Grandma Build lol

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Legendaryk4

New Member
Ok so my Grandmother needs a new computer. All she does is check email, facebook, yes believe it or not facebook or as she calls it facepage, and some crappy msn games. I want to know if it would be cheaper for me to build a PC or to just buy one from walmart or dell. She has a monitor and everything. The only reason I could see it being more expensive building would be because of the OS costing $100.

Thank You.
 
Darren

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Just get her a cheap prebuilt. Amazon probably has some of the best prices for something like that. Not sure how techy she is, but I don't see a tablet being a good idea. Too small of print for older people that are losing their vision and I think she'd be more comfortable with a computer that she's used to.
 
wolfeking

wolfeking

banned
Denther said:
Just get her a cheap prebuilt. Amazon probably has some of the best prices for something like that. Not sure how techy she is, but I don't see a tablet being a good idea. Too small of print for older people that are losing their vision and I think she'd be more comfortable with a computer that she's used to.
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From my own life, not only old people need bigger print (Right here). But I see what you are saying.

Legendaryk4 said:
Ok so my Grandmother needs a new computer. All she does is check email, facebook, yes believe it or not facebook or as she calls it facepage, and some crappy msn games. I want to know if it would be cheaper for me to build a PC or to just buy one from walmart or dell. She has a monitor and everything. The only reason I could see it being more expensive building would be because of the OS costing $100.

Thank You.
Click to expand...
You can get a decent computer for this at walmart, but you can also put a little bit of money into it and build yourself.

Does she need windows? Sounds like all she needs is an OS. So you could look at something like a Linux OS (12.04 if you look at ubuntu. 12.10 has made a mess of the not so great setup they had), or windows 8 Home, a pentium/A8/Athlon processor and a motherboard to match it, 4GB RAM (8 would be a decent choice too), respectable and reliable PSU, Rosewill challenger is a decent low price case, and use integrated Graphics, or if none are provided, get the lowest end card you can, a 6450 or GT420 or the like.
Should not breech $400 if you use Windows, $300 if you use linux.
 
StrangleHold

StrangleHold

Moderator
Staff member
If she already has a monitor/Keyboard/Mouse and Speakers. I would build her a socket FM2 with a little A4-5300 dual core system. Onboard video would be fine for what she is doing.
 
Havoc

Havoc

New Member
I would say,get her a new Toshiba laptop, they are real reasonable and would be more than enough for her needs..
 
Twiki

Twiki

Active Member
Legendaryk4 said:
Actually she has a Kindle Fire, after trying to make a build I found this on Walmart, I feel like its exactly what she needs. http://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-Refurbished-Black-DC5850-Desktop-PC-with-AMD-Athlon-64x2-Processor-4GB-Memory-80GB-Hard-Drive-and-Windows-7-Home-Premium-Monitor-Not-Included/21863267
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That's not bad at all. Get it. Your grandma has simple needs so this PC is great for her.

I upgraded from my AM2 (AMD 64 X2 3800+) and I was really happy with it and I used it for 5 years without any problems.
 
Darren

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
I like what Legendary found. HDD might be a bit small if she ever plans to store much of anything on it.
 
wolfeking

wolfeking

banned
Denther said:
A second HDD would make more sense unless there's only one available HDD bay.
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HP support seems to lead in circles, so can't tell you how many bays it has. But if it is related to the D530 series (which it looks like it is), then it will have SATA 1 and 2 HDD bays. Though the safest way to go would be to get a good sized HDD strait off and intall the system to that. It should have a restore disk to install.
 
MyCattMaxx

MyCattMaxx

Active Member
All she does is check email, facebook, yes believe it or not facebook or as she calls it facepage, and some crappy msn games.
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Even with pics I doubt she will run out of space.
I think some are over-thinking this.
 
wolfeking

wolfeking

banned
MyCattMaxx said:
Even with pics I doubt she will run out of space.
I think some are over-thinking this.
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Over think it in the beginning and you don't have to open it up later to fix it. I doub't very seriously that 80GB is enough for anyone these days. Especially if you have any Music, Pics, Movies or the like on it.
120GB is small these days, but that is the least I would suggest.
 
MyCattMaxx

MyCattMaxx

Active Member
wolfeking said:
Over think it in the beginning and you don't have to open it up later to fix it. I doub't very seriously that 80GB is enough for anyone these days. Especially if you have any Music, Pics, Movies or the like on it.
120GB is small these days, but that is the least I would suggest.
Click to expand...
He said it was for his Grandmother and I quote:
All she does is check email, facebook, yes believe it or not facebook or as she calls it facepage, and some crappy msn games.
Click to expand...
But I'm not going to get into a pissing contest about it.
He can always clone to a bigger drive IF the need arrives.
 
Last edited:
spirit

spirit

Moderator
Staff member
80GB is certainly pretty small, but most HPs I've worked on allow you to install up to 2 hard drives, so a bigger drive could be added later if needed if the PC supports it.
 
Darren

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
I have no idea if that would ever be an issue, but it is of note in case she stores much data for any reason.
 
L

Legendaryk4

New Member
Ok sorry I havent checked up on this. On the debate of the HDD, she does store pictures, and the MSN games I'm talking about all require installation. I cant imagine a puzzle game or mystery game taking up any more than a few hundred MB's.

Now the OS I feel would need to be Windows. Reasons being, she is old and doesnt like to learn new things. The other reason is she comes to me for any computer trouble and I have never used anything other than Windows and very little with Apple OS.

We are all over thinking it a little bit, I feel like she wouldnt need alot to play those games, on board video would be fine, 4-8gb ram, maybe a AMD Sempron single core 2.8GHz would be enough.

The most expensive part of this whole thing is the friggin OS. Obviously unless I just buy a prebuilt.
 
MyCattMaxx

MyCattMaxx

Active Member
The price on that HP at Wally World is kinda hard to beat.
If you ever need a bigger drive you can use Clonezilla (free) to move it all over.
The only thing I see that might possibly be an issue is that it looks like the dvd/cd is rom not a burner.
 
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