Electronics

[gardenman]

Just finished upgrading my tired old computer from an eight year old Vista computer with a dual core processor to a newer six core processor, from 4 gigs of RAM to eight, a SSD, and Windows 10 and I'm having a ball! This thing absolutely flies. I'm loving Windows 10 so far. I've got Pandora playing in the background while I web surf. I've got my favorites/bookmarks all transferred over. The email setup went smoothly. I'm very impressed by Windows 10. It's a bit different but not too bad. Dashlane moved all of my passwords to the new computer. All in all I'm thrilled with this new setup.

[Kachina624]

@gardenman   Show off!

[gardenman]

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@Kachina624 wrote:

@gardenman   Show off!

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It's fun to have a new toy! I kind of hated to spend the money to upgrade, but it's worth it. You don't really save money building your first computer, but then when you don't have to buy a new case, optical drive, hard drive, power supply, etc. with a later upgrade you really start to save some money. The new CPU was $75, the motherboard was $60, the RAM was $65, Windows 10 was about $90, the SSD was $55. It's not a bad price to pay.

[apple1964]

Glad the upgrade went well for you O/P. I just decided to buy new computers with WIn10 last year. I have had no problems and love the new technology.

[Sweetbay magnolia]

Glad you are enjoying the new computer.

Still loving my 2011 MacBook Pro.  I paid much more than you have, though!

[gardenman]

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@Sweetbay magnolia wrote:

Glad you are enjoying the new computer.

Still loving my 2011 MacBook Pro.  I paid much more than you have, though!

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Yeah. You pay a lot more for Apple products.

When I'm doing a computer build I stick with established components with hundreds/thousands of good reviews averaging four stars or higher. There are a depressingly large number of motherboards and other components out there that average 1-3 stars in hundreds of reviews.

Those who want to live on the cutting edge are often beta testers for the technology. I just want mine to work, so I let the early adopters sort out the good from the bad and then I just buy the good stuff. The motherboard I'm using was originally released three years ago, but is now on revision 6.0 and has gotten good reviews on every version. I checked the reviews for every component on Newegg, Amazon, Tiger Direct, and other sites. Now there's no guarantee you still won't get a dud, but the odds are much more in your favor.

AMD has their brand new Ryzen series of motherboards and processors that are the cutting edge, but there will be growing pains with those that may lead to weeks/months of frustration until the issues are found and sorted out. By sticking with older tech, the issues are known and solutions already found and implemented. It makes for a far more enjoyable computing experience. (And cheaper too!) Tech prices drop like a rock after that first year something is introduced.

[willdob3]

Glad you like it. Microsoft & Windows 10 have me shopping for a MacBook. 

[gardenman]

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@willdob3 wrote:

Glad you like it. Microsoft & Windows 10 have me shopping for a MacBook. 

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I wasn't sure what to expect, I'd heard all kinds of horror stories, but the installation went well, transferring everything over went well. If Microsoft holds true to their stated goal, this will be their last true operating system and all future upgrades will be within the Windows 10 format. They've promised to move to an ecosytem model and away from the operating system model, so if they hold true to that you only have to learn WIndows 10 once and you're good to go.

I'm pretty impressed with it so. It's different from Vista or Windows 7, but it works well enough. I find Cortana handy too anytime I cant find something. I just ask Cortana and she tells me where to look.

The only real issue I had was in figuring out where Microsoft hid the license number. Once I figured out it was under the grey scratch off stuff on the sticker, even the activation went smoothly. (Note to Microsoft: You might just want to tell people where that is located.)

The speed of the new OS when combined with the new CPU, MB and memory is impressive. SItes that took a while to load previously just pop up now. It's a big improvement. I'm still primarily using Chrome, but my limited use of Edge has been better than the older IE's. All in all, I'm pretty impressed.