Is it even possible to save/upgrade my work pc?

[f2bacon]

I need to use a program that only runs on windows 7 for my job. My company ordered this computer specifically to run the machinery I operate. I've been using it for a few years and it's been great but it's starting show signs of aging. Windows explorer keeps freezing up, editing pictures in lightroom gets really sluggish, and a bunch of little stuff. I've built 5/6 computers for friends and I have some spare parts / access to cheap parts and wanted to upgrade some stuff, but I'm not sure what I can even upgrade.
I'm pretty sure I'm stuck with my psu, motherboard, and therefor gpu. It's a dell optiplex 7040. Sure it's got an i7-6700 but the motherboard has some weird power connections that match with the weak as hell power supply which doesn't have any gpu power cables. So I'm pretty sure I'm stuck with those.
But I think I could see major performance increases with a hard drive and ram. I'm stuck on a 7200rpm drive and I noticed an m.2 drive on the motherboard, so I'm gonna spring for an SSD for sure. I'm surprised this thing runs ddr4 and not ddr3. It looks like I have 16gb of 2132mhz, but it's running at 1066? I'm not positive. I was debating telling my bosses give me $200 I'll grab an ssd and 32gb of the highest speed ram this motherboard supports. Is it even worth doing? Thanks for absolutely any help!!

[callmejaccob]

In general I would bring your concerns to your boss. If they tell you that you can upgrade it, then get an SSD and a better power supply that can supports the system. Just raise your concerns, it's better to deal with a slower PC than having an angry boss.

[Ichoumaz]

5 minutes ago, f2bacon said:

I need to use a program that only runs on windows 7 for my job. My company ordered this computer specifically to run the machinery I operate. I've been using it for a few years and it's been great but it's starting show signs of aging. Windows explorer keeps freezing up, editing pictures in lightroom gets really sluggish, and a bunch of little stuff. I've built 5/6 computers for friends and I have some spare parts / access to cheap parts and wanted to upgrade some stuff, but I'm not sure what I can even upgrade.
I'm pretty sure I'm stuck with my psu, motherboard, and therefor gpu. It's a dell optiplex 7040. Sure it's got an i7-6700 but the motherboard has some weird power connections that match with the weak as hell power supply which doesn't have any gpu power cables. So I'm pretty sure I'm stuck with those.
But I think I could see major performance increases with a hard drive and ram. I'm stuck on a 7200rpm drive and I noticed an m.2 drive on the motherboard, so I'm gonna spring for an SSD for sure. I'm surprised this thing runs ddr4 and not ddr3. It looks like I have 16gb of 2132mhz, but it's running at 1066? I'm not positive. I was debating telling my bosses give me $200 I'll grab an ssd and 32gb of the highest speed ram this motherboard supports. Is it even worth doing? Thanks for absolutely any help!!

An SSD will defenitly help alot, as for your ram, check if its running in dual channel or single channel, and once you verify that, go into the bios and check the frequency there, maybe it never got set up to its advertised speed , like most current DDR4 rams, even 3200 Mhz ones will usually run at 2133 MHz right out of the box, and you need to not really overclock it, but ust set it to its correct speed, i dont know what's your workload like, but if its an old program, 16gb is probably enough, if its possible to send a screenshot of task manager when the system is in full swing we can check if you are being bottelnecked by your ram capacity or no

[manikyath]

sounds like a hard drive issue, ask your boss (or the IT department, if applicable) to consider replacing the hard drive with an SSD, if you get a samsung SSD they come with a piece of software that make the cloning operation child's play.

[f2bacon]

My bosses have absolute 0 computer knowledge. I just wanted to know if I could / should even bother trying new ram, and what the max on that would even be. 

I know an ssd is definetly a good move, I'm just trying to figure out what I'm trying to do before I bring it to them

[f2bacon]

Something happened within the last 2 days that makes it so that almost everything makes windows freeze up for around 10 minutes. I could work on an illustrator file for 10 minutes without issue but when I try and save it, when I'm typing the file name it takes 10 minutes for the letters to show up

[Bombastinator]

The frightening one for me is win7.  Unless you have the business microsoft security update system I personally wouldn’t let that thing ANYWHERE NEAR the internet.  If it’s got ddr4 it’s got sata, so upgrading to an SSD should be no problem, and for GPU you could probably get an Nvidia 1650 in there without issue.  
Memory speed doesn’t matter as much as having enough memory, though why it’s running at 1066 is a serious question. 
 

