Long gone, but now back… sort of. :)
I recently wrote about my still-working, antique, “made-for-XP” netbook as part of a fun PC-vs-Mac discussion here. Apparently — judging from the popularity of the post — there are a lot of other people out there maintaining seriously old PCs, too! For example, correspondent “twinmustangranchdressing” asks: “What upgrades and modifications have you made to this…
(Answer requested by Pavlov Pascale) Sure. If you have deep enough pockets, you can even buy USB pen drives up to a full 2TB — that’s TB, not GB — in size. Two terabytes is huge capacity in a pen drive, but the price is likewise outsized — something like $1000/TB, or roughly 10x more…
A classic hard drive is a complex mechanical assemblage consisting of a circuit board, one or more spinning platters, a spindle, a hub, bearings, several read/write heads on actuating arms, at least two electric motors, and miscellaneous wiring, connectors, and other parts. (Examples.) In contrast, a SATA SSD contains just air and a circuit board….
LangaList readers are sending in questions about some of the details in the recent three-part series on spec’ing, buying, and setting up a new Optane-equipped PC. Quick recap: In Part One, Taking the plunge with a new PC (AskWoody Plus newsletter 2019-06-03), you saw how I used Windows’ built-in performance tools to identify system bottlenecks,…
(Answer requested by Ellie Williams) Yes, for ordinary use — office tasks, browsing, streaming media, etc. — 8GB is fine for a current-generation 64-bit PC. If you have occasional heavy use that bogs down an 8GB PC, or if you want to build in a little future-proofing, go for 12GB. If you edit hi-res videos, play…
(Answer requested by Joshua Sneed) Sure! In fact, you may be surprised how easy drive replacement really is. Often, the hardest part is figuring out how to open the case! <g> Once you’re inside, it’s a piece of cake. You can find appropriate instructions for your system by searching for something like “how to replace…
(Answer requested by Mandi Bailey) If it’s a brand-new PC, odds are it’ll have a reasonably current, capable CPU; and an at least acceptable hard drive. But most PC baseline models have only a modest — sometimes minimal — amount of RAM. So, if I’m allowed only one upgrade, I’d go for more RAM —…
Reader Raleigh K. is wondering about the longevity of solid state hard drives (SSDs). Early SSDs did have some problems, not least because the operating systems of the day treated SSDs as if they were standard spinning-platter hard drives. SSDs are fundamentally different, so trouble cropped up: Mismanaged by the OSes, SSD performance would seriously…
In general, “older laptops” were mostly 32-bit systems, which mathematically max out at 4GB of RAM. If the laptop has less RAM than that, I’d consider starting there, to bring the laptop to its full memory complement. Because it’s an “older system,” you probably can buy RAM for cheap. If the laptop is already maxed…
In “What’s the cheapest way to network an external hard drive?” I suggested a fully-functional, zero-cost option: Connect the drive to any PC that’s already on the network, and use the OS’s built-in network sharing function (e.g. Win10’s Give access to/Advanced Sharing/ option) to let others access the drive. Several readers had good follow-on comments…