23 replies to this topic

[shadragon]

Got a few bucks for my Xmas bonus so I started looking at a simple video card upgrade for my PC. No worries there and I found a 1.5 GB vid card on sale. Then I realized my trusty WinXP box is 32 bit and therefore it can only address 4GB of RAM. I have 4 GB RAM in there already and the 1.5GB needs to be included in the 4GB so I would actually lose RAM overall (4 - 1.5).

Simple enough solution, upgrade to Win7 64 bit which can address 16 exabytes. However, doing that means I need to add more RAM to have it run efficiently as Win7 recommends 4GB RAM minimum, but I still had the 1.5GB card to take into account so more RAM was needed. I decided on 8GB. However, my current motherboard would only take 4GB max, so I would need to upgrade my MoBo too. Found a nice one on sale as well which can have 64GB RAM, but if I got it I would need to upgrade my CPU as it would not work with the new one. Plus, the RAM on the new MoBo is DDR3 and my old one is DDR2. Then I saw that the game I wanted to play on the new video card was not even Win7 compatible. ~sigh~

Basically, I decided to build a new PC from the ground up and leave the old WinXP box for full backwards compatibility.

So the $250 video card upgrade is going to cost me $1600 by the time I get the above mentioned parts, new case, power supply and hard drives. Plus, the new monitor needed on the separate system.

Technology. Gotta love it.

[WreckWench]

I feel your pain...I had to totally upgrade and replace my computer last January. Thank goodness we have sooooooooo many awesome IT cyberelves on our site as one in particular did the lionshare of transferring my files from my DEAD computer.

Backups???

Are you all doing them?

[uwfan]

Truly, I can't completely follow what you are saying... but I certainly get the gist! ...Always knew there was a reason I start over every few years... no way would I get it right to build a computer from scratch!! Good luck Simon!

BTW... I bought a external hard drive for backing up my computer yesterday...

[Landlocked Dive Nut]

I back up my financial software every time I use it. Everything else on my PC are just docs & spreadsheets, easily replaced, but backed up to a thumb drive every couple of months.

Simon, brand-new off-the-shelf PC's cost substantially less than $1,600. Are you using gold connections or something?

[Neptuner]

I understand completely Simon... now multiply that by at least 5 full-time computers that must be business-ready at all times. 2 computers for the recording studio that NEVER see cyberspace (for obvious reasons), 2 business computers for artwork, graphics, marketing, social networking, etc. and 1 laptop for staying connected worldwide. What an interesting world we live in, huh? I used to build all my stuff from scratch, but now I spend so much time working on the music and marketing that I prefer it if someone else does it all! Hey... need to go to Colorado for a ski trip any time soon?!?! LOL!

And yes Wenchie... even my backups have backups, as well as offsite duplicate storage in the event of a fire. I can't even imagine losing months worth of recording work simply because of hardware failure... what a nightmare that would be!

[shadragon]

Simon, brand-new off-the-shelf PC's cost substantially less than $1,600. Are you using gold connections or something?

Where you say "brand-new off-the-shelf PC's" I read "PC's that use the lowest cost generic components made in the seedier back alleys of Taiwan". A lot of manufacturers and big box stores sell PC's with cheap no-name brand internal components and / or everything built on the motherboard.

I build all my own computers with hand picked, top of the line components from reputable manufacturers with long guarantee periods. Not only do I get a quality computer, but as I put it together I know how to fix it if it breaks. On my current PC I had a DVD burner and video card go futzy on me. Both were replaced at no cost to me. Quality does cost extra, but seldom lets you down in the long run.

[UP Diver]

[/quote]
Where you say "brand-new off-the-shelf PC's" I read "PC's that use the lowest cost generic components made in the seedier back alleys of Taiwan". A lot of manufacturers and big box stores sell PC's with cheap no-name brand internal components and / or everything built on the motherboard.

I build all my own computers with hand picked, top of the line components from reputable manufacturers with long guarantee periods. Not only do I get a quality computer, but as I put it together I know how to fix it if it breaks. On my current PC I had a DVD burner and video card go futzy on me. Both were replaced at no cost to me. Quality does cost extra, but seldom lets you down in the long run.
[/quote]

Simon -

The whole issue is that you started doing the putz routine on the machine without talking sweetly to it, promising it surge protection (cue the theme from 'Shaft' here) and suddenly it realized that The Man with his hand on the MoBo was really a bad MoFo (raise volume on theme from 'Shaft' here).

