Diagnose Granny's Hardware (ISO nerdy boys)

[gusly]

[ QUOTE ]
Granny its time to remove the training wheels

honestly, it really is not that i have any love for AOL. it is because i have had these same email addys for 9 years and i have businesses integrated with the addys. not only that, but the contact info at at least 100 places would need to be updated and i still would probably miss some.


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I think AOL has discount plans now where you can use your own broadband ISP and keep your AOL email addresses.

[RollaJ]

How about keeping you old computer with AOL on it and have all the email forwarded to your new computer (that you have not purchased yet) and not having aol on the new one. And yes, if you only have 256 on your computer you will see a HUGE improvement when you add a 512 stick

And send people your new email address while you monitor your old AOL account for 6 months till you make sure you are getting everything to your new address....then cancel that crap program

[GrannyMae]

But it's a much harder upgrade to accomplish for the average Granny.

yes. i am an idiot with PC's. i would buy a new machine before i attempted to change the processor. my nephew can put the ram in for me though and that seems like a great start.

final question. if i get a new PC, i know they sell this $30 thing that is a cable and a program that i link one machine to the other to move the data (called lap link or something?)

anyway, i have a friend that spent hours with this device last year and did not really get the results he wanted. if i get a new machine, should i get one of these link things or just save my data on my zip and restore it to the new one? i like the idea of hooking the 2 machines together, but it sounds like it is harder than advertised to get perfect transfer results.

[WSOPWinner2005]

All of these should be the FIRST Step prior to doing anything else :

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Yes, I agree. Too many resident programs at one time, all trying to shut down will conflict with each other. Other possibilities:

1) Large amount of "virtual memory" data (temporary data) is being permanently deleted or flushed to disk. A remedy would be more ram (so there is less virtual memory and thrashing on disk), faster disk drive, defrag.

2) The security program is scanning and "checking" each program as they are being shut down. Quickest way to figure this out is look at task manager (ctl-alt-del) as the system is shutting down, click on the CPU button, so programs are sorted by those using the most CPU, and checking which programs are consuming the most CPU and are the bottlenecks.

3) Indequate RAM/virtual memory ratio. Too little RAM to run all of the programs forcing most of them to be temporarily placed in virtual memory. More RAM is necessary.

My guess is that your best solution, given the current state of affairs is to get a new computer. Sorry, this is the way the computer industry makes its money - call it the computer industry "rake". When people want to make money, they will figure out how to make money - and Microsft, AOL, etc. want to make money.

Rich

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On top of the above you should also of course run scandisk, diskfix (if available), and defragment your hard drive. Yes I know these all are painfully slow processes but that is why you can set them up to run at a certain time in your "System Scheduler"

AFTER ALL This has been done check for your bottlenecks. If your processor isn't straining all that much but ram is redlining, you should add more RAM. I personally do not know ANYONE who multitasks like we do with less than 1024 MEGS of RAM.

The next thing to look at is your processor. To be honest if your processor is redlining you still truly don't "NEED" to get a new computer, although you may have to also upgrade your motherboard with the new processor depending on the processor you are upgrading from/to which is the main factor. Motherboards are very cheap and your processor is your most important part anyways.

And if you ARE going the entire route, I would set your current disk as the master disk and the master H.D. as the slaved (hopefully) through a cable select chord so you don't have to mess with any jumpers.

To top it all off you can spend $49 - $200 (WICKED CASES) for a new case and give yourself that TRUE new computer field with the majority of the same componenets. I would however onl do this if you CD/DVD ROM RW-/RW+ are in optimal shape and up to industry standard.


P.S. Don't forget if you are adding a dual DVI graphics card, an addition hard drive, a faster processor, along with other components you will probably also want to replace your power source as well.


