PC Upgrades on Byte-Size Budgets

I sell computers and will not sell Lenovo. They are dumping computers on the USA market below the cost to build. a LEGAL copy of Windows 7 Pro, the mother board and the CPU from a wholesale distributor exceeds that of that Lenovo. Please also look at who owns that Lenovo facility in China. I custom build a tiny PC with LEGAL parts for not much more with a 3 year warranty. I use only Intel boards and CPUs plus WD drives. Many of those dumped PCs at Walmart at very old Intel based Pentium D systems that I donate to charity. They run hot, consume about 4 times the power and you cannot get parts except from the manufacturer or the brown market. You get what you pay for,

This sound great but when you don't the ca$h to do do it$.

This sounds like some great ideas if your money shy and need big.

I've been building my own computers since it became realistic back in the late 80's and mid90's... You can end up with a nice system with atleast some of the bells and whistles by adding componants later,
Pick up a refurbished system and dont stress cause its a refurb, think about it like this, they've probably fixed any initial DOA flaws in the refurbishing process and tested the system better than most new in box systems you'll get, you can always add the SSD or bluray drive later. I was just able to pick up 2 SSD's for my self now that prices are at $1.00 / gigabyte or even less, right now...other peripherals can be picked up turning your bargin budget PC into a system comparable to the bloated. my roommate lucked out today and found a Lacie 500gb external usb drive at a local thrift store for just $10.00, and yes it works, he tested the power at the store before leaving, so dont pass up those thrift stores, many a fantastic deal could be sitting there for well under the products realistic value.

For $400.00 you can build a much better system, not a 8 year old obsolete piece of crap that would cost the same amount if not more trying to replace a mother board if it went bad.

My desktop is from 2005.. It will do just fine for most things. I don't know why people like to go into debt for all the new bells and fancy power they will never use. IF the computer is going to stay at home.. do the desktop, not a laptop for this.

Wish i had seen this before i bought a new computer lately from Best Buy. Hind sight. Ugh!

I no longer have a desktop. With a notebook, iPad and Evo cell, I was rarely using it. I upgrade my laptop every few years, though.

A New computer should last you between 3-5 years. If your a gamer You can extend the life cycle by doing upgrases depending on what you have. But if yoru a serious gamer. You probably know this and how to build your own already.
You average person. a desktop PC could last even longer then that.
Most of the time it isnt the computer thats gotten old and slow. Its all the junk people have running in the background from all the crap they've downloaded and installed..
Odds are i you have na older machine yoru running Windows XP
You can check to see if you have too much junk running by checking the proccesses. Press cnrl/alt +Del and bring up the task manager. If your a gamer. and you have more then 28- 30 proccesses running. You have too many. For the average user. if you have more then 35 running. You have too many. do you REALLY need Java to be running at startup? Or your Ipod software or host of others? Most of the time these things running only save you a few seconds of load time. and combined can slow your machine to a crawl. To find out what prcess belongs to what. Google each you dont recognise. then find out in the software itself under options if it allows you to turn off "run on startup."
Google search on cleaning up the processes on your computer. Most of the time the machine runs poorly not because its old. but because the user has clogged it up

Ms Cheung wanting us to buy Chinese CRAP and if you buy it you deserve the poor operation. If you cant afford a new HP Dell or Apple then go to library and use theirs.