Upgrading my computer - faster & more efficient

[ksa8907]

I am short on time at the moment t so I'll keep it short. I was in the same boat early this year with a very similar (then) current setup. I bought a used Dell 9020 with 16gb ram and an i5 4570? maybe 4470. $200 Just added my hard drives. Sold 8gb of ram on fleabay and recouped $30

Ssd are amazing, I have a cheapo 120gb ssd i bought 3 years ago and my desktop is sitting at the login screen within 15 seconds.

[redpoint5]

On a tangent subject, I just moved into an apartment that has satellite TV included. There were 2 new receivers when we moved in; a basic receiver, and a DVR.

My wife activated the DVR, and then I learned that DVR capability is a $10/mo "service" even though we already have the hardware. HD is also a $10/mo option, and only SD is included. Anyhow, I've never paid for TV, and I'm not about to begin, especially if paying for TV doesn't eliminate the commercials.

The DVR consumes 24 watts while on and 22 watts while "off". Not sure what the point of having an off button is if it only reduces power consumption by 10%. Anyhow, I haven't measured the standard receiver power consumption, but my guess is it's around 5 watts when on, and close to 0 when off.

The company wants me to pay another $7/mo to activate the non-DVR receiver, but I'm going to complain that the DVR has a failing fan (it sounds like it anyhow with all the noise) and have them swap for free.

The guy I spoke to was surprised to learn there is a big difference between DVR and standard. The DVR has a fan, and the standard receiver doesn't.

It sucks going from free and beautiful OTA HD TV with DVR to grainy TV and no DVR. Maybe I can get a high quality antenna and pull in some of the stations.

[freebeard]

The computer is currently in a case in the lower left cabinet. It takes up the whole cabinet. I was thinking that I would mount the motherboard to the desk hutch behind the right monitor.

Won't that push the monitors forward and lose desk space?

Looking at that picture — I'd mount two telescopic drawer slides on the left inner wall and bolt the floor of you case to that. Leave some slack in the cables and then you can open the door and roll it out like a vertical rack mount.

[Xist]

Do you have problems with Windows waking up your computers? I found various instructions for fixing that, but it seems like all of them were out of date. I was able to get most of the way through, but my computer still woke up before I did, although it definitely seemed better.

My current laptop has only woken up once when I put it to sleep and then closed the lid. I used to get to class, wonder why my laptop was so hot, open it, and it would say that it was going to sleep, and then die.

That hurt my feelings...

Has everyone had a good experience with SSDs? I loved my first one--for a month. Then it died. the warranty replacement only lasted a week and I did not bother. The second one that I bought did not act any faster, also died after a week, and I did not bother with the warranty.

I have considered installing an SSD in my current laptop, although I think installing more RAM would make a bigger difference. However, while it only has 4/8 GB, it is not upgradeable, and I am not sure that soldering in memory is the best course of action.

With as much RAM as my phone, it would use an absurd amount of virtual memory. An SSD is not as fast as RAM, but it sure beats 5,400 RPM platters!

[redpoint5]

Most people won't need more than 4GB of RAM, especially if just surfing the web and wasting time with Facespook. The SSD would certainly make more difference in perceived speed than adding more RAM.

I've had a handful of SSDs die at my old job, and 1 personal one, but generally if they work for a month, they will work for years after. Don't know why you wouldn't bother with the warranty replacement, or at least getting your money back, unless you paid some trivial amount for them. I've never paid less than $100 because I go name brand such as Intel or Samsung.

I highly recommend an SSD for laptops for several reasons. The laptop being portable, the hard drive is subjected to much more vibration and drop potential. This puts data at risk for physical damage. Spinning the platters wastes more energy than an SSD consumes, lowering battery run time. Finally, laptops are slow enough, they need all the performance improvements they can get. An SSD makes page swapping and resuming from sleep snappy.

I disable the "close lid" > "suspend computer" action because sometimes when I close the lid, I don't want my computer going to sleep. Then, as you have pointed out, it doesn't always go to sleep. By pressing the sleep button, which is nearly as easy as closing the lid, you are in full control of the sleep behavior.

My company has a GPO that sets the idle timeout to a very short time and then my PC gets locked, so I installed a program called Caffeine that presses the f15 button every minute for an amount of time I specify. This keeps the laptop awake, and F15 is not used in almost any application, so it's pretty safe to press (the key probably isn't on your keyboard).

[Xist]

Yeah, I only have F1 - F10 in two columns on the left of my keyboard. I hear rumors of some kind of "Windows" key and other shenanigans.

I do not think I have ever closed the lid on my laptop while it was awake. I tell it to go to bed, serenade it to sleep, close the lid, and sometimes it wakes up immediately, so I open it back up, yell at it, and try again.

Since my desktop wakes up on its own, my laptop might wake up for one of many scheduled events, or maybe they can actually shake awake.

This is my first laptop that has lasted more than about forty minutes on battery, probably because it is weak and slow.

Sometimes I check for updates, open twenty different threads, and then my browser starts struggling. I struggle to maintain the Rule of Two. In theory, my laptop would handle two tabs adequately.

[redpoint5]

I've been known to go over 100 tabs in Firefox/Chrome. Once I started researching octane since so many people make comments on the subject without knowing anything about it. After a couple hours I realized I was studying organic chemistry and enjoying it. Anyhow, like the rabbit hole that is Youtube, I end up getting curious about an exponential number of things and my tabs get out of control.

You might need to disable wake on LAN (WOL) and USB wake events to keep that laptop sleeping.

My 5+ year old laptop goes at least 4hrs still (was over 10 when new). The key to a happy battery is to set it to not fully charge (set it to 80% or so), and to not discharge it deeply. Keep it plugged in as often as possible.

[Xist]

I bought my laptop to write progress reports while in Oregon, but progress reports and session notes are all done on-line. While I was a contractor, those were four-page Word documents, with statistics for each goal. My current supervisor told me to just restate the last session notes, which are only a sentence or two.

I only use one significant program at a time. Each night, I shut down everything.

I stopped putting my desktop to sleep because it woke up every single time. I shut it down when I leave for the weekend, but I keep several programs running that I use throughout the day.

When Windows reboots my computer (another annoyance I have tried to fix), it always takes a while to find my place.

I forget why I do not use hibernate, but I think my computer still woke up.

[freebeard]

The very fact that there're both Sleep and Hibernate tells you the OS is a little hinky.

Powering on and off creates a thermal cycle that shortens component life.

[Xist]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Powering on and off creates a thermal cycle that shortens component life.

That is what they want you to believe! Computers are not designed to run all day--sage advice that I have heard for twenty-eight years now.

Hey guys! Freebeard wants me to leave my computers running 24/7! Run him out of town on a rail!