Old Computer Help

[InvertedGPR]

My parents got this really old computer that barely works and uses windows xp. Booting it up takes forever and just about everything on that computer is slow and unbearable. I opened it up to see every speck covered in dust. Is there anything I can do to this computer to make it suitable for at least some light web browsing or something?

[sushisharkjl]

1 minute ago, InvertedGPR said:

My parents got this really old computer that barely works and uses windows xp. Booting it up takes forever and just about everything on that computer is slow and unbearable. I opened it up to see every speck covered in dust. Is there anything I can do to this computer to make it suitable for at least some light web browsing or something?

Depending on the hard drive interface, you might be able to get an SSD for it.

[FAQBytes]

Leafblower can fix that dust problem.

 

If you want to just browse with it, then install Ubuntu.

[alexhelvetica]

What are the specs?

[dragoon20005]

use CPU-Z ID and pull out the PC specs

 

i say it might be a P4 system using IDE drives

[InvertedGPR]

Alright, I'll check out the specs and stuff tomorow, but it is extremely slow and I don't if I can get that far to be completely honest. And if I can get a hard drive for cheap I'll get one.

[Gen427]

3 minutes ago, InvertedGPR said:

Alright, I'll check out the specs and stuff tomorow, but it is extremely slow and I don't if I can get that far to be completely honest. And if I can get a hard drive for cheap I'll get one.

If it takes too long to boot, just jump into the bios on boot and copy the cpu/ram/hard drive (should have the product code/name likw WD1200 etc) down and post it for the guys here :3

 

I would start by getting some of the dust off, then consider your options (do you have money for replacement parts? Looking to just do a system sweep x clean? Will it be compatible with new OS's or will you want XP reloaded? (even though its outdated and no more security bug fixes))

 

And go from there!

[VinsinityKT]

maybe a windows reinstall?

[InvertedGPR]

I'm probably just going to try for Ubuntu. Also, I've found no way to factory rest the PC without a disk.

[InvertedGPR]

18 hours ago, Gen427 said:

If it takes too long to boot, just jump into the bios on boot and copy the cpu/ram/hard drive (should have the product code/name likw WD1200 etc) down and post it for the guys here :3

 

I would start by getting some of the dust off, then consider your options (do you have money for replacement parts? Looking to just do a system sweep x clean? Will it be compatible with new OS's or will you want XP reloaded? (even though its outdated and no more security bug fixes))

 

And go from there!

I don't know if this is exactlt what you wanted, but here it is.

[NeoFrux]

I would be shocked if those old hard drives are still good; Grab DiskCheckup and check the SMART info and run some tests to be sure. While you're looking at the drives, pop open Device Manager and check that the transfer mode is Ultra DMA / UDMA of some description and not PIO under the IDE controllers' properties dialogs. I'd also check the motherboard for bad capacitors, since that's from right in around the time of the Capacitor Plague. And for good measure, it's always a good idea to run memtest86+ to make sure that old RAM is still OK.

[InvertedGPR]

8 minutes ago, Runefox said:

I would be shocked if those old hard drives are still good; Grab DiskCheckup and check the SMART info and run some tests to be sure. While you're looking at the drives, pop open Device Manager and check that the transfer mode is Ultra DMA / UDMA of some description and not PIO under the IDE controllers' properties dialogs. I'd also check the motherboard for bad capacitors, since that's from right in around the time of the Capacitor Plague. And for good measure, it's always a good idea to run memtest86+ to make sure that old RAM is still OK.

The problem with that is that it won't run Google Chrome and Internet Explorer won't work. So it's kind of hard to run anything

[NeoFrux]

2 minutes ago, InvertedGPR said:

The problem with that is that it won't run Google Chrome and Internet Explorer won't work. So it's kind of hard to run anything

Got a USB port? USB flash drive should work fine for that stuff.

[InvertedGPR]

Install Chrome through a usb?

[NeoFrux]

17 minutes ago, InvertedGPR said:

Install Chrome through a usb?

Er... No. Memtest86+ and DiskCheckup. Though if you're saying that Windows is completely unable to load any programs, you'll probably need to burn a CD/DVD with a Linux distro or something on it in order to run tests from that instead. No sense in reinstalling Windows if the drive is failing after all.