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#1
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My friend is in a mess, which computes?
A friend is having trouble with her cell phone, her desktop computer,
and her laptop computer. All at the same time. Phone is getting fixed, but the computers remain. Desktop: With desktop comp she's still running XP, says she went to Firefox and the whole screen turned black. I can't fix it from here and as much as I like XP, I think now might be the time to go to 7. I thought at an upcoming hamfest I could buy her, with her money, a 4gig, 500gig hdd for maybe 100 dollars used, though I didn't look at prices at the last ten. She says she needs 6gigs. Isn't that nonsense. Loads of people run on 4, and to use 6 wouldn't she have to have a new 64bit box and a 64-bit version of win7, all of which costs extra money and which few people do? She said 500 gig is not enough, she needs 1T. I have only 75 gig and I still have 15 empty gig. She doesn't do anything special. She doesn't host a server or collect more than a couple hundred photographs, no videos. She does email and webbrowing, probably less than I do. She's not a difficult person but I think someone is filling her head with nonsense. Am I right, about above, and about what's below? Laptop: Her daughter was in BJ's in another city I think and thought this was a good idea, $255, 2.16GHz https://www.amazon.com/Discontinued-...ustomerReviews With win 8.1 installed. Not really a laptop, more of a tablet with a detachable keyboard. Only 32 gig SSD, which is not enough. Repairman says can't be changed to a mechanical harddrive. Is that really true? Tried to install win10 and not enough room. Plus wouldn't this be a 32 bit box and win10 needs 64 bit?? (I think she's using "3" external drives but it's not very portable that way.) They tell her that people use the cloud. 2 Gig ram I agree is not enough, I don't know if it can be increased. She wanted to give it to a grandchild to watch movies and they told her it couldn't do that either. HP must have had some market in mind when they designed these. If she knew what sort of person could use this, she might well give it to one, or their club, or a poor member of the group, but neither of us know who could use this. Do you know? What's wrong with HP that they even sell these things? As an aside, a guy on Craig's list says " Hard drives are a little "clicky" but the older ones were that way." Is there any truth to that? I've had older ones and they didn't click at all. Aren't his failing? |
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#2
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My friend is in a mess, which computes?
Micky wrote:
A friend is having trouble with her cell phone, her desktop computer, and her laptop computer. All at the same time. Phone is getting fixed, but the computers remain. Desktop: With desktop comp she's still running XP, says she went to Firefox and the whole screen turned black. I can't fix it from here and as much as I like XP, I think now might be the time to go to 7. I thought at an upcoming hamfest I could buy her, with her money, a 4gig, 500gig hdd for maybe 100 dollars used, though I didn't look at prices at the last ten. She says she needs 6gigs. Isn't that nonsense. Loads of people run on 4, and to use 6 wouldn't she have to have a new 64bit box and a 64-bit version of win7, all of which costs extra money and which few people do? You would need to know something about the hardware, to guess at whether the CPU is 64 bit or not. You cannot install a 64 bit OS, on a processor that happens to be 32 bit only. Modern processors are 64 bit, with 32 bit capability as a subset, and those cover both cases. Older processors, your Athlon at 1GHz, those are 32 bit only. Windows 7 would have an Upgrade Advisor, but that runs from a "working" OS. And the WinXP OS is dead. And the Upgrade Advisor could warn you that the hardware is not suited to Windows 7. And how do you even know at this moment, you aren't looking at a hardware failure ? Why not start with a Linux LiveCD, just to get the screen to light up. Then, see if you can coax some hardware details out of it. Try "dmesg" in a Terminal window, and see what you can see. On a modern LiveCD, there may be a copy of "inxi". It can give some info on the hardware. http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/...n1/inxi.1.html You could even use a memtest86+ floppy diskette or CD, to do a memory test, and the output lights up the screen (using VESA mode and no driver). All the OSes, from