Dave fans, I need some advice!

[Pembo]

We are trying to pay down our debt ala Dave Ramsey but I have a dilemma! My computer is almost 4 yrs old. I am almost at capacity for memory and hard drive. My dilemma...put some money into upgrading. Although I'm not sure what I can do for the hard drive size. OR go into more debt for a new one?! We had a major crash a few weeks back and the guy who saved it said the problem was Not enough memory to support the system. Also the hard drive is humming. The computer friend said it could be the fan which is replaceable but I don't know the cost.

What would you do? Buy new??? Upgrade???

To save the $$ for a new one is going take quite a bit of time, we're talking months and months.

Thanks for your advice!

 

[bellarella]

Do you have a CD or DVD write drive? If so, clear off a lot of your files to CD (make multiple copies). That should free up hard drive space, as well as going into Control Panel and Add/Remove programs and removing any programs you don't use (many computers come with lots of preloaded software that you never use). After you do this go to My Computer, right click on your C drive and click on Properties and Disk Clean up. This will take awhile but will move files around on your drive so it runs more efficiently.

More RAM should only cost you about $50 these days, so it's definately not worth buying a new computer if that's all you need.

 

[aka-mad4themouse]

Memory if fairly cheap and easy to upgrade. A new hard drive is also easy to install. You should definitely replace it before it crashes and you lose important info again. I recently upgraded my HP to a 120 GB HD and placed the old 80 GB HD in a "slave" position. I also added more memory to give me a total of 1 GB of RAM. The whole thing cost me less than $100 after I got my rebates back on the hardware. Your fan could be humming simply because of a piece of paper became lodged in it. Opening the case and cleaning the fan with a little compressed air could solve the problem. If the fan is going, you'll want to replace it before your HD fries.

The only reason that I would purchase a new system would be if the processor was extremely old and unable to handle newer software demands. I would also replace the old system if the cost of upgrading the parts exceeded the cost of a new system. And even then, I would look into just buying the CPU tower and not the monitor/printer/CPU bundle. If your monitor and printer work fine now, you'd be better off applying your $$$ to the upgrades on the CPU tower.

 

[luvthatdisney]

Pembo~

I too am doing the TMMO - so I would recommend that you add a category to your budget for computer upgrade - put a little aside each month. Until then I would look into adding inexpensive memory to the computer you have. I have done it myself ( I am by no means a computer person!) - my computer now works great. I did have to call the company that I bought the memory from to get some technical help, but they helped me over the phone and I had no problems.

I would definately not go into debt over a computer - use the ones at the library free if you have to!

 

[TnTWalter]

it's called to add memory. We did that and it held us over for a couple years. I know you want a new computer but that doesn't mean you should get one. Good luck.
Trish

 

[Pembo]

Thanks everyone! My dh put a call into Circuit City. It looks like we can upgrade for about $200 including installation. They will do all the work for $50, that's worth it for non-computer people like us.

So the new computer is on hold for now........

 

[TallyLassie]

If your only problem is memory, I would spend the dollars on upgrades. However, if you have other issues, you might want to consider putting money aside for a new computer.

My old computer wouldn't run some of the games that I bought my children last year for Christmas so I bought some more memory, new sound card and new video card. Computer still couldn't do what I needed it to do, so the money was pretty much wasted. I would have been better off buying a new computer.

Installing memeory is pretty easy, all you do is snap it in the slots. My brother walked me through it over the telephone. Check your Sunday ads, sometimes the memory has rebates which really makes it reasonable.

 

[SleepyatDVC]

Thanks everyone! My dh put a call into Circuit City. It looks like we can upgrade for about $200 including installation. They will do all the work for $50, that's worth it for non-computer people like us.

So the new computer is on hold for now........

Wow! Does $200 - $250 for an upgrade seem expensive to anyone else? I definitely think an upgrade is the way to go but would seriously re-consider anything that would cost more than $175.

Have you already priced out what a new computer would cost you?

My DH bought my Mom a new computer including the monitor for around $350 total including shipping from DELL at least 6 months ago. It's faster than my current computer.

If the difference between upgrade and new is less than a $150 difference, I might think about a new one.

But if the cost difference is greater or if even a small cost difference means going into debt rather than paying cash than I guess doing the upgrade would be more fiscally responsible.

Good luck.

 

[elgerber]

Wow! Does $200 - $250 for an upgrade seem expensive to anyone else? I definitely think an upgrade is the way to go but would seriously re-consider anything that would cost more than $175.

Have you already priced out what a new computer would cost you?

My DH bought my Mom a new computer including the monitor for around $350 total including shipping from DELL at least 6 months ago. It's faster than my current computer.

I do have to agree with that. I bought my dd a new computer, faster than mine with a bigger hard drive for $325 after rebates, including monitor and color printer.

 

[Toby'sFriend]

it is hard to say without knowing what they are putting into the machine.
I have a Dell that is about 4 to 5 years old, at the time I bought it, I bought the best Processor and Sound Card available. The hard drive went funky over the summer. So I took a hard drive from a machine that we don't use anymore and put it into an empty bay and loaded the operating system onto that hard drive.

I've put some more memory (I bought off of EBAY) into it a couple of months ago. I can't remember what I paid, but it was well under $100. BTW, I am by no means a Computer Hardware expert. All of this stuff is just open up the case, find the slot, and plug it in. If I can do it, then almost anybody can do it.

What I really need is a better Video Card. If I bought a new Video card for a reasonable amount and put it on this machine, I would have a much better computer than the bare bones cheapie new ones. But honestly, 99% of the use of this machine is kids typing school reports, Quicken and Excel, and surfing the internet and our 5 year old machine is more than adequate. I just don't need Super Power computing.

 

[BedKnobbery2]

Ditto on the thought that that seems excessively expensive. I bought my kids a new computer after a thunderstorm completely fried theirs; 1 GB RAM, 120 GB hard drive, DVD writer, other bells & whistles, monitor, & printer--$499 after rebates. It *was* a great deal (best I've seen in long time) and you may not find as good of a deal, but I'm willing to bet you can get pretty darn close to what you need for about $300. Then you can reformat your old computer and use that as storage/archive.

One place I found invaluable while I was computer shopping is this site:

http://www.salescircular.com/

It is a great resource for any one buying electronics or appliances. One tip--99.9% of the time, the best computer deals are in the "computer, monitor, printer" combos. You can very often get all three for considerably less than you'd spend on a tower alone, once you factor in the rebates.

 

[Pembo]

Hey Everyone UPDATE time.

We bought quadrupled our memory and got an external harddrive all for under $200. The old computer is new again.........