New PC seems slow, why?

ignatzatsonic said:

It's above a Celeron and below an i3. Introduced about a year ago. Quite modest and for laptops. Retails for circa 80.

Keep your expectations low.

To just install Adobe reader with PC specs such as that, It shouldn't take that long.

I have an i3-3210, 8GB ram, and no SSD.

stevec59 said:

I guess a SSD might make things a bit faster but I'm not sure the expense.

As little as 30 dollars for a decent quality 120 or 128 gb SSD. As little as 40 for a circa 250 gb SSD.

Depends on how much storage you need. Window alone takes maybe 25 or 30 GB fully updated.

If the PC also has a 1 TB internal for storage, then a 120/128 gb SSD for Windows and programs is probably plenty.

dalchina said:

Note that the link to show WEI simply uses commands available in Windows. Nothing to download if you use those. Sure, there's Winaero's tool too.

Yes, I was referring to the 'Winaero's tool '

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I might advise him to return the PC, he said that this morning he was typing out a shopping list, he types slowly as he's in his 80's, but the PC display was lagging behind, he had to wait for it to catch up.
He has 21 days, so that sounds good.

Can I connect to his PC from my place next door, I don't want to go in to often with Covid 19 around, maybe TeamViewer? I think that is free and I can email him a link. I can do some bench marks, get him to put his old PC back and do the same

Thanks for that, I've advise him to return it, but it's up to him, thing is I know it's going to get slower, they always do.
Your specs are great, I wouldn't bother with the 2 TB as he doesn't store a lot.

I'm signing this off as complete now, thanks for everyone's help.

Steve

The reason is that it is a very basic spec PC and initially Windows 10 is doing a whole load of updates, up to a week to complete those.
I would not waste your time on any analysis or trivial stuff until the basics have been done.

I would increase the RAM to 2 x 8 GB modules(16 GB) that should last.

Then go through around 100 settings in Windows 10 to make it run leaner.

" thing is I know it's going to get slower, they always do."
It should not do that assuming a basic reasonable minimum PC spec and software maintenance.

Hi folks
@stevec59
The 4GB Ram while small by todays standards shouldn't be the limiting factor here.

I would almost bet you a million US dollars to a pile of bovine excretia that the problem is hideously slow DISKS.

In all the years that I've been using computers (including old IBM Mainframes) the biggest bottleneck was generally slow Disk I/O systems

These days a 250GB SSD is really cheap and would speed up that machine to an extent you probably wouldn't believe possible.

It's a 100% WASTE OF TIME even attempting to improve anything else on a machine until the I/O subsystem is working decently. You could power that machine with a CRAY super processor and it would still run as slow as molasses.

While tinkering around with a few Windows parameters might seem like a good idea - the basic Windows with all the defaults left in place isn't really that horrible so look elsewhere for problems.

Typical home users who mainly want machine for internet, email, movie watching, Office type tasks --4GB RAM will work -- although upping that to 8GB is a good idea AFTER the disks have been improved. There's 100% no point in adding more than 8GB RAM with that level of cpu power --will be waste --however for ANY machine a fast disk will always improve it no matter what.

While at it as well you might as well get another 4GB RAM but replace the HDD with an SSD ASAP --that's the biggest bang for buck on that machine.

(I've been using Windows since THIS version BTW !!!!) Windows 3.11 for workgroups.



Cheers
jimbo

Thanks both,
Jimbo, I remember Windows 3.11, that was a while ago.

£30 -£40 for a 250gb SSD, that is cheap, that's on Amazon

Thanks again,

Steve