Vista to Win10, will run comfortably on 2GB RAM. They will also run on 1GB, but the OS will be under memory pressure as programs are loaded. The OSes absolutely need on the order of 350MB. The various OSes will also "expand", like a diner at an all-you-can-eat restaurant, if there is enough RAM. My record here, is some modern OS used 6GB out of a 64GB RAM installation. Later versions of that OS, the consumption dropped back to more reasonable values (maybe 2GB). But when the pressure is on, the OS can shrink its consumption to around 350MB (it evicts various caches). That's how a 1GB $100 tablet can work with a Windows OS. It goes on a diet. Even WinXP base memory requirement is reasonably light. Certainly less than 350MB, depending on what's loaded at startup. ******* A 64 bit OS does the following for you: 1) Runs Adobe Creative Cloud. Adobe delivers nothing but 64 bit software now. Most other software companies, still offer both. 2) Handles more than 4GB of memory. The Windows memory license on 32 bit systems, is limited to 4GB of address space. If the machine has only 2GB of RAM, then it doesn't matter whether the OS is 32 or 64 bit. A 64 bit OS will run just fine on 2GB of RAM. 3) A 64 bit OS runs 64 bit and 32 bit programs. But won't run 16 bit ones (really old stuff). A 32 bit OS does the following for you: 1) ****es off Adobe. User cannot rent Adobe software (Creative Cloud). 2) Takes slightly less space on the C: drive to store the code. The installer DVDs are 2.5 and 3.5GB, so even the installer DVD for 32 bit is a gigabyte smaller in content. 3) Runs 32 bit and 16 bit programs. So you can run at least a few extra old games. 4) Some processors are actually slightly more efficient with 32 bit code. I can't remember if this is called macrofusion or microfusion. But anyway, on some early Core2 processors, you get a few more percent performance. Big deal. A 32 bit install will work on more processors (going back to Pentium III and so on). But, the newer OSes also introduce stupid instruction set requirements, which causes old hardware to be obsolete. And this is why you run Upgrade Advisor before shelling out $150 on some new OS. Windows 10 does not have an Upgrade Advisor available as a separate package. One person has recommended using the Windows 8.1 advisor, because the hardware rules for Win10 are the same as Win8.1 . On the OSes that qualify for a free upgrade, one of the Windows Update packages ('664) installs Upgrade Advisor, but it doesn't have the conventional interface. In the GWX panel, there is a button you can click, to get the Upgrade Advisor report. When I checked mine, it said I had "zero incompatible programs" and agreed to do the install. The report was not as detailed as I would have liked. She said 500 gig is not enough, she needs 1T. I have only 75 gig and I still have 15 empty gig. She doesn't do anything special. She doesn't host a server or collect more than a couple hundred photographs, no videos. She does email and webbrowing, probably less than I do. She's not a difficult person but I think someone is filling her head with nonsense. Am I right, about above, and about what's below? They will soon stop making 500GB HDD drives. The new minimum will be 1TB. But plenty of used drives will be smaller. The reason for this, is today a single platter holds 1TB of data, 500GB on either side of the platter. Only one side of a platter is needed now, to make a 500GB drive. Even 2.5" drives are getting bigger, but I think they're 500GB per platter. The 2TB 2.5" drives are too tall for a laptop, but if they made a single platter drive with a platter that big, it would fit in 9.5mm. Laptop: Her daughter was in BJ's in another city I think and thought this was a good idea, $255, 2.16GHz https://www.amazon.com/Discontinued-...ustomerReviews With win 8.1 installed. Not really a laptop, more of a tablet with a detachable keyboard. Only 32 gig SSD, which is not enough. Repairman says can't be changed to a mechanical harddrive. Is that really true? Tried to install win10 and not enough room. Plus wouldn't this be a 32 bit box and win10 needs 64 bit?? (I think she's using "3" external drives but it's not very portable that way.) They tell her that people use the cloud. 