Computer Upgrade and Backup Question

Well, I'm pretty sure you will have to replace everything, including the HDD and CD/DVD burner and OS. Here's why:

The Windows XP is (probably) what came pre-installed on your Dell. It is not transferable to another computer, particularly one that came from another manufacturer. That complicates things and raises the price. The plus side is that you can get new XP from www.buycheapsoftware.com, including XP-64, and it's a legit site. I'm willing to test TS2010 on my XP-64 machine for you, if you are willing to hold off a little. Windows 7/Vista is a lot more demanding on resources, and, since you're looking only to buy 4Gb of memory, I think you will pay dearly in performance, as the minima for those OS' are so high even with lots of memory. (1 Gb for w7 32-bit, 2 Gb minimum for w7 64-bit.)

Then there's an unofficial rule that your need several times the amount of the manufacturer-stated minimum to get a decent machine. In my experience, MS operating systems suffer from an informal rule which I call the 1-2-4-8 rule. At 1x the minimum required memory, the computer will barely run. It'll run like a slug, multitasking will be difficult if not impossible, and you can expect frequent crashes. At 2x the minimum required memory, it'll still run like a slug, but you may be able to play DVDs (or, on a modern computer, hi-def downloaded files...but possibly not Blu-Ray). 4x the minimum memory is what you need to have a decent, ok, stable system. And, at 8x the minimum requirement, you should have a smooth-running system.

It's possible this rule might not be as hard-and-fast as it has historically been for Microsoft OS' but it seems to generally apply.

Unfortunately, I think you are going to be priced out of the i5, but you can still make do with an i3. And, frankly, it's not a bad system.

One aside: If you like your current system as it is (aside from Trainz and other games) then it will make a good internet machine, as mentioned before. If it runs like a slug (which partially happens from having lots of applications installed, and, especially, removing, reinstalling, updating, yadda yadda yadda) then you might be able to reformat your current Dell with your reinstallation disks (after backing up all your valuable data, obviously.) You can get decent performance out of a clean install, though nowhere what you'd really need to run Trainz.
 
Can already tell you to dump the LITEON optical Drive. NEC can go either way.

Actually, I think that may be the one component he keeps. Usually (and maybe the Lite-On is the exception) read-only drives are keepers. Supposedly, they are better at reading damaged or flaky discs than DVD burners.
 
Hmmm, I have no clue, so I may just have to buy new drives.

Yeah, I do think you're going to have to replace everything, except maybe the DVD-ROM if you do lots of DVD work. That NEC DVD burner might be ok if you stick to burning genuine Taiyo-Yuden 8x discs (TYG02) but TY is so widely counterfeited (because it's the best) that it might be worth splurging on a new DVD burner. Right now, Lite-On's the best because it supports bitsetting (a trick which allows DVD+R discs to appear to be factory-made, not burned. Long story short, some devices, even today, are designed to either not recognize burned discs, or to only recognized DVD-R. There's a long "war" between the DVD+R and DVD-R promoters. Bitsetting is a trick to get around this.) Newer NEC drives may also support this, with a hacked firmware.
 
Well, I'm going to send my PC as it is now, and this relative will take general high-performance gaming specs, and get a little bit better software, so that I can run large games like TS2010, and make my PC better than that, so hopefully TS2010 will work well. This relative does build computers for a living, and he's also a big-time gamer, so I'm sure he knows a lot more than I do. Also, I might be able to get windows 7 for free, since my relative builds computers and develops software, he can subscribe to a service that will allow him to download different windows versions to separate computers, for compatibility testing, and he would be willing to download it to our PCs, if he can. That is the main reason I'm getting Win. 7. I am also going with AMD products for motherboards and such. I thank you all for the help, and if something else comes up, I'll be sure to ask.

Thank you,
Conrail45
 
Just remember that AMD motherboard means AMD processor. And if you can, get a decent speed graphics card too, like an ATI 5670 or nVidia GT 240 at the very least. Personally, I would get an ATI 5770 if Trainz is all you're going to play. My 5850 runs Trainz '06 and TC3 smooth as silk, and without overheating at all (mostly because it's the Toxic/Vapor-X edition from Sapphire).

