New Computer for Windows 10

[cx]

Looks like ol' Bill Gates has decided to cease support for Windows 7, which I currently use, come the first of the year and not only thinks everyone should switch to Windows 10 but says we should all buy a new computer upon which to run the new system. Got a big ol' popup telling me so. Says he:

Originally Posted by Herr Gates

Going forward, the best way for you to stay secure is on Windows 10. And the best way to experience Windows 10 is on a new PC. While it is possible to install Windows 10 on your older device, it is not recommended.

I currently use a Toshiba Satellite laptop, to which I've added more RAM, with a remote monitor and keyboard.

Two questions: Has Windows 10 evolved into something at least tolerable, or should I just plan to slit my wrists come January?

Any recommendations for the new computer that I absolutely must have to run the system?

[smifwal]

I tried to update to windows 10 a few years back, it was not pleasant and went right back to windows 7. My wife says they have made some improvements to it to make it easier to get around but I haven't tried it myself. I am headed to best buy this afternoon to look at computers, mine freezes up on me and google bogs it way down. I will report back

[PC7060]

Hi CX,

We’ve used windows 10 on dozens of machine for several years. It’s very stable and has significant security improvements over windows 7. I’d say you were pretty fortunate to go this long; I’ve got a computer I set up for my Mom and I recently noticed it’s in the same boat.

Regarding the new hardware; I alway go with Dell laptops; either the Latitude series or the Precision series. My favorite is the Precisions; we have systems that are still running strong after 6 years. We upgraded all of our systems to solid state drives a couple years ago and it was like we got a new machines.

I avoid the Inspiron Series as they seem to have a 1 year life span.

The solid state drives are a very nice performance boost but we typically upgrade those in house because Dell is a bit proud ($$) of their drives.

And as you say..

My opinion, worth price paid

[PC7060]

Also wanted to say the built in windows antivirus is very dependable and we pair it with the paid version of Malwarebytes to get reliable protections with low overhead.

I’d definitely go with the Professional version of Windows 10 too. Comes with built in Bitlocker encryption capability which is a must have for us.

[PC7060]

As a FYI, if you want to keep using your current hardware, that's an option too.

We've installed Windows 10 on legacy hardware systems (4 years and older) in combination with a solid state drive and have been very happy with the performance. As I recall we didn't have any issues finding drivers for the hardware but that may not be the case for all systems.

[cx]

Thanks much, PC. The only Dell I've ever owned was an Inspiron model. Didn't last long, but long enough for me to get a taste of their legendarily horrible technical service phone bank. It wasn't as bad as I've heard advertised, though, it was much worse than that. The only thing that kept me from throwing it out the window was our good friend and my computer hero, Joe Gleason. He helped me through whatever problem I had whilst I was out in the desert of western New Mexico on my way to a place with even less resources for a couple months. I spent two hours on the phone with Dell with no results at all. Took Joe about ten minutes to walk me through whatever it was.

But recently I've seen where Joe mentioned that he, too, had purchased a Dell Something and was fixin' to be real happy with it. I'll have to give that some serious thought.

You say you put the solid state hard drives in your own machines. How does one know if he's buying a Dell with such drives already installed? Just by looking at the price tag?

Is buying a Dell and changing out the hard drive something I want to even consider doing myself? I'm actually very handy at working on things electrical, including computers, I just never can figger out how to operate the damn things. I'm a little surprised there are still hard drives that are not solid state. I expected that to become the norm years ago, but that just goes to show what I know about computers.

Shawn, I'll be interested in hearing what you find in your shopping.

[PC7060]

Originally Posted by CX

Is buying a Dell and changing out the hard drive something I want to even consider doing myself?

Prepare yourself the the technical equivalent of the "modified" versus "un-modified" thinset discussion!

For a one off personal system, I'd typically say it's better for you to buy one with the "SSD Storage" installed.. However, I just looked at the Dell site and found that the Precision 3530 series we just bought which goes for $700-1000 doesn't offer the SSD option. I asked our IT Engineer who cynically (like me ) said that is Dells way of forcing you up into the 7000 series systems for an extra $800-1000.

Since you are comfortable swapping memory and such, I'd get a Dell configured with a "500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive" and then buy this Samsung 850 EVO 500GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-75E500B/AM) and clone the Dell drive over to it (FYI: When using offline hardware cloner, the original and target drive sizes need to match)

The cloners are very simple to use; put the original drive in the "A" Slot and the new SSD in the "B" slot and hit Clone. And then walk away cuz the blinky lights are hypnotic and you'll waste a bunch of time watching the copy progression. At least that what happens to me.

Our current cloning favorite is the Inateck USB 3.0 to SATA Dual-Bay USB 3.0 Hard Drive Docking Station with Offline Clone.

The Inateck also functions as a dock for a connected harddrive; I keep mine connected all the time and use it as a location for my systems backups.

We just started buying the 3000 and 7000 series Precision for our office. The Engineers use the 7000 with NVIDIA video cards and the normal people are getting the 3000 series which are lighter and cheaper option. Both are dock-able to monitors and keyboards using the USB C or Thunderbolt connectors; we prefer Thunderbolt because of the faster performance and the ability to drive two monitors.

