My aging (5+ years old, maybe 7+ years - I'm not sure) Gateway desktop computer is really getting long in the tooth. It has gotten to the point where I end up waiting more than "doing" when I sit down at this machine. The problem is, I don't have a lot of expendable cash right now to buy something new, sexy, sleek and nice.
So ....... I went on to eBay last night and plunked down a bid for a refurbished HP desktop. It has a Pentium 4 processor at 2.66 GHz with 1 GB of RAM and an 80 GB hard drive. That's more than twice the processor speed, twice the RAM and twice the hard drive capacity of what I am using now.
Fortunately, I won; and fortunately it will run me just under $100 (free shipping!). I will have to use the monitor I currently have, which is a 17" flat screen; and I will probably buy an external hard drive enclosure so that I can take the HD out of this machine and use it on the new one. There's just too much useful information on this drive that I don't want to lose.
I'm not a gamer, I just want a decent computer for household stuff and Amateur Radio applications. I am hoping this will tide me over for a few years until I can get something better.
I'll bet your wondering how this is all Ham Radio or QRP related. Well ....... I'd rather save the money and put it towards attending FDIM in 2010 (hopefully!); than blow it on a "new" new computer. And maybe it's the homebrewer in me that would rather tinker around with improving the performance of something older than buying something new outright.
73 de Larry W2LJ
Hey maybe we'll meet at FDIM 2010. Every time I read of the event in the following QRP Quarterly, I wish I'd gone - been doing that for years and I think 2010 may be the time I finally make the drive.
ReplyDelete73,
John AE5X
My shack PC is a similar vintage, but I am loth to replace it in case I end up with an RFI generator. It's old, but it's reasonably quiet.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that gave it a new lease of life was to reinstall Windows from scratch. I then installed just the apps I need. What really made a difference was I left off all the antivirus and security stuff. I don't visit dodgy websites or download dodgy software, I use Firefox and my email stays on Google, so it is an unnecessary overhead and boy does it slow things down. If you'll only be using a PC for logging, digimodes and visiting a few ham radio sites then there really isn't a need for all the security watchdogs.