I would also say that the ONLY thing that should be run on that computer is that one program.

 

UPDATE: it occurs to me that the 1066 number could be “pre doubled” DDR stands for “double data rate” so that 1066 could actually be 2132

Edited February 20, 2020 by Bombastinator
Update

[SpaceGhostC2C]

12 minutes ago, f2bacon said:

 It looks like I have 16gb of 2132mhz, but it's running at 1066? I'm not positive.

If you checked with something like CPU-z, it will show the base frequencey, but with DDR memory you have to multiply by 2. 1066x2=2132MHz so it's running fine as intended.

[f2bacon]

I don't even have my main program running, honestly that program is the only one not to give me issues. I just need chrome, illustrator, and photoshop. Sometimes lightroom

[SpaceGhostC2C]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

The frightening one for me is win7.  Unless you have the business microsoft security update system I personally wouldn’t let that thing ANYWHERE NEAR the internet.  If it’s got ddr4 it’s got sata, so upgrading to an SSD should be no problem, and for GPU you could probably get an Nvidia 1650 in there without issue.  
Memory speed doesn’t matter as much as having enough memory, though why it’s running at 1066 is a serious question. 
 

I would also say that the ONLY thing that should be run on that computer is that one program.

That's a bit of an overreaction - it's been like two days since MS stop issuing security updates for Win 7, and it's not like meaningful security holes that actually matter for end users on their everyday use are being found by the hour.

At this point in time (February 20 2020), WIndows 7 isn't any less safe than Windows 10, or than WIndows 7 itself was 5 years ago.

[aisle9]

I thought Skylake didn't support Windows 7? Could lack of driver support be the problem?

[f2bacon]

It's been working almost fine for years, I used to be able to edit video back when windows 7 was supported by Adobe premiere

[f2bacon]

Sorry for the pictures btw I just couldn't wait 5 minutes for snipping tool to pop up

[Ichoumaz]

7 minutes ago, f2bacon said:

Sorry for the pictures btw I just couldn't wait 5 minutes for snipping tool to pop up

take a pic of the application tab if possible, i wanna see which program is using the most amount of ram

[f2bacon]

1 minute ago, Ichoumaz said:

take a pic of the application tab if possible, i wanna see which program is using the most amount of ram

I remember task manager being a lot more useful than this 

[f2bacon]

Dllhost seems to be the issue

[f2bacon]

Just earlier today I was editing flyers on photoshop without a problem, now opening control panel brings everything to a screeching halt. I must be missing something

[Ichoumaz]

1 minute ago, f2bacon said:

Dllhost seems to be the issue

i cant tell what is using up your ram, or how much ram is being used up, been a while since i used win7

 

[Ichoumaz]

1 minute ago, f2bacon said:

Just earlier today I was editing flyers on photoshop without a problem, now opening control panel brings everything to a screeching halt. I must be missing something

this looks like your hard drive failing, i remember mine also used to take ages to load anything, i used to turn on my pc, go make coffee, drink it and come back, and it would still not have finished loading everything, once i got an ssd, i didnt even have enough time to get off the chair

 

[Ichoumaz]

9 minutes ago, f2bacon said:

Dllhost seems to be the issue

yeah, but i dont know why its using up so much ram

[Bombastinator]

25 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

That's a bit of an overreaction - it's been like two days since MS stop issuing security updates for Win 7, and it's not like meaningful security holes that actually matter for end users on their everyday use are being found by the hour.

At this point in time (February 20 2020), WIndows 7 isn't any less safe than Windows 10, or than WIndows 7 itself was 5 years ago.

Perhaps an overreaction.  Iirc there was one already though looking it up it seems it was a sort of edge case exploit.  Not something I would want to count on myself.

[f2bacon]

It's looking like dllhost using all of my ram is this issue, I gotta do some systems checks and virus scans but it looks like the hardware isn't the current issue