In my limited experience, a machine that was delivered with XP on it, and had an upgrade from 1 gig of RAM to 2 under XP, when upgraded to Windows 7 runs no slower, depending on graphics settings, and even the Aero interface doesn't slow it down much. It even seems to do some things slightly faster under 7.
It's still processor limited, using about 75% of the available RAM, and not swapping noticeably, except while booting.
A good PC crash is always welcome as long as you have the basic essentials backed up such as pictures, documents, essential e-mails and... accounts database etc.
We cling on to old systems fearful of changing anything and scared of getting a new PC but in reality a new PC (with windows 7 NOT that sht called windows h8) will be faster, quieter, you don't even need a graphics card these days so way more energy efficient and you get to /not/ install all the crap you didn't ever use, cherrypicking the essential software as demand sees fit.
As much as I hate it, a few days later I really appreciate the fresh start. :)
The last tower I had anything to do with was a 2006 MacPro at work. That was fairly noisy, but then it did have 3 dual port graphics cards. All Wintel towers I saw at work were fairly noisy, but possibly no more so than the building AC.
I _have_ to keep the lid on on my Gateway2000 destop cased NAS box if I want to avoid letting the drives run about ten degrees or so hotter than normal.
There are occasions when I need to run with the lid off for disk upgrades but I use a floor standing fan to keep the drive temperatures down whenever I do such work. Basically, I don't want to log a spuriously high max temp in the SMART data of a brand new drive.
The first port of call for the former would normally be the manufacturer's website support page. I found this out from the model number you gave. Interestingly, it seems this model may still be available 'as new' since it mentions Western Digital being the manufacturer of this HGST drive. Hitachi was only recently absorbed into the Western Digital Corporation just a couple of years ago (3.5 inch only - Toshiba got the 2.5 inch laptop division of Hitachi's HDD factories).
============================================ HGST Deskstar 7K250 HDS722540VLAT20 - hard drive - 40 GB - ATA-100
Part Number: HDS722540VLAT20
Capacity 40 GB Form Factor 3.5" x 1/3H Interface ATA-100 (IDE) Buffer Size 2 MB
Features Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) motor, giant magnetoresistive (GMR) head technology, load/unload technology, antiferromagnetically-coupled (AFC) media, Thermal Monitoring System , S.M.A.R.T.
Width 4 in Depth 5.7 in Height 1 in Weight 1.3 lbs Manufacturer Western Digital Corp. ===========================================
I'm guessing that WD have taken over product support for HGST's 3.5 inch drives so a visit to wdc.com would be in order. Alternatively, download the latest UBCD iso image and create either an actual CD or use unetbootin to make a bootable pen drive.
This Ultimate Boot CD has pretty well all of the various disk manufacturers' diagnostics tools, selectable from a menu list, along with a shedload of other useful software tools and utilities.
As for accessing the SMART data and logs, there are plenty of free utlities around that you can download for this task. I use, by way of an example "CrystalDiskInfo" which is a windows application.
In my case (win2k and VIA chipset MoBo with SATA connected drives) I have to reboot and edit the cmos config to change the disk interface from AHCI to IDE compatability mode before CrystalDiskInfo can see the SMART data and, as it turns out, the same appllies to my brother's recently upgraded winXP box.
In your case you shouldn't have any such issues with CrystalDiskInfo and a 40GB IDE drive. I can't recall but I think there may a SMART tool or two amongst all the disk utilities on the UBCD. You can google to the UBCD website for more info on this.
That's all typical of most PCs where the HDD cooling provision tends to be a bit of an afterthough and leaving the covers off will usually result in cooler running. If that doesn't prove to be the case, then it's a sure sign that the case designer had put a little bit more thought into the problem of keeping the drives properly cooled.
I was just offering a counter example where this 'cooling trick' fails to work on account of it disrupting a planned airflow driven through the case by a single and very quiet 80mm PSU fan where the drives are offered the first sniff of the incoming air.
On 08/09/2014 23:08, Tim Streater wrote: ...
I used to have one that had seven small fans in the case alone. You did need ear defenders for that. The current one, which is about 2 feet from me, is completely unnoticeable.
In message , Johny B Good writes
OK Thanks for the info. It sounds a bit technical for an agricultural brain but saved for the visiting adepts.
Yesss ... I wonder quite why I still keep that on floppies with several other disks;!..
In message , tony sayer writes
Only for the stuff saved on them. I suppose they could be tediously saved elsewhere.
Looking at the E-Bay offers.... W7 32 bit around £120 but tend not to have writable optical drives.
:) More of a reason than I have to keep my work issued "Y2K bug fix" floppy (from 1998?) and some PC-Anywhere cables (Serial (blue) and Parallel (Yellow) Great for transferring data from PC to PC back in the day.
Last time I tried to read any of the 3.5" discs I have stored they were all unreadable so your archives might not be any good anyway.
:)
Just buy a 3.5 floppy drive mounted in a USB case for a tenner or less. The one I've got actually works faster and more reliably than many internal ones.
Try Speedfan
Andy
En el artículo , Tim Lamb escribió:
[floppy drive]
Use a USB one to retrieve what you want from your disks, then sell it on or dump it.
En el artículo , John Williamson escribió:
Probably because it isn't having dust drawn into it all the time by the exhaust and PSU fans.
In message , Mike Tomlinson writes
PC seems OK for the moment.
Big cloud of dust from the chip fins. I pegged the fan blades as suggested.
POP3 mail download struggling but sending and news is fine.
>In article , Tim Lamb scribeth thus
Well you can add them easily there're not that expensive 10 odd quid IIRC...
Hard drive tested OK and it is now quiet as a mouse. 4am this morning (airport run) it was hunting noisily.
So if I buy a used windows 7/32bit machine and already have an external hard drive what would I need to do to transfer the right bits across?
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