Should I get a new computer?

H

heslaran

New Member
Hi everyone,
I have a lot of questions. I've had my computer almost 5 years now, and I'm noticing small problems with it. For about the past year, anytime the virus software runs, it freezes my computer for about ten minutes, then returns to normal. I usually just quit the virus software and it's fine, but...yesterday I turned on my computer, and found a thin purple line down the middle of my monitor...it went away after a few minutes, but...it has me worried. My old monitor died a year or so ago, and I have a new monitor, but ever since I got it, I noticed that the screen kinda shakes or vibrates....there's no setting I can find to fix it, so I just got used to it. Other than these things, my computer runs perfectly well.

However, I have been kind of itching to get a new computer so I can use it to play some decent computer games. My computer has 512MB RAM, and can't really handle much. I don't need a full out gaming computer. Just something simple...(I pretty much just want one to do my work and be able to handle Oblivion :P) But, I feel guilty buying another one when this one isn't completely falling apart yet.

So, my question is, based on all that, how much longer do you guys think I have before this one crashes? When it does crash, would it be cheaper to replace parts? I'm assuming at the least I need a new graphics card and more RAM, but I'm not confident enough to install these things myself. I found one I really like for about $630. So, should I break down and get a new one yet, or can I wait a little longer? I'd appreciate lots of opinions. Thanks in advance!
 
JakeUSMC said:
what games would you like to play?
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Really, the only game I'm interested in is Oblivion. If other neat games work on my new computer, great, but it's not really necessary. Having Oblivion is going to be bad enough...I'm afraid once I get a computer that runs it, I'll never find time to do my school work again...:P
 
bomberboysk said:
Would you be interested in building your own? Hard to tell from your post, but its not hard:
http://www.computerforum.com/104641-how-build-computer-step-step-photos.html

If you are building, $600 can get you a pretty decent system that will handle quite a few games, and will also be very upgradable.
Click to expand...

Hmm...I might be willing to build one, but if I can get a comparable one for about that amount already put together, I might be willing to go that way...:P If I do, how long do you think I have before this computer becomes unusable?....
 
heslaran said:
Hmm...I might be willing to build one, but if I can get a comparable one for about that amount already put together, I might be willing to go that way...:P If I do, how long do you think I have before this computer becomes unusable?....
Click to expand...
For your current computer, 5 years is somewhat of a long time to own a system. By unusable, it depends what you mean by that. Building a system today for $600, it will easily be able to surf the internet and such for 4-5years, after 2-3 years it will start to struggle to play the latest games and etc.

Building gets you alot more for the money than buying from an OEM, a $600 dell system would have a low end case, power supply, probably integrated graphics(not good for gaming), and a hitachi or samsung hard drive. Building you can get a nice 500W quality power supply unit, tri core, dedicated graphics card, and a seagate or western digital hard drive.
 
bomberboysk said:
For your current computer, 5 years is somewhat of a long time to own a system. By unusable, it depends what you mean by that. Building a system today for $600, it will easily be able to surf the internet and such for 4-5years, after 2-3 years it will start to struggle to play the latest games and etc.

Building gets you alot more for the money than buying from an OEM, a $600 dell system would have a low end case, power supply, probably integrated graphics(not good for gaming), and a hitachi or samsung hard drive. Building you can get a nice 500W quality power supply unit, tri core, dedicated graphics card, and a seagate or western digital hard drive.
Click to expand...

Actually his budget would be $500 because OS is going to take a good chunk out of it. Still a $500 build is better then a $700 OEM
 
Fatback said:
Actually his budget would be $500 because OS is going to take a good chunk out of it. Still a $500 build is better then a $700 OEM
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I was including an OS in that $600. I recently did a build with pretty much those specs for $580, but after rebates only $490ish.
(INCLUDING a copy of vista + windows 7 upgrade ticket)
 
Well I would say go ahead and buy a new one 5 years is a lot in the worl of computers unless you have done a lot of updating and upgrading over the course of the 5 years
 
Thanks for the help everyone. I guess it is time for me to replace this one. Still unsure if I would be brave enough to build my own. I heard that unless you're building a really nice computer for a specific purpose like gaming, it's about the same to build it yourself as buying one. I don't know...based on what's going on with this one, would it be ok to replace the parts that aren't working, or would it be near impossible and not worth the effort to try finding compatible parts with a 5-year-old computer?
 
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