There's this very sweet but very computer illiterate elderly co-worker of mine who has asked me to help upgrade his HP Pavilion a16000n (or could be the a172on...they look so similar) Windows XP machine but I'm not sure if it's worth it.
I proposed to add more RAM to speed up his painfully slow system but I don't want to have him pay for new RAM and then see little difference. I took a look at his system specs online (access here: http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/ca/en/ho/WF06b/12132708-12133156-12133158-12133158-12133158-79732772-80127167.html?dnr=2) as well as his physical system at his home and he only has 512 mb RAM but his system has 4 memory slots, 3 of which are free. If I add 4 Gb RAM will he be able to run a 64 bit OS and apps or does that depend on the processor? He does the absolute most basic computer tasks like email and internet browsing so he isn't expecting gaming-like performance but he did mention several times that he'd like the newest Windows OS and for it to "just work."
I'm confident I can do just that but is he better off buying a new machine or is his old HP Pavilion a good component upgrade candidate? Any help, advice, or guidance will be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time everyone.
I proposed to add more RAM to speed up his painfully slow system but I don't want to have him pay for new RAM and then see little difference. I took a look at his system specs online (access here: http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/ca/en/ho/WF06b/12132708-12133156-12133158-12133158-12133158-79732772-80127167.html?dnr=2) as well as his physical system at his home and he only has 512 mb RAM but his system has 4 memory slots, 3 of which are free. If I add 4 Gb RAM will he be able to run a 64 bit OS and apps or does that depend on the processor? He does the absolute most basic computer tasks like email and internet browsing so he isn't expecting gaming-like performance but he did mention several times that he'd like the newest Windows OS and for it to "just work."
I'm confident I can do just that but is he better off buying a new machine or is his old HP Pavilion a good component upgrade candidate? Any help, advice, or guidance will be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time everyone.