PC problem

[4F]

Ok back now from the local computer shop and yes they tried with a spare graphics card and they had now joy with that or several other things that he tried and explained to me which I had no idea what he was talking about I did establish that he was unable to get the BIOS screen either though

Harddrive was OK and now mounted in an external enclosure so at least as a plus I now have a backup storage facility which I have been meaning to get round to for a while.

So with not a lot of spare dosh at the moment I am looking for something re-conditioned:-

What is the general opinion of this which is not far from me which I could see working first ?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....akeTrack=true&ssPageName=VIP:watchlink:top:en

It would just get used for light home use for household account, surfing and for the kids to play a few games on

 

[rh100]

It only has 512mb of RAM - a fully updated Windows XP installation will run very slow on only 512mb, should work well with 2gb but an upgrade could be expensive as it may have older DDR ram, you'd have to check it was capable of being upgraded too - it should be able to but you never know - a google search of the full model number would tell you.

 

[ian turner]

It only has 512mb of RAM - a fully updated Windows XP installation will run very slow on only 512mb, should work well with 2gb but an upgrade could be expensive as it may have older DDR ram, you'd have to check it was capable of being upgraded too - it should be able to but you never know - a google search of the full model number would tell you.

2GB is a bit excessive. 512MB will do for SP2 and above until they have enough money to buy something reasonable.
Only problem is that is £45 with no bids plus £15 postage so who knows what it will go up to.
Plus as the harddrive is only 40GB there is the question of whether the Bios will support harddrives above 130GB assuming the OPs drive isn't excessively old. In fact odds are that it's a Sata drive and that machine might not support sata (a check says 2 sata ports but no guarantee)
What is the most you can go upto as there are some cheap motherboard bundle deals (motherboard,cpu,fan and ram) around if you don't start demanding that they play a particular game.

 

[rh100]

2GB is a bit excessive. 512MB will do for SP2 and above until they have enough money to buy something reasonable.
Only problem is that is £45 with no bids plus £15 postage so who knows what it will go up to.
Plus as the harddrive is only 40GB there is the question of whether the Bios will support harddrives above 130GB assuming the OPs drive isn't excessively old. In fact odds are that it's a Sata drive and that machine might not support sata (a check says 2 sata ports but no guarantee)
What is the most you can go upto as there are some cheap motherboard bundle deals (motherboard,cpu,fan and ram) around if you don't start demanding that they play a particular game.

The PC on the advert specifies SP3, 1GB doesn't quite cut it and 512 will fall flat on its face now, so for anything above you may aswell go to 2GB, pointless going beyond that IMO. With 2GB even on a Celeron it gets rid of the swap file bashing and runs quite well for office type stuff.

 

[ian turner]

The PC on the advert specifies SP3, 1GB doesn't quite cut it and 512 will fall flat on its face now, so for anything above you may aswell go to 2GB, pointless going beyond that IMO. With 2GB even on a Celeron it gets rid of the swap file bashing and runs quite well for office type stuff.

SP3 didn't boost the memory requirements quite as much as SP2 and I was running XP SP3 on 512MB at work until recently running two monitors with visual studio and various other applications running. Given the age of the PC it's not going to be up to much anyway. 2Gb for that pc would cost about £74 from crucial which is the same price as this motherboard bundle from novatech with a better processor, motherboard and memory.
Aside from which that Thinkcentre isn't worth upgrading , better off saving the money towards the £280 you would need to get a low end base station.

 

[4F]

OK points understood. I think I will hold off from buying too cheap and save up for something worth it.

 

[MossCommuter]

Try tier1online.com (with whom I have no affiliation apart from being a satisfied customer).

They usually have loads of stuff in the 50-60 quid range. Look for "corporate refurbs".