Looking for upgrade advice

Datman · 09 Feb 2013

My wife wants to move her work at home office to the basement and upgrade that computer because she says it’s to slow. All she will be doing is working via remote desktop, and playing movies off HDD on extended 2nd monitor, often at the same time.

It has an AMD 6000+ dual core in an Asus M3A78-EM mobo. I just installed a fresh copy of vista home 32 upgrading from XP pro. I would consider upgrading to W7 I do like it better but I don’t think it will improve the speed on this system.

I thought if I doubled the ram to 4g and replaced the 45g IDE HDD with a SATA 3.0 or even a SSD there would be a noticeable improvement and save me the trouble of a complete rebuild.

Or am I wasting my time and effort and I may as well replace the mobo and processor?

Please pardon me if this is not the best location for this issue.

ICIT2LOL · 10 Feb 2013

Hello Datman mate personally I would just get the SSD and do a fresh install of 7 (64bit if the board supports it) rather than muck about with upgrades but that is just me.

If you go the SSD for the OS and boot do this SSD Alignment

As for the large HDD I don't really like anything larger than 500GB but do use 1TB's from time to time - a lot to be lost if it dies - you can alway back up to externals:)

essenbe · 10 Feb 2013

Hello Datman, I agree with John. An SSD is the most noticeable upgrade you can do to almost any computer. My Daughter had an old 1.8GHz laptop with Vista on it and was so slow it was almost unusable. I upgraded the ram, put windows X64 on it and installed an SSD. Now, it is almost like a new laptop. I can assure you, it will make a big difference.

Datman · 10 Feb 2013

I ordered the hardware 120g SSD, 3tb external drive (movies) 4g of DDR2 ram and a better wireless adapter. The only thing I’m not sure about is W7 64. What is the upgrade license cost? Can I turn the Vista 32 into a 64 with a fresh install? I have both discs. I think our biggest problem with internet speed has been internet explorer and all the advertising. I just started using Firefox and it is much better, there are some things about it that are not working so good but I will figure it out.

essenbe · 10 Feb 2013

I'm not sure what you mean about all the advertising. A lot of people use Firefox and I used to also. But firefox will use more resources. Going from Vista to 7 can be done with an upgrade disk. You can do an in place upgrade or a clean install. The clean install is a little trickier, but it can be done. Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

An upgrade Windows 7 is $119. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116713.
Or $97.98 http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Wind...dows+7+upgrade

Datman · 10 Feb 2013

You know all those active ads on the right side of the screen. In Internet explorer you can't do anything until they get finished loading.

Firefax seems much better

Datman · 10 Feb 2013

essenbe said:

An upgrade Windows 7 is $119. Microsoft GFC-00020 Software - Newegg.com.
Or $97.98

I thought in might be less if I installed it off a disc and bought a new key.

Wrenches · 10 Feb 2013

Don't bother with upgrade, just get an OEM.

Microsoft GFC-02050 Software - Newegg.com

I think the memory and drive upgrades will improve your system greatly but I see you already ordered the SSD but will it work in IDE? I don't think your BIOS has the option from going to AHCI from IDE.

It may be ok as I don't know that much but seeing that you have an older system raised the question.

essenbe · 10 Feb 2013

If his motherboard has sata connections it will work. AHCI will give better performance, but it will work in IDE mode as well and still be considerably faster than a mechanical hard drive.

Wrenches · 10 Feb 2013

That's good to know, thanks.