New Life for an old computer?

[Beowulf Zessinthal]

7 years ago i bought:

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This was a 'gaming' setup in its day but its not so stable anymore:

Dell Inspiron 530 (32-bit Operating System / X86-based PC)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E6750 @ 2.66GHz, 2664 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
3.00 GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT
24" monitor (was cheap but worked great!)

Normal for me:
I use a router and sit near to it.
The SL viewer has me automatically set to a quality & speed setting of 'mid'.
On an empty inworld work platform i generally get about 22fps.
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So now its no longer stable and underpowered i suppose.... BUT (!):

Only 1 month ago i was still using it in SL trouble free .. which proves it must still be reasonable surely?

AND SO .. what if i did a Factory Refresh on it?

SO THAT: all the junk from all those years was cleared away .. it would surely be so clean it would continue use as a dedicated SL backup computer! 

BUT (!) ..i tried this already with an equally powered laptop of the same age and found a problem:

It seems.. after a factory refresh it begins its updating... which i think causes trouble.. its confusing for the poor machine to have so many and all once? ....

SO MY QUESTION .. can you recommend a better way to get it done?

Thanks for your help!!

 

[Ohjiro Watanabe]

You don't mention the operating system you are installing. Is it XP? It is going to tease you like crazy since it is no longer supported. And which service pack is it? If it is not SP3 you could probably download that and then install it off line.

Then just select security patches. If you can get them up to date you can then turn off Microsoft updates, since there are not going to be any new ones, and it will stop nagging you.

 

If it is any other OS just select a few updates at a time and let it work through them.

[Jean Horten]

Sounds like a good machine to put an up to date Linux on.

I'd suggest Linux Mint 17 MATE 32 bit on it.

If you're interrested, look here for more infos about Mint.

Got any questions? Feel free to contact me in-world.

I 'reanimated' quite a lot of older ( ex xp)  computers in the last months with Linux, all users, even extreme computer unsavvy people are happy again now.

Jeannie

 

[Beowulf Zessinthal]

its a vista os .. thanks for the advice though.. i will think about 'building' my own computer this time.. it does sound like fun.. and i know it will be 'easy when you know how' .. so i will ask a lot of questions at the store. Ill definately ask about Linux^^ to fix this old one...  thanks all^^

[Orca Flotta]

Good call, Jeanie. Mint is super beginner friendly and heaps and bounds better than *buntu. BTW, I just switched back to Manjaro today, Mint turned out to be too boring for me and I needed an additional stress level. :smileyvery-happy:

[Orca Flotta]

It's not much more complicated than building the LEGO police station. And there are many many vids on YouTube showing you very detailed how it's done. Most complicated part is picking the parts first. The case must be big enough for your motherboard, power unit, graphics card, the power unit must be strong enough to power the gpu, the cooling must be adequate and so on and so forth. I guess sites like Newegg have parts pickers that check if your parts will work together and fit in the case of your choice.

But not all is lost for your old pc. With a nifty beginners friendly Linux such as Mint17 with Mate desktop you'll hardly recognize that old brick, it'll be like totally new. And the best thing about it is: it won't cost you a single penny. No need to ask at a store, Linux distros aren't sold in shops. Just download the latest version from the homepage http://linuxmint.com, burn it to DVD or make a bootable USB stick and 10 minutes later you'll have a shiny new OS ... and years and years of uncomplicated, virus-free. save and stable computing fun.

[Beowulf Zessinthal]

i managed to get the old puter working well thanks all!

Re Linux .. i looked it up.. from what i could make out it is a 'windows' replacement? ... ie instead of paying $180 for the Windows program, you would just run Linux instead?

Re the old computer.. it was a graphics driver problem.. i replaced it.. and it works well again!

[Orca Flotta]

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Beowulf Zessinthal wrote:

Re Linux .. i looked it up.. from what i could make out it is a 'windows' replacement? ... ie instead of paying $180 for the Windows program, you would just run Linux instead?

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Ya, that's what I do since like 2 years or so. So I'm still to be considered a Linux n00b. But there is no need for replacement as you can easily dual boot Win and Linux for a while. After let's say half a year you'll be so fed up with Windows, kick it off your machine and switch to Linux full time. :matte-motes-nerdy: And then you may want a more advanced Linux and switch to Manjaro or Sabayon, and test out all the different desktop environments available. It's highly adictive. You can find me swapping systems every couple days.

BTW, calling Linux a Windows replacement wouldn't do it justice. Linux isn't Windows, never was intended to be. It's a kindasorta Unix derivative, so based in the professional computing world of servers n stuffz. And it took Linux quite a while to come out of the geeky corner but now they made it with a vengeance. Today installation of a Linux OS goes faster and with less problems than it ever was in Windoze. And most distros work right out of the box with all additional programs and drivers already on board.

And there are many many Linux distros to grab for you. Looksie here: http://distrowatch.com/

 

[Simaszg12]

Please give info of your mother board.

P.S. dont listen advices like: "go buy i7 or change platform this one is old!"

when i see advice like that, i know that knowledge of that person about hardware is 0..

 

you have old 775 socket...go on ebay and search for core 2 quad processor....depends on your motherboard FSB...can be 1066 or 1333.  Those procesors can be found under 50$ on ebay and you have 10% less preformance than i7 in SL for 1/10th of price!  Dont be naive and splash lot of money on new platform for getting 5 fps more...

3 things you need:

 

1. if your motherboard support 1333 fsb processors: go with q9300, q9400, q9550, q9650......all are great processors and will hadle SL without sweat!....if your mobo support overclocking (good chipset on mobo)....you can easy match all i5 configurations for 5x less price

2. Power supply.....go with brand quality, that have enaugh 12V rails and amps to support good Nvidia Graphic cards

3. Graphic card:  this is most important part...go with Nvidia GTX models.   i rec. GTX 660, GTX 560 ti, GTX 760....deppends how much money you have

4. SSD for operating system only  (Hard drive for storage and SL chache)

5. optimise your system preformance, turn off everything you dont need...

 

with my configuration...similar like that...i can play ultra with 256 m draw distance and 10 avis......no less than 10 fps up to 30 fps..

 

DONT WASTE MONEY ON FANCY HARDWARE for SL......inform your self on internet....

 

my 400$ pc is so good optimise, is faster than any laptop on this world

 

amen