05-10-2005, 06:22 AM

Right basicly im getting a powermac so my old pc has to go. i was going to sell it on ebay.. but a good friend of mine wants to buy it from me. my only problem is has started to get a bit slow over the years, and i dont want to rip him off... the PC has never been formatted.

Im thinking how can i get this PC back up to speed/peformace. i was going to do the following:

- Upgrade the ram to 512mb from 256
- Install a new hard drive

the ram upgrade is a deffenate esspecially because the system has 32mb integrated graphics. although im wondering is the new hard drive nessaserry?? or could i just format the one i have and that would give the same preformace as a brand new one??

is there any other comments or recomendations of how i can improve the preformace on this PC??

05-10-2005, 06:59 AM

the ram would be a big help. if your hard drive is less than 20GB i would throw in at least another 20GB HD. formatting your current hard drive and putting a fresh install of whatever os you are using would probably speed it up too.

05-10-2005, 09:02 AM

Or, you could actually sell it to him for what it IS,... like selling a 1300 but upgrading it to a 2-litre, fitting new wheels and tyres and re-spraying it...

why spend money on HIS new 'puter, when you'd be better off spending it on toys for your new Mac and enjoying it yourself...

tell him honestly what it's like and charge him accordingly... then HE can up the memory and whatever as he sees fit...

keep your cash AND your friend...

05-10-2005, 09:13 AM

i usually refrain from selling things to friends....but a good reformat should be all you need to do to get rid of it...let him upgrade as he see's fit....let him use it for a day and then negotiate a price plus some beer(what kind of deal between two guys doesnt include beer?)

-chris

05-10-2005, 09:16 AM

Reformat the entire system and put the most current version of windows you have on there with all patches & utilities he's going to need.

If it's pre-windows XP, add winzip, winamp, firefox etc.
If it's Windows XO make sure SP2 is on there, run XP-Antispy and install Firefox, iTunes....

05-10-2005, 01:08 PM

Another vote for format drive reinstall os, that in itself will give it a boost. Then let him do what ever upgrades he wants. He certainly will want to do a ram upgrade, 256 on a pc is nothing, but let him do it.

05-11-2005, 04:53 AM

yeah i think ill go with that then, cheers... he wants me to upgrade the ram also, i find myself 256 is no wear near enough ( i wonder how im gunna find 3gb ). the new user will only be doing word processing, some web surfing, and limewire.

05-11-2005, 07:06 AM

Originally Posted by mr..nemo

yeah i think ill go with that then, cheers... he wants me to upgrade the ram also, i find myself 256 is no wear near enough ( i wonder how im gunna find 3gb ). the new user will only be doing word processing, some web surfing, and limewire.

Why in the world would you put 3 gb in a machine to do word processing, and web surfing??? 512 would be enough for that. 1 gig would probably be more than he would ever use, 3 gig would be way overkill and never used.

http://www.newegg.com has some good buys on ram.

05-11-2005, 08:48 AM

my mistake, i worded that completely different to how i was thinking it.... im upgrding hes system to 512mb for word processing ext.....

and why i get my new powermac for graphic design im sticking 3gb in. im in the uk so i cant use the newegg site.

05-11-2005, 09:54 AM

Originally Posted by mr..nemo

my mistake, i worded that completely different to how i was thinking it.... im upgrding hes system to 512mb for word processing ext.....

and why i get my new powermac for graphic design im sticking 3gb in. im in the uk so i cant use the newegg site.

Ah that makes more sense... Ya to bad that NewEgg doesn't ship outside the US, seems kind of dumb to me. However, you can go on the Corsair web site and they list about 8 sites in the UK that handle their stuff, so you should still be able to get what you need there. I would think that Crucal and Kingston would also have the same.

05-13-2005, 07:22 AM

Crucial is the site for the UK. I get my RAM from there