Computer upgrades

[johnridley]

I was gonna swap computers with the family since they actually play games on it so except for video work (which I hardly do anymore) they have more need of a fast computer than I do. They do have issues where it slows down badly from time to time.

I was doing some groundwork for the swap when I re-discovered that the thing only has 1GB of RAM. Well, there's your problem. I had been wondering how a 2GHz dual core machine manages to be as slow as I've seen it be.

Even if I do the swap, I can't live with 1GB given the VM that I have to run for work. So I'm kicking it up to 4GB first to see how that goes. I bet it becomes acceptable at that point.

I may put Windows 7 on it too. At least that would just be one fresh install instead of two. I really have better things to do than do fresh Windows installs. Like watching snow fall, or paint dry, or anything really.

Comments

[c0nsumer.livejournal.com]

I'm actually just going through old computer stuff now getting ready to dispose of some CRTs and the like.

I've got way too much cruft that's built up over the years. Thankfully it's nowhere near as much as some that I know.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I don't have anything around that I couldn't use in a relatively useful modern machine anymore. Got rid of the total cruft a while back. I have a couple of machines in the basement that honestly I could use as my primary machine now that I'm not really doing video work anymore. They're both about 1.8 GHz single core machines. I've trashed everything that has no potential to be at least somewhat useful. I still have a single floppy drive in the box in the basement, for instance, but I've given away all the non-SATA hard drives.

[c0nsumer.livejournal.com]

That's exactly the sort of thing that I'm doing. I just disassembled an 80GB that I couldn't wipe (for some reason), sledgehammered the spindles/arms on old sub-1GB drives, and have a pile of cases being built to photograph for giveaways before people take them.

I just don't need this stuff any more.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I have the two 1.8 GHz machines that I was going to give away, but the machine I'm using as my primary right now is actually way more than I need anymore (4 core 2.4 GHz), and if it (or the family PC) were to die I'd just bring up one of those old machines (putting my machine in the family PC location if that was the one that died), so I decided to keep them around. Besides, it's useful to keep spare power supplies around.