On Mon, 31 Mar 2014 09:45:51 -0400, "Mayayana"
wrote:


| Even in 2002 the machine he has would have probably
| had about a 1 Ghz CPU and maybe 500 MB RAM. That's
| more than enough for most uses.
|
| Ridiculous. I recently retired a secondary 1 Ghz XP machine
| with 1 GB of RAM and it's performance was pathetic compared
| to any current basic PC. It's pathetic compared to the 3 year
| old PC I'm using as my main PC.
|

There is a caveat: It won't be fast if you don't run
it clean. XP starts out with dozens of unnecessary
services running by default. Then installed software
often loads at boot without asking. If you run anti-virus
you're adding a huge load with doubtful benefit. When
you install hardware it will often load unnecessary
startup programs. All of that can drag down any
system.
On numerous occasions I've had friends ask for help
because their computer is running in slow motion. It's
not XP that's the problem. And it's not old hardware.
Once the software "barnacles" are cleaned off those
machines run fine.

|
| But XP is zippy on old hardware, and does just fine with 256
| MB RAM for most uses.)
|
| It's also being EOL'd by MSFT. Why would anyone who wants
| more speed invest more money in a 12 year old PC, running XP,
| with a dying disk?

The OP may not want to. I was trying to describe
his options. If he really wants to stay with what he's
using his best option is to replace the hard disk. If
he's happy moving to Win8 then he can do that for
as little as $300. It's up to him. To my mind, replacing
the hard disk is certainly a viable option. It's the
part most likely to wear out.

XP EOL could certainly be an issue. If you just want
to buy a box and have it work then it makes the most
sense to simply buy new PCs when the old one seems
inadequate. But if you don't mind spending some time,
there's no reason they can't be maintained. And XP EOL
really means very little. I run XP with SP3 but don't -- and
wouldn't -- ever allow AutoUpdate to run, installing a
constant drip-feed of barely tested changes... But that
gets into security issues, which is a whole other kettle of
fish.

I recently built myself a new box. I have XP on it.
I built it with cheap parts from TigerDirect. I always buy
older models of motherboard and CPU because the
technology far outstripped the need years ago. I see
no sense paying hundreds for the latest CPU when a
model for $65 is still incredibly fast. I put 4 GB RAM
into my new box, but only because that was the cheapest
option. Win32 can only use a bit over 3 GB, and 2 GB
would have been more adequate.

I do some photo editing, some web design work, and
I write Windows software. (I make most of my income
as a carpenter/contractor, but also have a sideline writing
shareware, freeware utilities and components for use
with scripting.)
I've got a dual CPU, super-duper Dell in the other room
that was given to me. It has Win7 on it. I don't like Win7.
I prefer XP. Win7 is a bloated, spyware mess to my mind.
It's salvageable, but barely. Win8 is worse. I use the Win7
box for testing software.
Both the Win7 dual CPU box and my new XP box, with
"mediocre" AMD A6 2-core, respond instantly. I keep them
clean. If you find you need a high-power machine for
speed to do things less intensive than video editing then
you probably have a lot of crap weighing down the system...
And you've probably been reading too many mainstream
media articles written by tech journalists who depend on
hardware and software companies for ad dollars. The world
of tech survives on a dizzying pace of forced obsolescence,
so if you go by what the media tells you you'll end up
replacing gadgets as fast as you buy them.

Computers of that age have another common failure mode that slows them
to a crawl - leaky caps. Take a good look at all the electrolytic caps
on the motherboard. They all have score marks in the end. If the end
is convex instead of flat or slightly concave, the cap has failed. The
K marked caps are generally less likely to fail than the X marked
ones, for some reason.

You CAN replace the caps with new Low ESR caps to salvage an otherwise
good board but at $2 and change a piece for the caps,I often question
if it is worth while. Generally 1000 and 1500 mfd caps in 10 and 16
volt DC ratings - minimum 85C temp rating. Using 16 and 25 volt caps
extends the life if you have the physical space on the board.