Cheap Upgrade for parents

demon8991 · 26 Jul 2016 at 11:21

Hi all,

I am currently back in England (from Australia) and my parents computer is feeling old and tired.

Currently the spec is:

Intel E5200 Dual Core OC'd to 3.0 GHz
4GB of DDR2
ATI 4770
MSI G31M3-F
OCZ 600w (OCZ600MXSP)
250GB Samsung 840 Evo
1TB Samsung F1

As you can see apart from the SSD the system is 8 or 9 years old.

It is all running on Windows 10 and doesn't feel very responsive at all, the CPU is often maxed out and the GPU is not supported by Windows 8 or 10. My parents use the computer for internet browsing, emails and accounts etc.

I am thinking I could just swap out the Motherboard, CPU and Ram and everything would be good. Would like to do this as cheaply as possible what would you suggest?

Armageus · 26 Jul 2016 at 11:41

demon8991 said:
I am thinking I could just swap out the Motherboard, CPU and Ram and everything would be good. Would like to do this as cheaply as possible what would you suggest?

Not what you want to hear, but...

Other than the SSD, personally I would start again. The PSU is likely old, inefficient and may fail at some point. The HDD again is likely coming to the point where it will fail purely on age.

Assuming your parents don't need a dedicated graphics card (i.e. don't do any gaming), then something like the below is probably a good starting point:

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x XFX TS 430W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply - Black ** 5 YEAR WARRANTY OCUK EXCLUSIVE **= £33.95
1 x Asus H110M-K Intel H110 (Socket 1151) DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard= £47.99
1 x Team Group Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C16 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (TPKD48GM2400HC16DC0= £37.99
1 x Intel Core i3-6100 3.70GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £109.99

Total: £241.02
(includes shipping: £11.10)

The PSU has a 5 year warranty, and the I3 although costing a relative premium over a Dual Core Pentium Gxxxx, has the benefit of 4 Threads which should hopefully keep things snappy for a while to come.

pastymuncher · 26 Jul 2016 at 11:51

Maybe something like this and use the onboard gpu which would be more than enough for their uses. My wife's pc has a Haswell Pentium G3420 and uses the onboard gpu for similar uses plus facebook games and it easily copes.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Intel Core i3-6100 3.70GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £109.99
1 x Gigabyte H110M-S2H Intel H110 (Socket 1151) DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard= £49.99
1 x Kingston Fury Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C15 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (HX424C15FBK2/8)= £38.99

Total: £209.47
(includes shipping: £10.50)

You could even swap the i3 for a Pentium although I feel they are overpriced and thought the i3 would be a better buy.

Owenb · 26 Jul 2016 at 12:07

I would try a fresh install of windows(Assuming that windows 10 was an upgrade and not a fresh install). There is no reason that it shouldn't be able to handle what you described.

JanxSpirit · 26 Jul 2016 at 12:18

demon8991 said:
It is all running on Windows 10 and doesn't feel very responsive at all, the CPU is often maxed out and the GPU is not supported by Windows 8 or 10.

It most certainly is supported in Win8. Have you tried installing the Win8 driver in Win10?

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/ATI-Radeon-4000-Series-Drivers.aspx

demon8991 · 26 Jul 2016 at 17:14

Armageus said:
Not what you want to hear, but...

Other than the SSD, personally I would start again. The PSU is likely old, inefficient and may fail at some point. The HDD again is likely coming to the point where it will fail purely on age.

Assuming your parents don't need a dedicated graphics card (i.e. don't do any gaming), then something like the below is probably a good starting point:

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x XFX TS 430W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply - Black ** 5 YEAR WARRANTY OCUK EXCLUSIVE **= £33.95

1 x Asus H110M-K Intel H110 (Socket 1151) DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard= £47.99

1 x Team Group Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C16 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (TPKD48GM2400HC16DC0= £37.99

1 x Intel Core i3-6100 3.70GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £109.99

Total: £241.02
(includes shipping: £11.10)

The PSU has a 5 year warranty, and the I3 although costing a relative premium over a Dual Core Pentium Gxxxx, has the benefit of 4 Threads which should hopefully keep things snappy for a while to come.

pastymuncher said:
Maybe something like this and use the onboard gpu which would be more than enough for their uses. My wife's pc has a Haswell Pentium G3420 and uses the onboard gpu for similar uses plus facebook games and it easily copes.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Intel Core i3-6100 3.70GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £109.99

1 x Gigabyte H110M-S2H Intel H110 (Socket 1151) DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard= £49.99

1 x Kingston Fury Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C15 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (HX424C15FBK2/8)= £38.99

Total: £209.47
(includes shipping: £10.50)

You could even swap the i3 for a Pentium although I feel they are overpriced and thought the i3 would be a better buy.

Thanks guys these look pretty decent, not a bad price either. Similar to what I had in mind.

Owenb said:
I would try a fresh install of windows(Assuming that windows 10 was an upgrade and not a fresh install). There is no reason that it shouldn't be able to handle what you described.

Windows 10 was a complete fresh install, whilst it is ok around the desktop and when using Outlook, it is sluggish on Websites in IE and Chrome and sometimes the page will just freeze for 30 seconds before it comes responsive. Looking at the CPU usage it is normally maxed out during that time.

JanxSpirit said:
It most certainly is supported in Win8. Have you tried installing the Win8 driver in Win10?

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/ATI-Radeon-4000-Series-Drivers.aspx

Yeah tried that and CCC didn't want to load up at all. I was getting like 2fps on some simple platform game.

mistersprinkles · 26 Jul 2016 at 17:41

Probably not compatible drivers installed for Windows 10. Hard drive likely has issues. PSU may have issues.