Just to put some things to look for: Try to find DDR3 memory that is at least 1333 MHz or higher (it will say in the specs), and a 7200 RPM or faster hard drive, if you are getting a new one of them as well. As for the CPU, look for a quad core of at least 3.0 GHz. It will get you the best of both worlds (cores and speed).
 
Actually, I think that may be the one component he keeps. Usually (and maybe the Lite-On is the exception) read-only drives are keepers. Supposedly, they are better at reading damaged or flaky discs than DVD burners.
Lite-On isn't a very good company. If you read through the forums you will find people have had issues with the Trainz discs being read in Lite-On drives. Every Lite-On drive I have come across in newer computers has also burnt out for no apparent reason.. The older ones do seem to last longer, but still not very good quality.
 
Ok, I guess I'll be getting a new i5 board, which is quad-core, correct? As for the SATA wires, are they visible without removing any parts, because I have never taken apart a computer before, and I really do not want to accidentally screw something up. I truthfully don't have any idea of the components to my computer other that what I've previously stated. I will see about downloading the Belarc Advisor, but my internet is not the best, so sometimes it goes down when I try to download things (thread I started before) Also, I am hoping to reuse my CD/DVD drives, which is the only part I'll be reusing, but it is an old computer, so I might need to get a more modern one for the cooling. I am feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment, all the parts that go into a computer, hehe. I don't know, but I'm wondering if my relative would be able to figure these things out (I have no idea the extent of his knowledge of computers, but I figure it must be great)
Thanks,
Conrail45

Conrail, having recently rebuilt my PC my advice to you is DO NOT DO IT. Buy a new PC to the specs you want or get somebody else to do it.
 
Conrail, having recently rebuilt my PC my advice to you is DO NOT DO IT. Buy a new PC to the specs you want or get somebody else to do it.

1. A build-it-yourself is faster and generally cheaper than a pre-built. Pre-builts come loaded with so much crapware, most of it unneeded, they run like slugs compared to an equivalent whiteboxes. Oh, and they probably have either Norton's or McAfee's junk installed. That stuff roots itself so deep, good luck getting it out should you want to install a decent anti-virus in the future.

2. He's getting a relative to build his, the point is moot.
 
I'm willing to test TS2010 on my XP-64 machine for you, if you are willing to hold off a little. Windows 7/Vista is a lot more demanding on resources, and, since you're looking only to buy 4Gb of memory, I think you will pay dearly in performance,


I already have and on three different machines ranging from a Core 2 Q9650/8800 Ultra/4GB , i7 975X/ATI 5870/6GB and i7 980X/GTX 285/6GB based systems testing with XP/SP2 64-bit Edition, Vista 64 and Windows 7 64, there was no performance difference to speak of with TS2010, TRS2009 or TRS2006.


No paying for performance dearly on up to date hardware with Vista/SP2 or Windows 7 at all unless of course you don't know what your doing in which case your not going to have much luck with XP either.


At this point in time with a new build spending money on Windows XP is without a doubt not a good decision.








ASUS Rampage III Extreme (1005 BIOS)
Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition w/Corsair H70
Corsair DOMINATOR-GT 6GB DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) CMT6GX3M3A1600C7
EVGA GeForce GTX 480 SuperClocked (260.63)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty
WD VelociRaptor 150GB – Windows XP/SP2 64-bit Edition
WD VelociRaptor 300GB – Games/Programs
Corsair AX1200 Watt
Corsair 800D w/NoiseBlocker fans

ASUS Rampage II Extreme (1802 BIOS)
Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition w/Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme 1366 RT
Mushkin Redline Ascent 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) (6-7-6-18-1N)
Asus/ATI 5870 (Catalyst 10.8b)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty
WD VelociRaptor 150GB – Windows 7 Ultimate 64

WD VelociRaptor 300GB – Games/Programs
SILVERSTONE 1500Watt SST
SILVERSTONE TJ09-B


 
I also don't have a Win. XP disc to install to a new PC, since this was originally NOT my computer, but it was given to me later. I think since I have a chance of getting Win. 7 for free, I really should take it. Also, doesn't the newer hardware run better with Win. 7?

