Upgrade help please.

Noel D · 26 Nov 2019 at 12:23

Hi, my pc is quite old and runs Vista 64, is it capable of running Windows 10 ?
Here are the specs,
Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 motherboard.
AMD Phenom 2 x4 955, 3.2ghz Processor.
Ram 6GB
ATI Radeon HD 4800 series graphics card.
150GB and 500GB hard drives.

Think that's all the information you need, any help would be greatly appreciated.
Noel.

Django x2 · 26 Nov 2019 at 12:59

Noel D · 26 Nov 2019 at 15:00

Thank you.

darael · 26 Nov 2019 at 15:33

Before anything, take a complete backup with Macrium Reflect and treasure it until Windows 10 has been setup properly with all your files intact. This way if your installation of Windows 10 goes belly up, you can at roll back to your current state.

To be honest, I'd be tempted to replace your OS hard drive with an SSD, leaving the largest hard drive in the system to hold your files. That is pretty much how I have my setup now - SSD for OS, games, software, etc and a HDD for data, music, photos, etc.

I've always found that using the most up-to-date BIOS keeps things running smoothly. Using something like AIDA64, determine your motherboard revision. Gigabyte shows three revisions of your motherboard, 1.0, 2.0 and 2.1. If you want to be absolutely sure, check your motherboard and it should be printed somewhere on it near the model number. Armed with this information, you can download the latest BIOS for the motherboard.

Noel D · 26 Nov 2019 at 20:24

Thanks Darael. What would you suggest for a SSD, I'm on bit of a tight budget, sadly.

Noel D · 26 Nov 2019 at 22:03

After a bit of searching I've narrowed it down to ,
WD Blue 3D Nand 500gb Sata 2.5 or a Seagate Barracuda 500gb Sata 2.5
Any thought on which to go for?

darael · 26 Nov 2019 at 23:00

Noel D said:
After a bit of searching I've narrowed it down to ,
WD Blue 3D Nand 500gb Sata 2.5 or a Seagate Barracuda 500gb Sata 2.5
Any thought on which to go for?

To be honest, I'd be tempted to go for this Samsung SSD. I've never had a Samsung SSD go bad on me yet as they're as solid as houses. You can find the same model at a similar price to the Western Digital if you search around.

Failing that, I'd go for the Western Digital SSD. I've never trusted Seagate with my data.

Quartz · 26 Nov 2019 at 23:23

Noel D said:
ATI Radeon HD 4800 series graphics card.

Your GPU may be a problem.

From the FAQ:

Products That Do Not Support Windows® 10
AMD Radeon™ HD 4000 Series products and older are not certified to support Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 1.2 or higher and therefore, do not have driver support for Windows® 10.
The following is a list of graphics products that do not support Windows® 10:
ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series /ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4000 Series Graphics

...

Windows® 10 will install the default Microsoft®Basic Display Driver (MBDD) for these graphics adapters. MBDD provides basic display functionality (low resolutions and color) on a single monitor...

Noel D · 27 Nov 2019 at 00:34

Quartz said:
Your GPU may be a problem.

From the FAQ:

Ah bummer, thanks anyway.

Noel D · 27 Nov 2019 at 01:14

More questions, sorry.
Would a GTX 1050 graphics card run with my pc ? Or what would you suggest?
I only play the likes of Euro truck simulator or farming simulator, so if I need to upgrade the graphics card I may as well get something that will run these.
Thanks again.

Quartz · 27 Nov 2019 at 08:45

A GTX 1050 would be entirely adequate, but it's been replaced by the GTX 1650:

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Zotac GeForce GTX 1650 Gaming OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £139.99

Total: £149.89 (includes shipping: £9.90)

DXP55 · 27 Nov 2019 at 10:11

darael said:
Before anything, take a complete backup with Macrium Reflect and treasure it until Windows 10 has been setup properly with all your files intact. This way if your installation of Windows 10 goes belly up, you can at roll back to your current state.

To be honest, I'd be tempted to replace your OS hard drive with an SSD, leaving the largest hard drive in the system to hold your files. That is pretty much how I have my setup now - SSD for OS, games, software, etc and a HDD for data, music, photos, etc.

I've always found that using the most up-to-date BIOS keeps things running smoothly. Using something like AIDA64, determine your motherboard revision. Gigabyte shows three revisions of your motherboard, 1.0, 2.0 and 2.1. If you want to be absolutely sure, check your motherboard and it should be printed somewhere on it near the model number. Armed with this information, you can download the latest BIOS for the motherboard.

To add to this back up all your pictures/videos to another drive -backup anything you value to same place (Then take the drive out) - Then use Macrium Reflex to clone your C drive - I have just gone through this process and although in the end I loaded W10 to a new drive when I opened W10 being stuck in my ways I took drive out to go back to W7.
That was 7 days ago and I am just starting to get the PC in some sort of order. Macrium Reflex did back everything up but I am buggered if I can find out how to restore it -I have the free version.
I have lost programs I purchased (cheap) Lost all saved emails with purchase details on etc etc.
It's a good job I built a new backup PC based on AMD1 for £105 - I had HDD and old GPU but onboard was good enough. Just being able to go online it was worth it.
Yes I do have a laptop- Nexus 7-- 2x Mobole phones but you can't beat a PC for going online.

darael · 27 Nov 2019 at 10:38

DXP55 said:
Macrium Reflex did back everything up but I am buggered if I can find out how to restore it -I have the free version.
I have lost programs I purchased (cheap) Lost all saved emails with purchase details on etc etc.

Macrium Reflect won't reinstall your programs or reinstate their licences, however you should be able to access your backup to restore files.

Install Macrium Reflect on your current computer and allow it to run. On the first screen there will be three tabs - choose Restore. Now choose the option Open an image or backup file in Windows Explorer and choose your backup image. Your backup will show as another drive in Windows Explorer and you can choose what you want to restore.

When you're finished, be sure to select Detach a backup image from Windows Explorer, also from the Restore tab from above.

DXP55 · 27 Nov 2019 at 19:27

When I click restore then open an image or backup file in WE is that the blue box that opens - I got as far as putting in the drive where backup is but then got bogged down- This sort of stuff is testing me to the limit - I can do the hardware bits and insatalling systems providing they work first time.
Thanks for the help so far.

darael · 27 Nov 2019 at 21:03

DXP55 said:
When I click restore then open an image or backup file in WE is that the blue box that opens - I got as far as putting in the drive where backup is but then got bogged down- This sort of stuff is testing me to the limit - I can do the hardware bits and insatalling systems providing they work first time.
Thanks for the help so far.

In the Backup Selection window, underneath the two bullet points, you might already see your second drive selected, with the backup details (original location, date, etc) listed. If not, browse and locate the folder that holds your backup and select that folder.

You then need to identify the correct backup and putting a tick in the check box next to it. You will then see the option to Enable access to restricted folders become available, which I would advise also selecting.

After that it's a case of using Windows Explorer to locate what you want to restore.

DXP55 · 28 Nov 2019 at 10:04

Thanks for trying to help a fuddled old man - I am abandoning ship now for the simple reason my PC is now as good as it was when I built it - Fast -instant - I haven't half dumped a load of rubbish - I had backup of backups. -Email addresses list as long as your arm - most of them are now dead people. The only thing I need now really is my Firefox saved passwords - Just by good luck I copied and saved them all a few months ago so all is not lost.

Thanks