2 Gig ram I agree is not enough, I don't know if it can be increased. Some of the Stream 11 machines are $200, so you have to be careful to not get "taken" on such a purchase. There's nothing worse than paying "full price" for a wodge of plastic like that. Everyone likes to think they got a "bargain". There is no reason to put Windows 10 on that. Win10 is available as 32 bit or 64 bit. The 32 bit install uses slightly less space. The Windows 8 hardware drivers should work very well with all the various gadgets inside, and I'd be pretty happy to just continue to run it with Windows 8/8.1 To install Windows 10, you can try returning it to factory condition, then do the install. Second option, is plug in your spare SD card into the SD slot, then start the install. When I installed Win10 on the laptop, and there wasn't enough room, the installer offered to "move some files to external storage". It did not state what it was going to do, and I declined to continue the install. (I cleaned up the disk myself.) I cannot find reliable info on the 32GB storage device. The name "eMMC" normally means a chip soldered to the motherboard. Yet, one Youtube video, the person disassembling a Stream 11, finds what looks like a microSATA of some sort. Yet, the dude is in such a rush, he doesn't uncover the connector for a look. At the price point, I cannot imagine the storage is removable. Yet that video and other infos, are at odds on a lot of things. The Youtube video demonstrates the battery pack coming out (four screws), while review sites claim the battery is fixed in place. It's possible the review sites are just lazy. If you want a video player, put VLC on it and move on :-) She wanted to give it to a grandchild to watch movies and they told her it couldn't do that either. Then what is it for ? A plastic doorstop ? Of course it plays movies. The movies can be stored on an SD. You will need to research: 1) The max size of SD it takes. Is it SDHC ? Look up SDHC on Wikipedia, and learn more about the various SD standards. 2) If you buy an SD at the store, you have to select a speed. You will need to look up the bitrates of popular movie formats, and compare to the speed of the SD. The SD must be able to sustain the bitrate of the movie that is playing. Chances are a Class 10 is sufficient, but I'll leave it to your ever-expansive mind to research and confirm this. I don't have a movie collection, and have zero materials to use for first-hand research. There are high res movies in AVC format, where the bitrate might be getting close to Class10. But you won't normally be acquiring movies in that format. Conventional movie content should have some lower rates. Remember that a 1x speed DVD plays a movie, so you look up what 1x DVD speed is in megabytes per second, then compare to a Class 10 SD. Easy, if all you're doing is copying VOB files onto the SD. HP must have had some market in mind when they designed these. If she knew what sort of person could use this, she might well give it to one, or their club, or a poor member of the group, but neither of us know who could use this. Do you know? What's wrong with HP that they even sell these things? It's a content consumption device for Facebook people. It damn well ought to play movies, because that's what it is for. It's not a content creation device. And the SD slot is an essential element of making it useful. They also make plastic wodges with no SD slot, so count yourself lucky on this one. A 32GB internal flash computer, is just about useless with no SD slot, and the notion of sucking movies off the Cloud - doh! As an aside, a guy on Craig's list says " Hard drives are a little "clicky" but the older ones were that way." Is there any truth to that? I've had older ones and they didn't click at all. Aren't his failing? When unpowered, a light "tink" sound comes from drives around the landing ramp. It's unclear what is loose. They no longer use the heavy-handed electromechanical relay as a "lock" to prevent it from moving. The head assembly rests in a small detent in the plastic ramp. I have other drives with what should be similar internal design, and they don't "tink" when rotated about the long axis. When a drive is powered, it really shouldn't click, because this implies attempting to move the heads up against a track zero "stop". That means the drive cannot acquire a signal off the platter, cannot find the track it is looking for and so on. Enthusiast drives, with high-power actuators, they make a "thud" when the heads move, and those drives need to sit in a stout mechanical assembly. Drives with less aggressive head assemblies make practically no sound at all. No thud. My Seagate 500GB ones, no thud. The Seagate 3TB one, that one thuds. And it's not clear why it has to thud. That is not the normal Seagate style, on cheap drives. Paul |
#3
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My friend is in a mess, which computes?