[smifwal]

The nice lady at Best buy after asking a few questions, recommended this one.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-pavi...?skuId=6221038

After taking what she told me I did some more digging and found this one on Amazon. I coupled that with a aftermarket warranty. I have had real good luck with refurbished items in the past.

HP Envy 795 Desktop PC - Intel Core i7-8700 6-Core 16GB 2TB 7200 RPM HDD+256GB SSD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB GDDR5 (Renewed) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07M7C5MPK..._JJXWCbE7D7MFS

I am basically using my computer for the streaming, and light business stuff Excel,Word, QuickBooks ect. Last computer I bought was a tower only at Costco and it has served me well but this is like a Lamborghini compared to what I am working with now. I use my TV as a monitor and we have a12.9 in iPad for the mobile around the house stuff. I know very little about computers as far as how they function and had never heard the term solid state drive till PC mentioned it yesterday. But my take away from her expanded explanation was that it is a must have, and that I didn't need both partitions to be solid state, just the one that the operating system is stored on. The Amazon one had more ram (epandable to 64), bigger solid state drive and another terabyte of storage. Either one of these is probably over kill for what I am using my computer for but I would rather have more than I need than not having enough. I am not sure if this helps you, as this was a kind of tailored to me and sounds like you are more computer savvy than I am. I pretty much told her I want to click it and it appears, like magic

[PC7060]

Originally Posted by me

The Inateck also functions as a dock for a connected harddrive; I keep mine connected all the time and use it as a location for my systems backups.

It is also very helpful to be able to mount the drive from your old systems in the dock so you can copy data to new systems. The old drive can then become the backup drive.

[cx]

Guys, I really appreciate all the extra effort here.

Shawn, I gave up on desktop computers years ago (when I burned my last two) and went to using a laptop exclusively with a big monitor (so I can actually see what's on there) and a remote keyboard that is actually useful. Don't wanna go back to having more than one computer and, while I no longer travel to ceramic tile functions, I want that computer to be portable.

PC, when you speak of having the hard drive permanently docked, you're speaking of the device you linked in post #7? Had never seen nor heard of such devices. Only problem I see is that it appears that the Dell laptops you referenced don't appear to have more than one USB port and I already use three, one for my keyboard, one for my printer, and one for my speakers, which is 'zackly how many my current Toshiba has available. Am I missing something?

Originally Posted by PC

Both are dock-able to monitors and keyboards using the USB C or Thunderbolt connectors; we prefer Thunderbolt because of the faster performance and the ability to drive two monitors.

And I'm not familiar with either of those terms. USB I recognize, of course, but USB C rings no bells. And for sure I've never heard of Thunderbolt.

[smifwal]

Burned them up, What are you doing with your computers? The one I have now, the only time it gets shut off is when the power goes out. Probably why it is running like poop

[cx]

Oh, I wasn't abusing my computers, Shawn, I burned my whole motorhome back in '09 with all three of my computers on board. My laptop was nearly always in the truck, towed behind the motorhome, but that particular night it was in the motorhome. Lost much data and a whole lotta other stuff that night.

The current computer stays on alla time. It's connected to a small inverter and runs off the coach batteries, so it's not even affected by power outages. Only time it's turned off is when I'm parked out in the forest for a couple months at a time and need to conserve battery power. But they seem to get plenty clogged up no matter how I use'em. Just lucky, I guess.

[PC7060]

CX,

The Dell 3530 has three USB 3rd gen high speed ports (standard USB type connector) plus a USB C port which is a bit like the apple lightning connectors used on IPhones.

I realize now, I used the term “dock” in a couple different contexts.

1. The Inateck device I linked to in post 7 can either clone drives as a standalone device or be used to connect a second drive to the computer as a connected hard drive dock.

2. The computers are dock-able meaning the an expansion docking device can plug into the USB C port to provide connection to a monitor, network and several more USB ports for the keyboard / mouse. Previously this was achieved by docking the computer on a fixed base that mated to the computer using a connector that was proprietary for each manufacturer. New systems are configured with open standard ports such as USB 3 and USB C along with Thunderbolt so that a docks (aka expansion modules) by Dell, HP or Targus (etc.) will work for any computer with the matching port.

What this means to me is I’ll have to buy all new docking hardware because the dozens of legacy Dell docks we currently have are no longer used on the new Dell computers! More $$ to Mr. Dell.

This article discusses the merits of various docking solutions.

https://www.techradar.com/news/the-b...cking-stations

Hope this helps!

[smifwal]

are we talking USB-C like on my galaxy S8+, PC figure as long as we got you here I might as well learn all I can.

[PC7060]

Shawn, yes, you are correct. I’m a iPhone user myself and wasn’t aware the new Samsung phones use the USB-C until you mentioned it.

This links described the USB C interfaces:

https://www.dell.com/support/article...type-c?lang=en

And this article provides more information about USB interfaces versus Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt can communicate at speeds of up to 40 gigabytes per second and was configured with a unique connector in versions 1 and 2. However, with the release of Thunderbolt 3, it now runs as hardware/software protocol over a USB-C connector. As if the this wasn’t already confusing enough.

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals...028&lang=en-us

Basically, the laptop and smart phone companies are standardizing on this easier to connect and much faster interface. Except for Apple which did its own thing with Lightning. Which has nothing to do with Thunderbolt (unless they are characters in a upcoming Marvel movie series )