Thanks,
Conrail45
 
I also don't have a Win. XP disc to install to a new PC, since this was originally NOT my computer, but it was given to me later. I think since I have a chance of getting Win. 7 for free, I really should take it. Also, doesn't the newer hardware run better with Win. 7?

Thanks,
Conrail45



Driver development for new hardware such as video cards for Windows XP took a back seat to Vista/Windows 7 a long time ago. As we've seen with ATI's frequent “hotfix” drivers they aren't even available for Windows XP and Nvidia's latest GTX 400 series cards have known issues with XP that are not present when run on Vista or Windows 7.

At this time and in the future you are obviously going to get more refined drivers for Vista/Windows 7 so again spending money on a dead end street OS is not very wise.

As far as performance is concerned in addition to the three desktop machines I mentioned earlier I'm also running Windows 7 64 on a three year old Dell XPS laptop. Again just like with the desktops there is no difference in performance and with a few sims/games I run the performance is better on Vista/SP2/Windows 7.

My advise to you would be to get yourself into a real hardware forum and start doing some research, self education on the subject is your best bet and this is not a very good place for that.




ASUS Rampage III Extreme (1005 BIOS)
Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition w/Corsair H70
Corsair DOMINATOR-GT 6GB DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) CMT6GX3M3A1600C7
EVGA GeForce GTX 480 SuperClocked (260.63)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty
WD VelociRaptor 150GB – Windows 7 Ultimate 64
WD VelociRaptor 300GB – Games/Programs
Corsair AX1200 Watt
Corsair 800D w/NoiseBlocker fans

ASUS Rampage II Extreme (1802 BIOS)
Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition w/Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme 1366 RT
Mushkin Redline Ascent 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) (6-7-6-18-1N)
Asus/ATI 5870 (Catalyst 10.9)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty
WD VelociRaptor 150GB – Windows XP/SP2 64-bit Edition
WD VelociRaptor 300GB – Games/Programs
SILVERSTONE 1500Watt SST
SILVERSTONE TJ09-B
 
When I rebuilt my PC I used an ASUS M4N82 Deluxe Mobo, 8GB DDR2 RAM, 2 x Nvidia 8800GT GPU's and it's existing 2 HDD's (300 + 320GB).When I first powered it up all the fans came on but could I hell get it to accept W7! I tried uninstalling everything one at a time but only when I took two of the 2GB RAM sticks out would it give me a picture on the monitor.W7 however would only get to 34 minutes then freeze.I persevered for a week and finally gave up and called a guy to take the damned thing away and sort it out.He got W7 HP on it and it works but crashes frequently.I read that the possible cause was an outdated driver.I worked through the drivers one by one and finally W7 said one of the GPU drivers needed updating so I did that.It's still unstable, and I ran the free version of Paretologic DriverCure on it and it said that BOTH GPU drivers were wrong! Then I ran W7 Update on them and it agreed they were wrong but it couldn't update them "Error 7869043322" or some similar gibberish.
 
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When I rebuilt my PC I used an ASUS M4N82 Deluxe Mobo, 8GB DDR2 RAM, 2 x Nvidia 8800GT GPU's and it's existing 2 HDD's (300 + 320GB).When I first powered it up all the fans came on but could I hell get it to accept W7! I tried uninstalling everything one at a time but only when I took twof the 2GB RAM sticks out would it give me a picture on the monitor.W7 however would only get to 34 minutes then freeze.I persevered for a week and finally gave up and called a guy to take the damned thing away and sort it out.He got W7 HP on it and it works but crashes frequently.I read that the possible cause was a foutdated driver.I worked through the drivers one by one and finally W7 said one of the GPU drivers needed updating so I did that.It's still unstable, and I ran the free version of Paretologic DriverCure on it and sid that BOTH GPU drivers were wrong! Then I ran W& Update on them and it agreed they were wrong but it couldn't update them "Error 7869043322" or some similar gibberish.


That's why I mentioned that you have to know what you are doing first.


You can't blame an OS or the hardware for user error.
 
Which is exactly the reason I'm sending it to a very knowledgeable relative who will install it himself. I'm guessing there's a 85% chance I'll screw something up if I do it myself.
 
That's why I mentioned that you have to know what you are doing first.


