MadmanRB

Well theres always the linux option....

I am predicting this now: Windows 11 will be the worst Microsoft OS since Vista and 8, and it's all because of 11's stupid requirements. Really Microsoft what the hell are you thinking, cutting off all processors made before 2017 all based on stupid requirements no one asked for. TPM is a joke, really it is, as the only thing it really does is stop keyloggers, which is something you can do inside the OS if you knew how. It doesn't stop malware, or viruses or ransomware and as secure as a motorbike protected by a keychain. And ask any Linux user how much security secure boot offers, hello on Linux now with secure boot, bite me Microsoft. The only reason Microsoft is doing this is to sell people new computers, they are desperate for money and think doing this will lure people to new machines in fear of their current machines being obsolete, it's a scam and I will not stand for it and nether should you. If I were the Windows community I would let as many people know that this is a scam, and that there are alternatives that are not Macs. Like I dunno... Linux's mint, it's free, easy to use and a 5-year-old can use it, it works for most hardware and if you don't need overpriced software like photoshop or games it's fine. Or sticking it to Microsoft and dualboot with Windows 10 and only use windows once every so often in protest. Lets show Microsoft not to fuck around with its users.

They are about the same price. As for the raspberry Pi idea I would do it but I like turning old machines into projects of mine to help the e waste issue just a little. Trust me this ol gal is worth saving, shes got spirit for such an old PC still

Oh crud, that's because I copied and pasted from another forum. Let's try that again. Edit there made the text green as when I change it to black it becomes unreadable on the dark theme

So I just got my hands on an old but still working Compaq Persario SR5000 for free from a family friend. This relic features an Athelon II and 3GB of ram and is upgradable to 8GB, and I am planning on turning it into a Linux HTPC. But I am having issues looking up the max ram speed of this ancient beauty, it seems compatible with a frequency of 677, but I am seeing a lot of 800 units around and wonder if I should even bother as i cant find if it will support higher frequency ram. I mean for its age this computer is a speed demon, to see an old PC like this run so fast on most modern web browsing tasks without a SSD is pretty awesome considering this PC was made in the vista era (it even has a vista sticker on it that I may slap on my new rig for LOL's). Thus, why I think it will make a great HTPC despite its age, but if I can give it even more help, that would be great.

Thats not the point, as Windows 10 was able to run on hardware older than 10 years old and 11 is just a glorified reskin.

Me I would just save a few hundred bucks and just get a PCIE gen3 NVME drive. I can get it if you feel it will make things faster but if you are getting this solely for game loading times you are barking up the wrong tree. From an end users perspective PCIE gen 4 drives really don't matter much and from a cost perspective its really not worth it especially in today's market.

Yes as what I am suggesting is to manually partition the drive as opposed to using mints automatic partitioning. All mint really does is divide the drive in half between it and windows, and it uses the same boot partition windows does. I fully realize manually partitioning sounds scary, but again it's far easier than it sounds as gparted is super easy once you get used to it, then you can use Mints "something else" option to ensure you install mint on the partitions you installed it to. This is why before doing anything to your main machine try to install the system in virtualbox, it will help you learn things like gparted without it harming your system. If you are concerned about windows overwriting grub this is the best path, but again its not as hard as it sounds. The method in that video is just the easiest way to install Mint in a dual boot scenario, you can do it if you don't feel comfortable, and it will work, just a few caveats to consider.

Yes totally normal, no need to panic. This is all thanks to allocation, the file system alone needs to take up some space. Yes this does seem like false advertisement, you buy a 1TB hard drive but only find out it only has 930GB of free space when you use it is not abnormal. There are many factors on your typical hard drive (and same goes for a SSD) that determines how and why space is not what is said on the tin. Still if you have not done so please defrag your hard drives, that helps plus empty your trash now and then

Again its probably fine, I just know sometimes some surfaces can be nasty on electronics even durable ones. Nothing is bulletproof after all.

Oh I will grant you NVME drives are extremely durable, but it does depend on what it landed on. Some hard tile floors are pretty nasty, and sometimes they use concrete for flooring in some places.

Yes its totally safe, just partition it like any other hard drive it will be fine. Well it is rather a good idea to keep personal files on a separate section of the drive so that if anything goes pear shaped you can recover easily from it.

I would not worry about it too much but I would still double-check for any damage, yes NVME drives are better than hard drives but they are not indestructible. Is your NVME shielded or bare? If shielded then it will be fine, but bare is a big question mark here.

Its not that often but on a personal note do brush up on learning how to partition your drive so you can have a separate partition for Windows boot and Linux boot. If you are afraid of messing up your system, you can always use a virtual machine to practice using the linux partition tool. In this case Linux mint it will use a tool called gparted, gparted is actually not that hard to use on itself but like anything there is a learning curve on reading how linux reads hard drives and such. For example, instead of using the A, B or C naming system Linux uses its own system on drive partitions. SDA1, 2, 3 for example. Knowing this will be a good step in the right direction as remember this is a OS not a .exe so it must be handled with care, again its actually not that hard once you know what you are doing but still I would at least try to learn the ropes of linux in a virtual environment like virtualbox

I use the default setting, no fuss no muss. I even use it wirelessly when booted into linux, still sounds great.