Smile, order more premium components, pay the VAT upon arrival and enjoy the world of 64 bit systems!

UP Diver

[shadragon]

Smile, order more premium components, pay the VAT upon arrival and enjoy the world of 64 bit systems!

Personally, I am waiting for 256 bit Quantum computers that know the answer before I ask the question. hahahahaha

[georoc01]

Yeah, last year I broke down but went the laptop route.

And as far as backups go, HP has a USB external backup drive with a software package called simplesave that automatically backs it up when I connect it.

[WreckWench]

George can you post that in the new topic I started on back ups? (The link is here!)

[drbill]

One reason why I rarely upgrade my systems if they are working properly. The technological advance that orphans older technology is often not really worth the increased performance IMHO, especially if the new OS requires so much more RAM just to function reasonably. I just hope you don't have to upgrade a lot of your apps because they won't run in a 64-bit OS.

I stick with Windows XP... tried and true, all my software works with it, 3-4 GB of RAM is generally plenty for most of what I do. I also have machines running Win 98, Win 95, Win 3.1, DOS and even CP/M. However, they stay in storage until I need the capabilities of them (say to read a 5 1/4" floppy).

As for upgrading component by component, you really have to research what you have and what is out there. With so many different types of RAM, MB sockets, slots, etc., one can easily get stuck with a number of components that simply don't work with one another. To some extent this represents advanced technology (but most people don't need it anyway if they are working just with word processing, spreadsheets and still images), but to a large extent it represents manufacturer "incentives" to upgrade and keep current.

Edited by drbill, 06 January 2011 - 09:57 AM.

[WreckWench]

I would have stuck with windows xp myself but finding them new is now nearly impossible. If you are able you can buy a new machine, wipe it and install xp but that has issues as well for some. (I was in the latter category.) I can finally use of win7 but still sometimes think in xp terms. And some things are really easier in win7.

But if you can stay with what you know...its better.

[Landlocked Dive Nut]

I just tried (for work) to purchase a couple of new PCs with WinXP, and they are not sold anymore. According to Dell, Microsoft will not allow XP to be installed on new equipment by a reseller. It's an obsolete operating system according to Microsoft, is what I was told.

Too bad, because our Point of Sale software (which was VERY expensive -- $50K+) will not run on anything higher than WinXP. Get the new POS software version, and I have to replace every piece of computer hardware we own....

Sucks.

[peterbj7]

I had to convert to Win7 some months ago, and I keep finding software and hardware that won't work with it. The latest was just this morning - I have a quality flatbed scanner that I use no more than every few months, and hadn't tried to use with Win7. I spent 1.5 hours this morning trying to make it work and finally contacted the manufacturer. "That model won't work with Windows 7 and there's no way around it - you'll have to buy a new one". Will I heck - I installed an XP partition on my computer and go to that when I find something that won't work on 7. I'm really fed up with the way Microsoft keep shafting people, so within a month or two I will have changed to Mac. That will be a one-way change. Has anyone tried using the latest version of MS Office? To me it's totally unfit for purpose, and I either use MS Office XP or (more likely) Open Office.

Edited by peterbj7, 06 January 2011 - 11:10 AM.

[shadragon]

Hey Peter,

As far as the latest version of Office it is the latest stepping stone toward leased software and I suspect the next versions will be charged monthly. MS as a corporation needs to generate funds and Office / Windows are two legs of their main income stream. Unless MS changes their closed business model they will not survive the next ten years. Go check their stock price over the last 5 years. It is actually below average now and after the Zune / WinPhone debacles, only Win7 and Kinect are keeping them afloat in the short term.

OpenOffice does everything MS Office does without the drama, overhead and background tasks. It is free and can load / save in MS document formats and many others to boot.

As for going to Mac, sorry Peter, but Apple is more of a closed garden environment than MS. OSX has much less software choice and higher prices than any MS product and if it is not "Officially Approved" software you may have issues with it. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of happy MS/Apple users out there and if it works for you/them then great. However, no OS is perfect and the answer is virtual computing. It is such a wonderful tool. Lets you run copies of any OS (or version) as you need them. It works even better than dual boot PC's as you can access two, three or more OS's simultaneously and exchange info between them. You do need beefy hardware to run it, but a small price to pay for the flexibility and you can run your scanner on WinXP as long as it lasts.

Check out VMWare. Run it on a Linux OS for stability and you can snapshot any major OS to run under it in minutes.