I think I may need to upgrade my 3-4 year old e-machine home / work computer. I know people are gonna say emachines are shit but for what I paid for it (and the last one) you cannot beat the deal.
Recent problem with memory consumption. I typically run 75-80% usage just with a couple programs running along with the internet. This causes things to run more than a little slow from time to time, especially during usage spikes.
Had a minor unrelated snag last month and the local computer guy tried to install additional memory. No luck. Ckaims the Norton anti virus and the Windows Vista operating system are the cause of the high memory usage. Other than that, no complaints. Listing the basics about the system below. Any suggestions are appreciated. Please bear in mind, any responses need to be in general English, I only speak broken “techie”.
Operating Sys.: Windows Vista Home Premium
Disc Drive: Hitachi HDT725040VLA (228 GB left, just over 1/4 used)
Processor: AMD Athlon 64X2 Dual Core 4200+ 2.20 Ghz
Memory: 2.00 GB
System Type: 32 bit
I guess I was asking if there was another tower I should look for and what the minimum memory capacity would be to avoid this problem. I know it’s lazy but I like the Windows Vista and don’t know if I want to take the time to learn to use the Uzulu Lineup you mentioned.
What are you running… or in other words, other than Vista and Norton what is consuming your memory?
Upgrade to 7 or downgrade to XP and you’re going in the right direction. Trash Norton… and whoever tried to put more memory in it and failed, stop going to that person for PC advice.
Downgrading to XP 32 bit might be your best solution. What are your goals out of this pc… I was starting with the bare basics to get you going, but seems like you want a ‘solve it now’ solution…
Seeing your car, I’m surprised you just wouldn’t mind dropping 5 bills on a mac daddy tower.
don’t downgrade to xp, thats just stupid. do your self a favor and upgrade to windows 7 pro x64. it would run like a charm if you were able to do 4gigs of ram (it would run just fine with 2gigs ram also). vista is a memory whore in reality. vista and 7 are the same basically… why couldn’t the guy upgrade the memory? also 4gigs of ram is like $50…
2gb for vista isn’t shit. Also on a cheap e-machines or other production pc’s you probably don’t have dedicated video and you’re likely giving 128 or 256mb up to video.
Vista sucks ass. Get a new pc with 4gb, windows 7 and be sure it has DEDICATED video.
Problem solved. Discount on the bathroom? I keed I keed.
If you were driving a shitty old Geo Metro and weren’t happy with it’s performance, would you invest any money trying to make that turd perform better? Especially when you could get the equivalent of a Nismo 370z for $400?
Tell us what you want the computer to do (like what software you run) and I’m sure we could point you towards a decent machine or the components to build one for $400.
And if you’re running Vista there is almost no learning curve going to 7. Other than learning to deal with a computer that doesn’t crash constantly anyway since the interfaces are almost identical.
PS… despite what some others have suggested, I’m not a big fan of going dedicated video card unless you plan on gaming. The last two machines I built, one of which is a dedicated media server doing nothing but 1080p video playback, are rocking just the onboard video. Less components = less cost and less heat. Race tires provide more grip, but you don’t really want to drive them back and forth to work every day. That’s what putting a high end video card in a tower that never games is like.
Appreciate the insight. Here’s what I typically run daily for work purposes: AutoCAD, Excel, Word, and Internet Explorer. Have a few job folders on the tab and that’s about all. No time for gaming. My only concerns are performance and data loss. I agree with not putting money in the turd but if it’s a simple solution to the problem, why scrap the whole setup? I watched the computer repair guy try to install bigger memory sticks and it wouldn’t accept them. I trust these guys as they don’t look like much but pulled my ass out of the fire more than once.
Ok, if you’re using autocad I take back my onboard video comment. Get a decent standalone card, probably something from nvidia’s quadro line. Lower end of that line is probably fine since you’re getting by on an emachines now. Something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133354
Dedicated video doesn’t always mean a separate card and it can be onboard (though it’s usually a pci-e card now adays). All I meant is don’t buy a turd that leeches from your ram to display video. Your performance will suffer on graphics and overall performance. It’s a no brainer with Vista or Windows 7 to run something with dedicated video ram. Many of the graphic elements of the new age OS will run like shit on shared video ram.
Autocad has a certified graphics card list for a reason. Be sure to check it out. If you’re trying to run autocad on 2gb and a crap video card there’s no surprise it’s running like pure shit I’d have to say.
yea, last year I downloaded the student version of autocad on my dell laptop. It froze explorer and crashed the video card. I had to uninstall in safe mode to get it operational again.
