For the computer techs

Post by **Coops** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 1:03 am

Right tonight pc booted up ok etc but after an hour she hung, no matter how many times i rebooted it would not go past the black start up screen,
took pc apart and found the heat sink and fan from the top of i think the cpu hanging off,
the plastic clip that holds it all together has snapped, can these be bought?
i got it all held together with cable ties at the mo

Post by **katanaman** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 11:16 am

Depends on what processor it is as to what you will be able to get. Worst comes to worst a new basic heat sync and fan is only about a tenner. Depending on what it is I might even have an old one to send you.

Post by **Coops** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 1:47 pm

all i know its a intel pent3 mate

Post by **katanaman** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 3:40 pm

If its like a small video tape that goes into a slot your probably stuffed as its all one unit and you cant get the wood any more except maybe Ebay second hand. If its the later square you might be able to find a new cooler for it. Maybe ask Noah if he has a spare

TBH it has to be about 7 years old so it's not gona be easy. Maybe stick with the cable ties M8?

Post by **Coops** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 3:55 pm

spose i could search for a complete new board and give her an upgrade

as its a we bit slow, 700 pent3

Post by **katanaman** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 4:18 pm

you would be as well getting a new machine power supplies, memory, hard drive and all that stuff has changed completely since your PC. By the time you have upgraded all you will have left is a case.

Post by **Coops** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 5:23 pm

IainB · Post by **IainB** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 8:53 pm

Tony,
Keep an eye on here http://forums.hexus.net/current-bargains/ you will have to sign up to see it, but it very often has some brilliant bargains come up.
One of the Dell deals was for a high spec PC that I just couldnt get anywhere near to if I did a home build, think all in it came to around the £180/£200 mark
Im guessing if your still on a P3 @ 700 you dont need any all singing, all dancing unit!!

Just had a quick look through, this was listed on bigpockets.co.uk

Intel Celeron 2.4Ghz PC System, 512Mb RAM, 40 Gig HDD, DVD-ROM, 17 inch SVGA Monitor, XP Home....... Price £99.99 which quite frankly...is nuts!

Post by **katanaman** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 1:45 am

If you can stick to XP you will get a machine for a good price but Vista is a whole new ball game. For a start to get it to run sweet you need 2GB of ram and you also need to make sure its up to date kit. If its older kit the drivers will suck and Vista is a total pain in the ass with bad drivers. Basically stay clear of anything sold with Vista basic (its totally crap) and if it isn't a decent spec stay away from Vista period. Unfortunately XP goes end of line in June so updates and security fixes will slow and stop from then on but at this point I would still rather use XP. Its by far more stable and needs less machine but it doesn't have the same eye candy appeal as Vista. Next month might be a whole new ball game with Vista SP1 but that assume they haven't screwed up between the release candidate (which fixes a lot) and the actual public release. They messed up badly between the RC of vista and the final release. I was a beta tester on Vista and it was much better than the final release. God knows how M$ broke it so badly between but they managed it big time.

Paul B · Post by **Paul B** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 6:20 pm

thev8kid wrote:spose i could search for a complete new board and give her an upgrade
as its a we bit slow, 700 pent3

I just bought a new HP lap top in the states, and it has a 180 GB hard drive, but the operating stuff, Vista, programs and all that, take up 50 GB of the available space!!!!

Ridiculous really, as my last PC, five years old now, only came with 20GB new, and Windows XP took up a mere 4GB of that.

Has computer technology really evolved that much, if the modern version of old stuff takes up ten times more room that it did five years ago.

Post by **katanaman** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 10:43 pm

HP must have a lot of crap on that as a Vista install is about 10 gig maybe up to 15 if its ultimate. If you are just going by the space left on the drive then you will have a hidden partition that will have an image on it for recovery if the operating system screws up. On boot you will probably see something like press F11 or F3 for system recovery?

Paul B · Post by **Paul B** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 4:13 pm

katanaman wrote:HP must have a lot of crap on that as a Vista install is about 10 gig maybe up to 15 if its ultimate. If you are just going by the space left on the drive then you will have a hidden partition that will have an image on it for recovery if the operating system screws up. On boot you will probably see something like press F11 or F3 for system recovery?

I just got one of our techy people to look at it, and he reckons the same, it is a lot of HP crap stuck in there, rather than just the Vista, but he still can't find exactly what has taken up all the space. There are about 60 processes running when you hit Task Manager, so loads of junk running for a guess.

The Restore partition/drive sucks up about 12 gig, which still leave an unaccounted for 30 gig or so. 'The Sims' was 2.5 gig, so that is going straight in the bin