PC help
 

I know nothing about computers but need a new pc as mine is running slow. I need it to run photoshop, lightroom, Microsoft office, iTunes and whatever I might need that I’m unaware of. Any recommendations greatly received. Also am I better sticking with a pc due to the main programmes I use or is the Apple iMac route a possibility ?
Thanks

What spec is your current PC? Perhaps giving it a bit of a service might be enough?

Second is what budget do you have to spend? Are you willing to build your own, or would you prefer a prebuilt?

The old one isn’t worth doing anything with. I don’t really know much about them to build my own looking at iMacs and I’m strangely drawn towards them :drool4:

I would bet that when you start up, Office and iTunes both partially load (robbing memory and slowing it down) When I first used Office, it routinely allocated half of the 256mb (long time ago) RAM, therefore the PC was only capable of operating at half its capability, even though I rarely used Office.

A quick fix for this type of issue, is to run a utility within windows called MSconfig.

go to start menu, click on Run and type MSconfig (there are other ways of running it, but am not sure, I generally stumble upon it). When it opens, there will be a tab labelled 'startup' . Click on that, and you will see all of the programs that preload when you start your computer. Make sure Office is unticked, then click on apply and normally have to restart. I would untick everything except for my anti virus and any firewall installed. The programs will all work when you need to, but you may find they take 10 seconds longer to load up. But at least it means that you will be able to use PS, lightrooom etc, without having the RAM being 'stolen' for a program you are not using at the time.

If you find any issues with the programs or start up, you can simply go back and retick them.

Of course you may have other issues, but I find this always helps, smooth things out.

If you do decide to get a new PC, search locally for computer repair specialists. Ask them to make you one (unless you fancy doing it yourself - it is surprisingly easy with a little research). Tell them what you want it to do, and see how much they will charge. This way you will get a PC that suits your needs, rather than one off the shelf that will be loaded with software or hardware you dont need or use. I built my current PC about 6 or 7 years ago, from components I bought online for around £350 (I used my existing monitor, case and hard drives). An equivalent spec off the shelf from Amazon at the time was roughly £800. Prior to this, I had them made for around £500 at a local repair centre (plus you could have your existing hard drive built into it to make it easier to transfer/retain your existing files).

Be careful with a mac, they are good enough computers, but PCs have caught up with them in terms of performance, with some folk saying PCs surpass them. My own opinion of them is they are very stylish, but you do pay for that. Not only that, you are restricted in a lot of the hardware in terms of compatibility and expansion. They can take a little while to get used to, but like everything once you are used to it, you can use it.

My PC packed up quite recently, so I checked with a pal of mine who is an expert and he recommended that I buy a refurbished one.

I checked around and came up with this


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-HP-i...53.m2749.l2649

It's brilliant and carries a 12 month warranty. I downloaded all my stuff to a flash drive and now business as usual.


Cost just north of £200



Hope this helps

There's a web site called valu computers (note spelling) Bought several refurbished laptops off there, all good and all under £300. PC's by the way, no Mac's.

Macs are lovely things to look at but at our offices most users are happy with Dell Latittudes running 8GB of ram whereas the Macbooks users (running similar software) have started asking to upgrade their 16GB to 32GB (and the laptops are not easy to upgrade). I guess its because the OS is so graphics intensive. They are also split into two camps, those that use them normally & keep updated and a bunch that wont reboot or upgrade because they are worried that either they'll take ages or lock them out of their keychain.
For personal use I dont think there is much between them, the Macs certainly look & feel better but then they do tend to cost more.