My computer will be 5 yrs old in November

Post by **emanday** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:52 am

Currie wrote:Computers suck up dust better than some vacuum cleaners and overheating can be caused by accumulation of dust between the fins of the Processor Heat Sink and elsewhere. Computers should occasionally be de-dusted and this would usually hopefully be done by anyone opening the case to install new memory or whatever.

Good point, Alan!

I was horrified the last time I opened mine

. After a good (careful) vacuum out it certainly sounded a lot quieter as well.

sheilajim · Post by **sheilajim** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:22 pm

Hi All,

You have certainly given me a lot to think about.
Hi Currie- Thank you for telling me how to find out how much empty space that I have. I did what you said and I have: Used Space 22 GB
Free Space 48.9 GB.
Hi Marilyn- I have run the defragmenter before, but not lately. Maybe it is time to run it again. McAffee runs a full scan on my computer every Friday. It takes a full THREE HOURS to run.

Currie & EManday- If dust has been collecting inside my computer the way that it has been outside, there must be tons of dust in there. This computer has never been opened since it left the factory. Of course, I do clean the outside.

With Cathy's inspiration, I checked out how much it would cost to buy the upgrades from Dell. Not much, only about $50.00 of $60.00.
However, I have been wondering if it would be like putting new tires on a car with an old engine. It is something that I am considering.
I have just learned that my next door neighbor, moonlights fixing computers.

So many options to consider.

I do know one thing, the next computer that I get will have a CD writeable drive.

Thanks to all of you for your input. You people are the best. I think that I have learned a lot from this.

Post by **emanday** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:10 pm

sheilajim wrote:I have been wondering if it would be like putting new tires on a car with an old engine.

I once put extra RAM memory into a 6 year year old PC with no visible problems. Providing you choose the right RAM type it should be OK.

Thrall · Post by **Thrall** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 1:56 am

Hi Sheila, you are not alone!

See my trials and tribulations from last year:

viewtopic.php?t=13200

My Dell Dimension is of similar age to yours and after the extra memory I popped in last year, it seems good for a while longer. (Touch wood etc.!)
It turned out to be easier than I thought to remove the old and insert the new memory stick, which in this case was not a pair. I picked it up in my nearest computer shop, and the assistant warned me not to leave the old stick in.

Hope all goes well,

Thrall

sheilajim · Post by **sheilajim** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 3:00 am

Hi Mary & Thrall,

It was interesting reading what you did. You put that memory in all by yourself. Seeing that what I need is no more than $60.00, my husband & I will probably try it. It would be worth it to get another year out of my computer.

Except at start up, my computer is fast enough normally. It goes online quickly. Does downloads well. It is at other times that I have trouble. When the weather is hot, my computer goes funny. The pictures waver and there seems to be more noise coming from the computer. It seems to be laboring. I am wondering if I should bring in a fan and cool it off.

According to my computer, I have 48.9GB free space only 22.GB is used. I don't know what this means if I am running a large program.

Where I have the most trouble is when I am running my Paint Shop ProX2. Sometimes it goes fine and at others it doesn't. A few times I have been working on an old picture, erasing scratches, etc. and coloring it for over an hour, whenI get a message that the program has to close. Everything that I have done is erased.

You can't imagine how frustrating that is. Sometimes the program just freezes, sometimes it will come back again and other times it won't.

It often goes slow when I am using one of my word processing programs.

Then there is the problem with my Bamboo Fun Tablet. Every time I try to use it the computer starts going very slow, then freezes up. I am not sure if I need more memory or another CPU. I have an Intel Pentium 4.

My trouble is that I am not sure what the problem is.

Regards

Currie · Post by **Currie** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 11:26 am

Hello Sheila,

I’ve heard that some computer gamers who run overclocked (hotted up) computers actually sometimes take the side off the case and direct the blast from a large fan at the innards but that’s probably not a good idea for us.

You have heaps of empty storage space on your hard drive and you don’t need to worry about that. Those crashes while working on photographs used to happen to me all the time when I had windows ME and it’s a real downer when it happens. It’s usually best to save your work often (“save as” a tif under another name or in the programmes native format so you still have the original.) Remembering to do this is the usual problem. Some programs have automatic saving after a certain number of minutes work.

Windows XP should be fairly stable and the crashing problem could be heat (dust) related. Sometimes instability can be caused by memory errors and can be corrected sometimes by unplugging the memory sticks and putting them back in again (reseating). You can easily check for memory problems by running a simple memory check program like this one http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/MemTest/memtest.html

A new CPU shouldn’t be needed as yours is 2.8GHz and that should be plenty. Extra memory would be a lot more cost effective. (My computer has a 2.6GHz CPU and 1GB of memory.)

I can’t help with the Bamboo thing. See if the manufacturer has a Web Site and a support page as they may have an up to date driver you can download. Is this the right page? http://www.wacom.com/downloads/drivers.php You could also check if there are any patches for the program you would like to use the tablet with. Is this the right page? http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/ ... 2796559943

Hope that helps,
Alan

P.S. Watch some videos on installing memory http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... ing+memory

Alan

sheilajim · Post by **sheilajim** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 4:23 pm

Hi Alan

I don't think that I will take off the panel and blow a fan into my computer. I am not as brave as those gamers.

I might blow it on the outside though.

Thank you for all of those leads. I think that I will run the memory test tonight. It says that it takes a few hours to run.
My Bamboo Fun Tablet is new, I only got it in July. I think that I will try to get in touch with the manufacturer. I understand that it works better with Vista than with XP. I have XP. Right now I am going to check for updates for Paint Shop Pro X2 Ultimate.

Thanks again for everything.