PC runs slowly

Its not my PC   Though i promised him that i would get him a new machine. Lets say AMD Athlon II X2 @ 3.2 ghz, 2gb RAM. He isn't a demanding user so even this is a bit overkill

buy a new computer, its old..

That's what i told him when he asked me. The parts are old and weakened.

Rule no.1 when building buying/building a computer, you need to buy a proper machine, nothing is overkill, if ur gonna build a pc then build a good one so it wont get downgraded that much, i recommend you to buy Intel Core i3 or maybe i5 if he can afford it.. if you really dont want it maybe go with the intel quad core cpu, you need to get a pretty decent cooler, and i recommend you to get 4gb of ram..

haha An i3 is for gaming. He doesn't do gaming. Only skype, photoshop, watches movies, downloads stuff, watches videos on youtube and mostly internet browsing. So i would think twice about buying an i3. The AMD Athlon II X2 260 is a great choice for a user like him and 2gb of ram is enough since he will be using windows XP as he stated "i don't want to hear about windows 7, i tried it and hated it". But what i don't understand is you. xD An i3 and i5 CPU's are for gaming and video rendering. 4gb of ram for windows XP? Nah. Also you talk like he wants a gaming PC which he doesn't.

And no need to tell me rules and stuff because i know all of that quit well. A PC is built for what the user is gonna use it for. So if its gaming and demanding tasks then its going to be a costly machine with at least an i5 3570k and 8gigs of RAM. And if its a case for users that don't do demanding stuff (like my friend uses it for watching movies/videos, photoshop, skype, internet browsing) then an athlon II X2 is a great choice and 2gigs of ram for a windows XP user is good enough.

Well you didn't tell us that it's not for gaming and ur using xp..

Considering how cheap 4GB RAM is these days, I would say it is pretty much a "why not" item: 2x1GB costs ~$20 while 2x2GB costs ~$24 and is much easier to find... unless you plan to gimp his performance further to save ~$8 by going single-channel.

For the rest, I agree that i3 is overkill for someone who is unlikely to run anything more intense than an Office suite, web browser, solitaire, skype and maybe 1080p video.

If the system was working fine for your friend once then it should again. Can try many things to gain back system resources like you’ve tried albeit isn’t quite like a fresh reinstall.

If your friend is interested, adding an additional 1 or 2gb memory for $50 or less will be quite the performance boost to try before thinking about buying a whole new system. 1gb is only scratching the surface, not much really.

For a system as old as your friends, 2gb memory modules are the largest you can get. Google the socket and motherboard and read the manual for accepted memory types. It will be worth a shot upgrading the amount of memory before;

If buying a new system is the route then consider browsing the budget systems Tomshardware provides;

http://www.tomshardware.com/system-configuration-recomm...

He says that he would rather build a new PC than upgraded his old one. buying DDR ram memory is expensive especially 1gb

For this user I'd like to see an SSD in his new build! Imagine how impressed he would be with the boot times  . Depending on his budget and the recent drop in prices on ssd's I think this would be a great addition.

Best answer selected by lazar_99.

It might have proven more productive to ask 'build me a system thread for so much $$$'s' advice on a system fit for your friend's needs instead of asking questions whether its viable to keep his original system running. Just saying.

Toms has those answers, look at the link.

Something like this might serve him well: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/h4B2