On 7/7/2016 2:07 AM, Micky wrote:
Desktop: She says she needs 6gigs. Isn't that nonsense. Loads of people run on 4, and to use 6 wouldn't she have to have a new 64bit box and a 64-bit version of win7, all of which costs extra money and which few people do? Microcenter.com has this refurb for a hundred bucks: HP Elite 8000 Refurb - Win7 Pro 64-Bit, Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0GHz; 4GB RAM; 250GB Hard Drive http://www.microcenter.com/product/4... _Refurbished and this one for $330: Dell Inspiron 3650 - Intel Pentium 3.3GHz; Win 10 Home 64-bit; 4GB RAM; 1TB 7,200RPM Hard Drive http://www.microcenter.com/product/4...sktop_Computer She said 500 gig is not enough, she needs 1T. She's not a difficult person but I think someone is filling her head with nonsense. Am I right, about above, and about what's below? Well, you'll just butt heads if you try to tell her what she's wrong. Better to ask her to decide if these are wants or if they are needs. If they are needs, she will have to rank each one by priority, meaning she will have to justify them to *herself*. But first thing, find out how much maximum she's willing to pay for a desktop and for a laptop. Once you have her price points, you can show her what's in her price ranges. She'll then realize that she needs to compromise, meaning decide what is her highest priority versus what she can live with in order to keep it in her price range. If the computers she's looking at are upgradeable, find out how much it would cost to add additional RAM to each. That will help her decide how high of a priority onboard RAM should be. As for the hard drive, unless she has a substantial collection of video files, she probably can get by just fine with a 500GB hard drive or even smaller. What you and she may not have thought about is the fact that she can - and should - store a lot of her content on at least one backup drive anyway. Flash drives are cheap and easy to use. I'd recommend she not worry about onboard hard drive size unless/until she actually comes close to capacity, at which point she can either upgrade the drive or archive some of her content to external storage. Laptop: Her daughter was in BJ's in another city I think and thought this was a good idea, $255, 2.16GHz https://www.amazon.com/Discontinued-...ustomerReviews With win 8.1 installed. Not really a laptop, more of a tablet with a detachable keyboard. Only 32 gig SSD, which is not enough. Repairman says can't be changed to a mechanical harddrive. Is that really true? Doesn't matter. Look, it's the 21st century. You shouldn't be using your computer's hard drive for primary data storage anyway, because if you're hacked or if it dies, you're hosed. Keep the majority of your data on external storage, and keep at least two copies. Just keep on the internal drive the stuff you use most frequently. You can buy a low-profile 64GB flash drive for under twenty bucks. Stick the flash drive in the laptop and leave it in there. If she runs out of space on the hard drive, she can use the flash drive. If 64GB isn't enough, buy a 128GB drive. You can buy a 1TB external drive for around fifty bucks, if she insists she needs all that space. Incidentally, also at Microcenter, for $250: Lenovo ThinkPad T420 14.1" Laptop Refurbished - Intel Core i5 2.5GHz; Win 7 Pro 64-bit; 4GB RAM; 320GB Hard Drive http://www.microcenter.com/product/4...bished_-_Black She wanted to give it to a grandchild to watch movies and they told her it couldn't do that either. That laptop will play movies. I have one by a different company with comparable specs. Plays movies just fine. Either there's a user/interface problem, or the grandkid is angling for a spiffier laptop. HP must have had some market in mind when they designed these. If she knew what sort of person could use this, she might well give it to one, or their club, or a poor member of the group, but neither of us know who could use this. Do you know? Students and travelers. It's small and lightweight, so easy to transport. Like I said, you really don't need much onboard storage, because documents take up very little space, and audio/video files can be stored on flash drives. Its measly amount of RAM means it's poky compared to a typical pc. In other words, it takes several seconds for an application to launch and initialize. If you can live with that, it works fine. What's wrong with HP that they even sell these things? Believe it or not, there are people who have to buy within their means, and live with what they can afford. There are also people willing to accept the tradeoff of limited onboard storage and RAM in exchange for low price and light weight/small size. |
#4
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My friend is in a mess, which computes?