This all SOUNDS alot tougher than it is I saved $900 and got the same exact system as I would of if I bought it outright by doing the above (without replacing the case, what the hell is the big deal anyways?). I had to replace everything from motherboard, processor, added a video card, and a couple extra hard drives including a internal ZIP Disk drive... few other goodies too [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[GrannyMae]

this is not a bad idea. i could keep both for 6 months and probably not miss anything. and as gusly says, they have a thing called BYOA (bring your own access) that would allow me to keep the AOL addys active for a while.

good plan. ty rollaJ

[Onaflag]

Wow, has this question brought out the experts, or what? No one can recommend a new computer, Granny, without knowing the specs of your current one. Three years is NOT a dinosaur like you have been told. Some replies have missed the most important statement in your post:

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the problem got worse 3 weeks ago when i installed a new AOL security edition

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A computer does not age in three weeks. If it worked fine for you 4 weeks ago, then the culprit is software related, not hardware. You got some good advice like trying a defrag and such, but I think the problems will continue even after these necessary steps. The PokerTracker responses you got are correct, but I have to assume you didn't start using PokerTracker just 3 weeks ago, and therefore must conclude that is not your problem.

I know you don't want to hear this, but your problems seem to be related to the installation of the new AOL software. I agree with an earlier post to cut that umbilical cord and get a provider that let's you onto the Internet without going through them first.

Although a new computer is always a nice thing, it is taking the wrong way out of this problem. Surely you know a computer savvy person who can reformat your hard drive and give you a fresh Windows installation. It will then seem like a brand new computer. Trust me on that one. I am an IT Manager and have been for a long time. I 4 table and have a semi-large PT database and your 3 year old machine is "brand-spanking-new" compared to mine.

Onaflag...........

[AncientPC]

If you don't have too much data, just put it on a Zip disk to transfer it over.

If you want to hook up computers together there's a few ways.

1) There are some USB "network" cables I believe to hook two computers up.

2) Both computers need network cards installed.
A) A crossover cable from one machine to the other.
B) If you plan on sharing your internet connection (and this is the better method in general), buy a router / switch combo and set up home networking. 2 cards + cables + router / switch combo should cost at most $100 or so.

[WSOPWinner2005]

I am truly amazed you were able to run so long at 256 megs, you mustn't use alot of memory intensive programs and yes essentially what you would be doing by upgrading to 1024 is increasing the shutdown speed by 8 times not 4 due to the increased I/O

Gusly is correct, it is called the BYOB plan (ironically enough he) Bring Your Own BroadBand - You then just connect directly through TCP/IP.

I also believe they now have options to keep just an e-mail address for $4-$6.95 per month (But I am not SURE about that one)


[ QUOTE ]
Granny its time to remove the training wheels

honestly, it really is not that i have any love for AOL. it is because i have had these same email addys for 9 years and i have businesses integrated with the addys. not only that, but the contact info at at least 100 places would need to be updated and i still would probably miss some.

i think AOL is a resource whore for me. i have the spyware programs that others have mentioned and run them daily. my machine is clean.

also mentioned, and my greatest concern, is loss of data. if this is a risk, i will simply get a new machine. i know PC's don't last forever.

however, i will try and defrag and will look into incresing my RAM. i currently have only 256. i was trying to figure out if this was a RAM issue or an inevitable death of the computer issue. seems like both.

thanks everyone for your feedback

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[RollaJ]

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or just save my data on my zip and restore it to the new one?

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Cool...... I remember those things.

Yes Id suggest just moving over your critical data/files, why bring along all the old garbage/adware/viruses/spyware by copying your whole drive.

A fresh start is the way to go!

[AngryCola]

All good points.

But..
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I personally do not know ANYONE who multitasks like we do with less than 1024 MEGS of RAM.

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That's still way above average right now. Most people have, at best, 1/4 of this.

I run on two sticks of 256 RAM, and it's silky smooth. It may also be because I'm a nit about my computer. So, I always keep things running at their peak performance.

Also, in another post you stated:
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I am truly amazed you were able to run so long at 256 megs

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I ran my machine with that amount for a long time. Things need not be that slow at all. It's hardly amazing.

The slowest part in a computer is the hard drive. Hard drive problems and slowdowns can cause an otherwise good machine to slow to a crawl.