You can't blame an OS or the hardware for user error.
I was very careful and read a couple of books and various websites before doing it.I took photos and made sure I knew what was attached to what.I wore an anti static wristband.The Mobo takes up to 16GB of RAM, and is Tri SLI capable so should be OK with just two cards.How can Windows say the Drivers are OK then decide it needs to renew them but not be able to, the DriverCure say they are wrong?
When it is working TRS2009 runs like a humming bird on it but there is always a crash around the corner.
 
I already have and on three different machines ranging from a Core 2 Q9650/8800 Ultra/4GB , i7 975X/ATI 5870/6GB and i7 980X/GTX 285/6GB based systems testing with XP/SP2 64-bit Edition, Vista 64 and Windows 7 64, there was no performance difference to speak of with TS2010, TRS2009 or TRS2006.


No paying for performance dearly on up to date hardware with Vista/SP2 or Windows 7 at all unless of course you don't know what your doing in which case your not going to have much luck with XP either on that hardware.


At this point in time with a new build spending money on Windows XP is without a doubt not a good decision.

I'm going to try running TS2010 on my W7 installation (I basically have a lab here - running all MS OS' back to DOS 6.2.2.) but I can tell you that you need much, much more memory and hotter hardware to get Win7 to run the same as XP; or, looking at it another way, XP's hardware requirements are less for the level of performance. In a nutshell, you're paying more for the same thing. As you noted, there might be no performance difference on the hot hardware you're running, but not everyone can afford an i7 - and, as you noted, there is no gain running W7 either.

I realize that W7 potentially has a longer support future, but XP still has about 4 more years, so it's not a bad investment. Especially when you consider if and when it does go out of support, a lot of people will probably still be running it. I suspect it might get a last-minute extension (mostly depending on what the hardware vendors do,) but even if it doesn't, so what?

Agreed, though - if you don't know how to streamline a system then you're going to have trouble. But XP (at least to me) has a lot more to streamline, and it's easier to do.
 
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I was very careful and read a couple of books and various websites before doing it.I took photos and made sure I knew what was attached to what.I wore an anti static wristband.The Mobo takes up to 16GB of RAM, and is Tri SLI capable so should be OK with just two cards.How can Windows say the Drivers are OK then decide it needs to renew them but not be able to, the DriverCure say they are wrong?
When it is working TRS2009 runs like a humming bird on it but there is always a crash around the corner.

hi lewisner you have a pm
 
I also don't have a Win. XP disc to install to a new PC, since this was originally NOT my computer, but it was given to me later. I think since I have a chance of getting Win. 7 for free, I really should take it. Also, doesn't the newer hardware run better with Win. 7?

Thanks,
Conrail45

Not necessarily; in fact, XP is more "mature" which is industry lingo for "better tested" or at least "more predictable." I'm a bit less certain of the support for XP-64 though I did a recent i3 build with it using a Biostar motherboard. I like Biostar because they are clear about what OS' they support; other manufacturers like EVGA are a little less clear (though, in the case of the barebones I recommended to you, XP-64 support is fine and dandy.)
 
I can tell you that you need much, much more memory and hotter hardware to get Win7 to run the same as XP
You do? Not in my experience with 5 different machines some with not so hot specs. As a matter of fact I just installed Windows 7 (32-bit) on a relatives machine that only has 2GB of system RAM, a Pentium 4 (3.4GHz) and a ATI X800XTX video card. Amazing enough the thing runs just as good under Windows 7 as it did under XP/SP3 Pro.


The two other machines as I mentioned before, a laptop and a desktop with a middle of the road 3GHz quad Core 2/4GB of RAM run just as well if not better on Windows 7 as they did on XP.






I realize that W7 potentially has a longer support future, but XP still has about 4 more years
Support from who? Microsoft will continue to support it but don't expect AMD/ATI or Nvidia to spend much time on developing drivers for it.






As you noted, there might be no performance difference on the hot hardware you're running, but not everyone can afford an i7 - and, as you noted, there is no gain running W7 either.
When it comes to driver refinement there is a difference and there is lot to gain. As far as the “hot hardware” goes that's how it is with gaming on the PC, you've got to pay to play. Not everyone can afford “hot hardware” but gaming isn't a necessity it's entertainment so those who only create word documents and surf the web can get by with Windows XP.
 
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