dannymccann
Member
Registered: 9th Aug 06
Location: Doddington, Lincolnshire
User status: Offline
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Just put Win7 on my desktop upstairs. Its only used for internet, Word, bit of youtube and downloading songs, so nothing particularly taxing. It is struggling though as I built it as a budget PC about 4 years ago, like it struggles to even run Firefox (Chrome seems to work pretty good though  ) spec is
Sempron 2800 (single core, skt754)
1GB DDR Ram (yea, not DDR2)
IDE ( ) hard drive
So as you can see, fairly ancient tech there, it might even be 512kb of RAM, but I dont think it is. What Im asking is should I add an extra stick of RAM and it will probably still struggle to the point of not being able to do anything with it still, therefore wasting money, or build new? I was going to upgrade processor at the same time but the cost of a skt754 processor far outweighs new dual cores
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Daveskater
Premium Member
Registered: 29th Apr 08
Location: Oxford, UK Drives: Jap wagon
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Go on www.crucial.com and run their scanner to see what the maximum RAM you can put in is, to make sure you don't totally waste money on something that you won't get any use out of. You should be able to get some DDR RAM fairly cheaply, I have used eBay in the past with no problems. Make sure that whatever you get is the same speed as your current RAM, i.e. PC2100, PC3200 etc.
If you can get it up to around 2GB with a small amount of money then go for it (obviously as long as the motherboard can take that much) as you will see improvements then, but if that is going to cost silly money then personally I would upgrade to a new build.
Numberwang!
Originally posted by AlunJ
I like you Dave, you are a man of men
Originally Whatapp'd by Neo
Dave's maybe capable of a drive-by cuddle
Look at my pictures
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moka
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Registered: 11th Mar 06
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Go to the PC, go to start > run. Type in dxdiag. Note down how much RAM you have. If its 512mb or under, i would recommend at least 1gb, if it is 1gb, stick another in there for good luck  . Pop open your case, check how many slots your motherboard has for memory, have a look on your memory module, find out the speed. Visit ebay, get yourself a matching module (ie DDR/DDR2, PC****). Faster ram in general is backwards compaitble with slower ram so you shouldnt have much of a problem if you buy faster ram.
This can be done for £15*
Other than that, just do the usual clean up - disk defrag / ccleaner etc.
Did you do a fresh install?
[Edited on 09-11-2009 by moka]
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Reedy
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Registered: 11th Apr 04
Location: Hammersmith
User status: Offline
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Probably best to have a look for some new major components. Get yourself a new mobo and processor and ram ( you can get bundle deals ).
Also i thought windows 7 needed 2gb or maybe its recommended.
The hard drive isnt an issue, ide is still pretty fast and wouldnt hinder your performance enough ( in consideration to the slow processor and low amount of ram ).
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mwg
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Registered: 19th Feb 04
Location: South Lakes
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Desktops from Dell are so cheap these days I wouldn't bother messing about upgrading. I had extra RAM put in my works computer after I went on crucial and it didn't make a shit of difference. Its the processor that is shit so upping the RAM did next to nothing
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dannymccann
Member
Registered: 9th Aug 06
Location: Doddington, Lincolnshire
User status: Offline
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I wont be buying anything from Dell thats a desktop  I build it all myself, so know all about RAM speeds, latencies, all that jazz, just wondering on opinions on how much difference another GB of RAM will make on a Win7 (Home Premium) with such slow hardware.
Id rather not do a complete build as I already priced up appropriate parts (I always keep in mind future proofing, which is why this build has lasted 4 years) and dont want to spend £230 on it as it doesnt get used that much
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moka
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Registered: 11th Mar 06
User status: Offline
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If you have 512mb, another 1gb will make a hugh difference.
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Daveskater
Premium Member
Registered: 29th Apr 08
Location: Oxford, UK Drives: Jap wagon
User status: Offline
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Tbh, Windows 7 on a single core CPU isn't going to be fast  I used to run Vista on an Athlon XP-M 2GHz single core and 512MB RAM and it was painful Eventually my graphics card died which was an excuse for a whole new build 
Numberwang!
Originally posted by AlunJ
I like you Dave, you are a man of men
Originally Whatapp'd by Neo
Dave's maybe capable of a drive-by cuddle
Look at my pictures
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dannymccann
Member
Registered: 9th Aug 06
Location: Doddington, Lincolnshire
User status: Offline
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Yea I know, single core is proper old school, its not had a hiccup in the 4 years since it was built, think its had the same copy of XP on there since I built it too, never went wrong, was an amazing machine 
Ive found 2 sticks of 1GB on ebay for £25 delivered so unless my dad has some sticks kicking about ill be having them
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Sunz
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Registered: 12th Jan 07
Location: SE England
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Build new !
New Motherboard £30
New dual core 2.8ghz AMD £46
2gb ram £16
GPU 4670 1gb £46
That motherboard supports IED also but SATA is cheaper for more space
says £30 for the skt754 processor ??? only £16 more for a lot more power with the 7850 and can be OC to 3.2 
[Edited on 09-11-2009 by Sunz]
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jamied
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Registered: 27th Oct 03
Location: Marbella,Spain Drives: C63
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I have to agree, unfortunately there seems very little point in upgrading these days, better option is to build new like sunz spec
if you dont wanna just reinstall windows and put some ram in but i wouldnt expect a miracle
[Edited on 09-11-2009 by jamied]
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AlexN
Banned
Registered: 21st Oct 09
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by dannymccann
I wont be buying anything from Dell thats a desktop I build it all myself, so know all about RAM speeds, latencies, all that jazz
if you know so much, why ask 
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jamied
Member
Registered: 27th Oct 03
Location: Marbella,Spain Drives: C63
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by dannymccann
it might even be 512kb of RAM,
are you sure
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