Thank you both for your detailed answers. I've started going over
them but it will take some time. But this one point stands out. \On Thu, 07 Jul 2016 10:25:30 -0400, Paul wrote: She wanted to give it to a grandchild to watch movies and they told her it couldn't do that either. Then what is it for ? A plastic doorstop ? Of course it plays movies. The movies can be stored on an SD. You mean getting a little SD card reader that plugs into the USB port and a 64 gig SD card. I just bought one, grade 10 or whatever the fast ones are called, and it was $18. Or even a 64GB flashdrive? That would be great for the kids. OTOH, it might not be so bad for her either. She could do that herself and then instead of 32Gigs she'd have 96G, which is more than I have. (I have 75 and I've used 60.) The problem would be if she can't read and write to an SD card as much as one can to a HDD, without breaking it. That was true for flashdrives, not that many writes and it was broken. I don't know if it's still true. |
#5
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My friend is in a mess, which computes?
On Thu, 07 Jul 2016 10:25:30 -0400, Paul wrote:
And the SD slot is an essential element of making it useful. It already has an SD slot? I didn't look up her device because I was busy looking up the microcenter ones your listed. She had taken this to Best Buy for "repair" though it was new, and they sent her home with "external drives". I didn't think she meant something as convenient as an SD card. I should go over there. A picture is worth a thousand words, plus she has a French accent. |
#6
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My friend is in a mess, which computes?
On Thu, 07 Jul 2016 18:46:50 -0400, Micky
wrote: The problem would be if she can't read and write to an SD card as much as one can to a HDD, without breaking it. That was true for flashdrives, not that many writes and it was broken. I don't know if it's still true. I have a pile of flash drives from 2002 that still work fine. In fact, I don't think I've ever had a flash drive that has stopped working. -- Char Jackson |
#7
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My friend is in a mess, which computes?
On Fri, 08 Jul 2016 03:03:43 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote: On Thu, 07 Jul 2016 18:46:50 -0400, Micky wrote: The problem would be if she can't read and write to an SD card as much as one can to a HDD, without breaking it. That was true for flashdrives, not that many writes and it was broken. I don't know if it's still true. BTW, I don't know what she said first but I talked to her again and but they didn't give/sell her several external drives. They are just flash drives, and I can see why they suggested 3 small ones (8 gigs?) rather than 1 big one. Less money and more versatility for backing up . I have a pile of flash drives from 2002 that still work fine. In fact, I don't think I've ever had a flash drive that has stopped working. Good to hear. I don't count this but I actually have a no-brand one that I bought used at a hamfest, that was bigger but cheaper than most of the ones for sale then, and before I could even use it, it's measured size kept decreasing until it was about zero. It was smaller than rated when I got it. That's why it was cheap. I think she's okay with the laptop, in fact I might like to have something like she does (and it might have been cheaper at BJ's than the price I gave, because maybe that's what prompted her daughter to buy it.) I should be happy she's paying stores to do this work and not asking me to. I know I'll regret it if I get myself farther in, but I hate to see friends waste money. I know the desktop is old. It's XP and it was old when her tenant and I repaired it a couple years ago. He bought from Craig's list the identical Dell computer and we just changed harddrives, so she has a spare part for every part in the computer except whatever was broken about hers the last time, which I didn't know and don't remember. |
#8
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My friend is in a mess, which computes?
Char Jackson wrote:
On Thu, 07 Jul 2016 18:46:50 -0400, Micky wrote: The problem would be if she can't read and write to an SD card as much as one can to a HDD, without breaking it. That was true for flashdrives, not that many writes and it was broken. I don't know if it's still true. I have a pile of flash drives from 2002 that still work fine. In fact, I don't think I've ever had a flash drive that has stopped working. If you buy any TLC-based ones today, your 2002 device will easily outlast it. I have a couple dead TLC ones here. You might see TLC in a 32GB to 128GB stick, that sort of range. You find out they're TLC, when you disassemble them, and Google the chip part number. When they're dead, then you have a perfect opportunity to track down what they were. Paul |
#9
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My friend is in a mess, which computes?
