Grandma's Birthday Present

[Teenyman45]

So my grandma's Core 2 Quad finally gave up the ghost. As she was nearly 80 back when 775's were new I expected it to be the last computer she'd ever need.

I figured I would do this build for her birthday next week and also end her complaints about the old computer being slow:

Intel Haswell i3-4130

Gigabyte GA-H81M-HD2

Samsung Evo 120

Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600 2x4GB

Rosewill Stallion 400w PSU

Rosewill Blackbone Mid-ATX case

a fairly generic Asus DVD-RW and

Windows 7 Home Premium

all for $509.42 plus my labor. Had to order it fast to beat the mandatory sales tax fairy.

Any thoughts or complaints on a computer that will mainly be used for AOL and cat videos?

 

[Ultima99]

Grandma gets 8GB of RAM. Ah how far we've come....

 

[phis6]

Lucky Granny... why it doesn't have any storage drive for her videos? Or the old drive is still usable I guess.

 

[Teenyman45]

Grandma gets 8GB of RAM. Ah how far we've come....

Insurance for not wanting to deal with bloating RAM requirements over the next few years. I still remember how my first gaming rig as a kid had a massive 8MB of RAM.

Lucky Granny... why it doesn't have any storage drive for her videos? Or the old drive is still usable I guess.

The old drive is only a 640GB SATA I HD of which maybe ~40GB was used, and that was mostly Windows Vista. I am kind of surprised it still runs.

 

[rastaban]

A Pentium or even a Celeron is more than enough. You should definitely cut down that i3.

 

[PornoSatan]

A Core 2 Quad is too slow for grandma? Bullshit, sounds like her system needs a reformat due to all the viruses and malware.

 

[CMadki4]

...all for $509.42 plus my labor.

You are charging your grandma for labor? Oh boy. Hopefully, you're kidding.

 

[xCWolf]

Grandma wants a fast computer? May I suggest an I7-4960x? That should suffice?

 

[E4g1e]

A Core 2 Quad is too slow for grandma? Bullshit, sounds like her system needs a reformat due to all the viruses and malware.

Or it could also have been that a major component, such as a motherboard, CPU, RAM or PSU, that crapped out on that old PC. Any replacements for the motherboard, CPU or RAM (if DDR2) would have cost more money than what they are currently worth at this point.

 

[Teenyman45]

You are charging your grandma for labor? Oh boy. Hopefully, you're kidding.

You did see in the thread title that this is a present right?

A Core 2 Quad is too slow for grandma? Bullshit, sounds like her system needs a reformat due to all the viruses and malware.

Even when new the computer took an unusually long while to reach the Vista log on screen, then more time to deal with Dell bloatware, then more time to deal with all the update notifications she refused to look at, then more time within all that because of Vista's constant security notifications. Once past those early slowdowns the computer ran fine until it died. Separately, it also doesn't help that my grandma, in her infinite wisdom, had long ago decided that despite being a former typewriter typist would try to use the palm of her hand to input keystrokes... let alone how she uses the mouse. Having Windows 7 on an SSD plus an entry level Haswell i3 in functional computer should resolve the problems which are not user error related.

Or it could also have been that a major component, such as a motherboard, CPU, RAM or PSU, that crapped out on that old PC. Any replacements for the motherboard, CPU or RAM (if DDR2) would have cost more money than what they are currently worth at this point.

You got it. The thing is an old Dell from when LGA 775 new, with all the proprietary and stripped down Dell bits. I think it was the lowest end yorkfield. The only thing that powers on is a little PSU LED on the back so the problem is likely either PSU or motherboard related. Of course, its harder to tell when there are no internal MoBo LEDs. Buying various old parts, especially proprietary Dell form factor parts to see about repairing it is simply not worth the effort.

 

[rastaban]

I'm being serious when I said you can cut the i3 to a Haswell Celeron. There won't be a performance difference for the workload. No sense spending more than you need. Even the Celeron will have headroom to spare.

...or you can have a bit of fun yourself and wait for the anniversary Pentium to play with

 

[Teenyman45]

I'm being serious when I said you can cut the i3 to a Haswell Celeron. There won't be a performance difference for the workload. No sense spending more than you need. Even the Celeron will have headroom to spare.

...or you can have a bit of fun yourself and wait for the anniversary Pentium to play with

All the parts were bought and ordered before I posted the build list because of the mandatory sales tax fairy. Yeah, I probably could have saved myself $30-50 by stepping down to Pentium or Celeron. However, I wanted it to stay quad core (even if only through HT) and this is Intel's IGP not AMD's IGP so that actually begins to matter this far down the market spectrum.

 

[SpeedyVV]

I'm being serious when I said you can cut the i3 to a Haswell Celeron. There won't be a performance difference for the workload. No sense spending more than you need. Even the Celeron will have headroom to spare.

...or you can have a bit of fun yourself and wait for the anniversary Pentium to play with

Jesus, she is a [H]ard granny. How can you even propose a Celeron! There is a place in (S)oft hell for you!

 

[rastaban]

lol give me a soft place to land