Focer font of knowledge, Refurbished PCs

[fazersharp]

Focer font of knowledge Refurbished PCsI have had one for a few years but the company is no more and now I need to advise the inlaws but which refurb seller would the PC experts recommend.

[darrsi]

Still clinging on to The Commodore? 

[Grahamm]

It's dead easy to build your own, all the components (processor, heat sink, mother board, memory, hard drives, case, PSU etc) are available off the shelf and it's just a matter of putting them together

[BBROWN1664]

I have seen a few advertised recently and they are all much of a muchness

You need to look at the spec. Find out the CPU model and see what it rates as on CPU benchmark. Amazingly, you will find brand new machines with slower CPU's that the 10 year old one you are condemning to the bin. Also, make sure it has an SSD disk drive that is at least 256GB and 8GB of RAM if you want it to last more than a couple of years.

Building your own is another option but I am finding that more and more expensive these days.

[fazersharp]

I have seen a few advertised recently and they are all much of a muchness

You need to look at the spec. Find out the CPU model and see what it rates as on CPU benchmark. Amazingly, you will find brand new machines with slower CPU's that the 10 year old one you are condemning to the bin. Also, make sure it has an SSD disk drive that is at least 256GB and 8GB of RAM if you want it to last more than a couple of years.

Building your own is another option but I am finding that more and more expensive these days.

Yes its not the spec I am unsure about it is the seller to use that I am looking for some feed back on. I am looking at something around i5-3470 3.20GHz 500Gb ssd and as you say 8 GB ram.
 

[BBROWN1664]

Looks like a reasonable spec machine.

As for the reseller, I have never bought a refurb machine so cannot comment.

[fazersharp]

There are companies out there that buy up big office computers when the office upgrades and they get them by the pallet, supposedly check and service and put on an official windows re-seller win 10 and sell base models for about £150 (250 HD 4GB ram ) then you have the option to upgrade the ram and Hdd for either ssd or 1/2TB Hd.   
Just seeing if anyone has had dealings with such places. I have a few years ago with one but they are no-more.   

[darrsi]

I never knew that my laptop had two slots for RAM and only one was occupied with a 4GB board.
I just bought a refurbished 4GB board for £17, took the back cover off, slotted it into the empty space, and now have 8GB to play with. 

[fazersharp]

I never knew that my laptop had two slots for RAM and only one was occupied with a 4GB board.
I just bought a refurbished 4GB board for £17, took the back cover off, slotted it into the empty space, and now have 8GB to play with. 

There can be limits and bottlenecks with the amount of ram that is actually recognised by your system as a whole. Depends on the motherboard and also the x32 or x64 operating system.

Sounds like I know what I am talking about ----- I don't fully so Im sure an expert will come along and help us all. 
Yours could of equally been occupied by x2 2gb cards. I always understood you had to add in pairs - as in- you could not add an 8 to a 2 card motherboard that already has a 4 in one slot, you should add another 4 to the vacant slot or replace both slots with a matching 8s =16 total or take em all out and just have x1- 16GB     
To further complicate things tower PCs can have 4 slots so you can go 4x4=16 or just use 2 and go 2x8=16  or even go 1x16.
My PC now has 16gb Ram. And a samsung evo ssd opends win7 in 30 seconds and closes in 9 seconds.   
 

[BBROWN1664]

In days of old, you had to add in pairs. Things have moved on and singles are possible now depending on the board. x32 bit will max out at 6GB useable regardardless of what your system has fitted. x64 will go much higher than either of us can afford.

[darrsi]

I never knew that my laptop had two slots for RAM and only one was occupied with a 4GB board.
I just bought a refurbished 4GB board for £17, took the back cover off, slotted it into the empty space, and now have 8GB to play with. 

There can be limits and bottlenecks with the amount of ram that is actually recognised by your system as a whole. Depends on the motherboard and also the x32 or x64 operating system.

Sounds like I know what I am talking about ----- I don't fully so Im sure an expert will come along and help us all. 
Yours could of equally been occupied by x2 2gb cards. I always understood you had to add in pairs - as in- you could not add an 8 to a 2 card motherboard that already has a 4 in one slot, you should add another 4 to the vacant slot or replace both slots with a matching 8s =16 total or take em all out and just have x1- 16GB     
To further complicate things tower PCs can have 4 slots so you can go 4x4=16 or just use 2 and go 2x8=16  or even go 1x16.
My PC now has 16gb Ram. And a samsung evo ssd opends win7 in 30 seconds and closes in 9 seconds.

Yeah, in short i did check all that out, mine was x64 and i added a 4gb to partner a 4gb, so it's all good.

[bald_pig]

Late to the party, but I recommend bargain hardware, I regularly buy from their education based sister site for work.

[fazersharp]

Late to the party, but I recommend bargain hardware, I regularly buy from their education based sister site for work.

Thanks for that one. Good to have a recommendation.