Overclocking is over-rated.

 

If all that you want to do is word processing, I'd just leave the computer alone as it stands. As middy was telling me in my Windows 7 beta thread, Vista has gotten better.

Before you reformat, make sure that you make a DVD backup of your hard drive. IIRC, HP's come with factory software that should do the job. HP Backup and Recovery Manager is the title if I remember right.

If it is an off the floor model, I'd want to re-install vista at the very least. For some reason, using a computer that has already been used by someone else feels like I am wearing someone elses' underwear. Just leaves me creaped out and feeling dirty inside.

If you go the XP route, make sure that you have the correct drivers for your rig. A little digging on HP's website shows that they are not offering official drivers.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/product?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&product=3794727&lang=en&

This will make it tuff, but it is still doable. Google will become your friend when it is all said and done.

Also, according to that website, you only have a 250W power supply.

 

Apperently you bought shit... get your money back and build your own desktop out of toothpicks and asian used tampons.

then you will be the 1337.

Honestly, I've stayed out of the computer game for a while but if all your doing is school work. Or even minor gaming. Leave it alone. Your fine. Your just above little old lady with a joystick and a WoW subscription.

Clean out the ads, get a good antivirus system, norton if your uber rich or go with avg if your poor like me.

If you fancy yourself a pro, but lazy...

Format your system, pick your operating system of choice, and put in a little extra time to make your system purr like a japanese lolita schoolgirl\kitten who has come from the future so you can teach her how to lurve.

You'll be in for a few hours of installs and configurations but its worth it.

If you fancy yourself A god amongst tech nerds... then your screwed.

Return that sucker, get your money back, and then come on irc and let midnight school you in the ways of computer birth.

I will be your midwife and we will give birth to a water cooled monstrosity that is an affront to God himself.

Edit: Compaq's wouldn't be my first choice but only because i've had to actually repair them for customers a few years back. If you don't take care of your system then you'll be running a sloth through an obstacle course in a few months at least.

 

Yeah, I guess it's different for everybody. I usually upgrade my computer a few times a year, and then sometimes, I just build a complete new system (minus the things i already have and don't need like a dvd drive) and sell off my old parts.

It really depends on what you want to do with your computer.

 

I'm still running a 5 year old gateway laptop. It does what I need it to do and I've set it up just right.

Sure it would be nice to have lightscribe and a tv tunner. A quad core and all those other bells and wistles but it does what I need it to do.

Get me porn and finish my homework.

I'm a simple man with simple needs.

 

Stock cooling is usually sufficient. Somebody at his level should not be overclocking. Hell, not even I feel comfortable with overclocking my PC.

 

QFT. While it was 733+ ~15 years ago when I used to build systems, overclocking is overrated now (unless you're going to overclock the system bus, something that's really fucking stupid with an OEM box containing bargain basement components). Most apps nowadays are memory bandwidth starved, so all you'll get from overclocking the cpu is less stable overall behavior and higher cosmetic benchmarks.

 

You almost never, ever, ever want to attempt to overclock a bundled system. You wind up replacing as you said, the PSU, heatsink, RAM, and video card generally, and if you don't go through all that shit, getting a few hundred more points on the CPU usually means fuck all.

Oh, not to mention OEM cases are usually the worst things you're ever seen for air cooling OCing. In general, never even bother with a bundle system, always, always make your own desktop.

Pfft. My e6600 goes from stock 2.4ghz to 3.6gz (maxed out as comfortable as I am with the temps, I run daily at 3.4ghz). It outperformed whatever the hell the most expensive chip was out at the time when it was brand new, and I mean walked the dog on it, for like 1/6th the price, all with a 200$ water cooling kit.

That being said, yes, it is cosmetic if you have an uber end PC and can crank out some OCing, it'll not really give you noticable gain. But with a year or two+ behind model it does make a difference.

Lightscribe however is a waste. Expensive disks, hard to find in large stock in stores, slow and fucking dirt. Hated it.

 

Is app performance really 50% better or is it just the benchmarks where you see the benefit? The former is highly doubtful except for a handful of specialized apps (like Linpack, used for most benchmarks), since most are starved for data, something overclocking doesn't help. If you're going to be doing work thick with dense matrix solves or if most of your work is, say, image processing on a handful of pixels, then you'll see benefits. The rest of the time you'll be in "hurry up and wait" mode while your uberfast core twiddles its thumbs waiting for data to trickle in off the bus. If your common case problem indeed needs cycles and not data, then I stand corrected, Midknight. You're not the average user.

 

NVIDIA GeForce 9500GS with 512MB graphic memory I know this thing is good, can someone enlighten me to the extent of it's goodness?

 

Get a geek squad optimization man, its only $39.99... lol. Can you tell I work at a best buy... never get our shit its total BS innless you are the incompetent... and if thats the case you should not even own a computer.

No but really while the machine stock is not all that great it does give you a lot to work with which is nice. As many have said a new video card would be nice. While I will admit I am probably one of the few people out there who like Vista going down to XP can be better in the long run, but much worse in the short term. Finding drivers is going to be a pain in the ass and while it can be done it is annoying as fuck. None the less it can be done.

One thing I would say is watch that power supply. While nothing is wrong with the stock one if you start throwing new stuff in there you will find yourself having a cooked system very quickly and that is never fun.

And Kalas the NVIDIA GeForce 9500GS is shit... go for the 9800 or the Ati 4850 much much better cards with not that more of a cost.

 

No it's not 50% better. But the games run a ton smoother on higher resolutions depending on what gear you're running. OCing does indeed make a difference in high end, high resolution gaming, using medium quality gear that can handle the faster speeds using a few tweaks. 10-20+ FPS increase for the price of running your clocks a shitload faster can translate into saving hundreds of dollars. Or using great gear that's only a year old, you can extend your gear to another 3 years or so and keep reasonable framerates in games so long as you don't try to run texture settings so high your cards memory is overwhelmed.

Oh thank fake fucking god, I was about to rip you a new asshole when I saw Geek Squad. Seriously, blind PC geek rage. I hate those fucking idiots. They told my mom :"Did you format your hard drive?" Mom: No... the power unit is making popping noises. "You should try to reinstall Windows first"

IBut hey, Gateway charges 304 to install video games on your PC for you. .... yeah. Seriously.

 

Might as well highjack this thread a bit while I can. I have $500 (give or take ten bucks), and I plan on going to a Fry's Electronics store and buying all the parts needed for another computer so I can play Oblivion on it (my old computer is old, so I plan on giving it to my little brother). What do you think I should pick up for my motherboard, cpu, ram, and my sound and video cards on my limited budget?

Btw, in return for your advice, I give you a picture of both tits and wealth.