On Fri, 08 Jul 2016 04:55:55 -0400, Micky
wrote: I think she's okay with the laptop, Maybe I can convince her of this. Come to think of it, her tenant who wa my friend before he rented 1/3 of her house, hinted that she was stubborn and could not be argued with. And I think after years living so close, she loved him. She cried when he died this past March. I certainly won't get anywhere trying to convince her of anything, but I'll give it a try. in fact I might like to have something like she does (and it might have been cheaper at BJ's than the price I gave, because maybe that's what prompted her daughter to buy it.) I should be happy she's paying stores to do this work and not asking me to. I know I'll regret it if I get myself farther in, but I hate to see friends waste money. |
#10
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My friend is in a mess, which computes?
On Fri, 08 Jul 2016 04:57:49 -0400, Paul wrote:
Char Jackson wrote: On Thu, 07 Jul 2016 18:46:50 -0400, Micky wrote: The problem would be if she can't read and write to an SD card as much as one can to a HDD, without breaking it. That was true for flashdrives, not that many writes and it was broken. I don't know if it's still true. I have a pile of flash drives from 2002 that still work fine. In fact, I don't think I've ever had a flash drive that has stopped working. If you buy any TLC-based ones today, your 2002 device will easily outlast it. I have a couple dead TLC ones here. You might see TLC in a 32GB to 128GB stick, that sort of range. Do you get any warning when they're dying? Or is the only remedy to back up to a hard drive every night and even then you lose one day's worth? You find out they're TLC, when you disassemble them, and Google the chip part number. When they're dead, then you have a perfect opportunity to track down what they were. Paul |
#11
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My friend is in a mess, which computes?
Micky wrote:
On Fri, 08 Jul 2016 04:57:49 -0400, Paul wrote: Char Jackson wrote: On Thu, 07 Jul 2016 18:46:50 -0400, Micky wrote: The problem would be if she can't read and write to an SD card as much as one can to a HDD, without breaking it. That was true for flashdrives, not that many writes and it was broken. I don't know if it's still true. I have a pile of flash drives from 2002 that still work fine. In fact, I don't think I've ever had a flash drive that has stopped working. If you buy any TLC-based ones today, your 2002 device will easily outlast it. I have a couple dead TLC ones here. You might see TLC in a 32GB to 128GB stick, that sort of range. Do you get any warning when they're dying? Or is the only remedy to back up to a hard drive every night and even then you lose one day's worth? You find out they're TLC, when you disassemble them, and Google the chip part number. When they're dead, then you have a perfect opportunity to track down what they were. Paul My TLC flash have both "switched to low speed operation". As if using a lot of spare blocks or something. And whatever I was doing at the time, would never finish. Paul |
#12
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My friend is in a mess, which computes?
On Sat, 09 Jul 2016 00:11:00 -0400, Paul wrote:
Micky wrote: On Fri, 08 Jul 2016 04:57:49 -0400, Paul wrote: Char Jackson wrote: On Thu, 07 Jul 2016 18:46:50 -0400, Micky wrote: The problem would be if she can't read and write to an SD card as much as one can to a HDD, without breaking it. That was true for flashdrives, not that many writes and it was broken. I don't know if it's still true. I have a pile of flash drives from 2002 that still work fine. In fact, I don't think I've ever had a flash drive that has stopped working. If you buy any TLC-based ones today, your 2002 device will easily outlast it. I have a couple dead TLC ones here. You might see TLC in a 32GB to 128GB stick, that sort of range. Do you get any warning when they're dying? Or is the only remedy to back up to a hard drive every night and even then you lose one day's worth? You find out they're TLC, when you disassemble them, and Google the chip part number. When they're dead, then you have a perfect opportunity to track down what they were. Paul My TLC flash have both "switched to low speed operation". As if using a lot of spare blocks or something. And whatever I was doing at the time, would never finish. That's not too bad. I'll try to work that in to the conversation when trying to convince my friend her laptop is not bad. She tried to get them to take it back, but HP said it's BJ's problem and if there's a BJ in Baltimore, they probably said it was the problem of the BJ where her daughter bought it, and then there's the fact that it doesn't look brand spanking new anymore, probably. Maybe I'll go over there tomorrow. Paul |
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