 2005. It's had RAM upgrades and quite a bit of maintenance on it since, but it's still running Windows XP-Pro just fine. The key to its success, is the AMD X2, 5200+ CPU. That aside, I have run every OS on this PC including Windows 7 and 8 and 8.1. I also have several eMachines of the same vintage and they all will run XP, and Windows 7 with little or no problems. Sound seems to be the greatest problem. eMachine used some weird sound drivers that were never updated for Windows 7 or later. I have gotten sound on an old eMachine by adding a Sound Blaster sound card. My best suggestion for that eMachine with XP, is to turn off Auto UPdates, add RAM to get up to 2GB at least and then do a massive cleanup on the hard drive. Get rid of everything you don't need. If it doesn't have bulging capacitors on the motherboard, it should be good for several years to come. If that PC were here, I could easily do all that for you..... it's what I do for a living. There should be a LAN port on the back of that PC and all the LAN circuitry is on the motherboard. If not, then a $10 LAN card could be added to get that thing to work on a DSL or Cable Internet line. But for someone with very limited knowledge about a PC, it would be better to take it to someone who does. Good Luck, Shadow Quote from: TheShadow on May 31, 2014, 01:24:51 PM I also have several eMachines of the same vintage and they all will run XP, and Windows 7 with little or no problems.This particular machine in question has an extremely weak Intel Celeron 330 CPU, with a RAM upgrade it would run Windows 7/8.1 but not well at all. If you factor in the cost of the upgrades - $100 (For Windows 8.1), $40 (2gb DDR) you are looking at $140 on a machine that isn't worth nearly that much and would still run extremely slowly (even slower than it does at the moment with XP). Quote from: TheShadow on May 31, 2014, 01:24:51 PM My best suggestion for that eMachine with XP, is to turn off Auto UPdates, add RAM to get up to 2GB at least and then do a massive cleanup on the hard drive.Well, since XP will no longer get updates having Automatic Updates enabled will not be an issue but turning off automatic updates on an OS that is still getting it is an extremely bad idea unless you are red hot at manually installing the updates. Quote from: TheShadow on May 31, 2014, 01:24:51 PM There should be a LAN port on the back of that PC and all the LAN circuitry is on the motherboard. If not, then a $10 LAN card could be added to get that thing to work on a DSL or Cable Internet line.They are already using it with DSL, they wanted to know whether if they bought a new PC they could connect it to a Dial-Up connection they are planning on moving to to save money.Thanks for all the fine advice. I'm going to get a used pc with Windows 7 or 8 on it. I'm being told that dial-up is basically a dead-in-the-water idea, so I'll try to cut back elsewhere... everyone here has been super nice! You rock BTW! BC |
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