That system should be fine for basic "old people" computer use (internet surfing, netflix, email, facebook). I am using a Core 2 based Xeon (dual core) right now as an HTPC that has 4GB of RAM and very similar power to your parents machine and with the correct drivers, under Windows 10, it is perfectly fine.

Bad config, not bad computer. That's my opinion. Reinstall windows and get the right drivers and you will be fine. Don't do an upgrade, do a 10 fresh install (if it was an upgrade use their original 7 or 8 key)

ExoMale · 27 Jul 2016 at 00:51

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Asus AM1I-A AMD AM1 (Socket FS1b) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard= £27.95
1 x AMD Sempron 2650 1.45GHz Dual Core Processor - Retail (Socket AM1)= £21.49
1 x Team Group Elite 4GB (1x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Single Channel Module (TED34GM1600C1101)= £17.99
1 x Silverstone Sugo SST-SG13WB-Q Mini-ITX Chassis - Black/White (SST-SG13WB-Q)= £36.95
1 x XFX TS 430W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply - Black ** 5 YEAR WARRANTY OCUK EXCLUSIVE **= £33.95

Total: £149.43
(includes shipping: £11.10)

Stealthploit · 27 Jul 2016 at 06:35

If your gonna go for cheap you can go with an amd (new) if your going with intel go with a used (quad core)

Armageus · 27 Jul 2016 at 08:22

Owenb said:
I would try a fresh install of windows(Assuming that windows 10 was an upgrade and not a fresh install). There is no reason that it shouldn't be able to handle what you described.

mistersprinkles said:
That system should be fine for basic "old people" computer use (internet surfing, netflix, email, facebook).

I disagree - whilst in theory web browsing should be fine, the reality is browsers and things like flash are getting more bloated over time. Facebook is an absolute nightmare with the typical flash games and apps that people like to use - they run like a dog on older systems. Whilst you may get some benefit from a clean install and ensuring everything is using correct drivers/configuration, it's a problem that will get worse and the solution is some more modern hardware (it's not all just about processor speed - newer platforms have more memory bandwidth for example).

ExoMale said:
My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Asus AM1I-A AMD AM1 (Socket FS1b) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard= £27.95

1 x AMD Sempron 2650 1.45GHz Dual Core Processor - Retail (Socket AM1)= £21.49

1 x Team Group Elite 4GB (1x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Single Channel Module (TED34GM1600C1101)= £17.99

1 x Silverstone Sugo SST-SG13WB-Q Mini-ITX Chassis - Black/White (SST-SG13WB-Q)= £36.95

1 x XFX TS 430W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply - Black ** 5 YEAR WARRANTY OCUK EXCLUSIVE **= £33.95

Total: £149.43
(includes shipping: £11.10)

That is a pretty terrible suggestion - The sempron will likely perform much worse than his existing (overclocked) E5200, due to still only being dual core, and having a ridiculously low clock speed. The AMD onboard graphics on that model also aren't much to right home about, with older generation intel onboard graphics easily beating them.

Some benchmarks of the Sempron 2650 here (which include various Core2Quad, Celerons, old and recent I3's for comparison):
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8067/...athlon-53505150-and-sempron-38502650-tested/3
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8067/...athlon-53505150-and-sempron-38502650-tested/6
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8067/...athlon-53505150-and-sempron-38502650-tested/7

ExoMale · 27 Jul 2016 at 16:39

Armageus said:
I disagree - whilst in theory web browsing should be fine, the reality is browsers and things like flash are getting more bloated over time. Facebook is an absolute nightmare with the typical flash games and apps that people like to use - they run like a dog on older systems. Whilst you may get some benefit from a clean install and ensuring everything is using correct drivers/configuration, it's a problem that will get worse and the solution is some more modern hardware (it's not all just about processor speed - newer platforms have more memory bandwidth for example).

That is a pretty terrible suggestion - The sempron will likely perform much worse than his existing (overclocked) E5200, due to still only being dual core, and having a ridiculously low clock speed. The AMD onboard graphics on that model also aren't much to right home about, with older generation intel onboard graphics easily beating them.

Some benchmarks of the Sempron 2650 here (which include various Core2Quad, Celerons, old and recent I3's for comparison):
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8067/...athlon-53505150-and-sempron-38502650-tested/3
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8067/...athlon-53505150-and-sempron-38502650-tested/6
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8067/...athlon-53505150-and-sempron-38502650-tested/7

hardly terrible really, yes the sempron is weak, but no point linking an out of stock quad and in fact the buyer could remove that from the basket themselves and go about to whatever way.

yes certain intel graphics can be better, but the AMD is a good value budget option and given the usage, doesnt need much, however i chose this as the micro atx boards were out of stock so a change in case.

but to just replace 4 simple items and going intel then something like this would probably suit, last time i checked you could manage account/email/browsing on pentium 4 laptops, so you dont need a fire breather of a machine.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Asus H81M-K Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard= £42.95
1 x Intel Pentium G3260 3.30GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail= £49.99
1 x Team Group Elite 4GB (1x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Single Channel Module (TED34GM1600C1101)= £17.99
1 x XFX TS 430W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply - Black ** 5 YEAR WARRANTY OCUK EXCLUSIVE **= £33.95

Total: £155.38
(includes shipping: £10.50)

MrWhippy · 27 Jul 2016 at 17:26

For what they use it for, buy them a chromebook.

ExoMale · 27 Jul 2016 at 17:37

dont buy a chromebook, buy a proper laptop if any

^^ what you needed to suggest was a macbook

ha