With sugar?

Yep - coffee isn't too bad - with sugar its deadly!

I am using an old PC at the moment for no other reason than I don't like throwing things away, but it is running an Eveshamvale motherboard and is a bit short of RAM. I don't really want to buy any DDR1 RAM as the machine isn't really worth it. Have been looking at external RAM which seems to be called 'USB External Hard Drive' which can be used as RAM. Has anyone actually done this? It seems that you can use x3 of the original RAM on the the External drive, but all I can find is from Vista up to Windows7. I am using XP.
1tb external hard drive is about £50, which can be plugged into any machine, which seems more practcal than internal RAM and the different slots.

May not work for xp,pen drive was for windows 7 or vista.

External USB 'memory' won't help much. One the biggest causes of slow PCs is lack of memory. This memory has to be motherboard memory to make any difference.

O.K. Thanks. The attraction of the USB External drive would have been that it is interchangeable from PC to PC, but if it doesn't work, then not much point!

haystack is right harry, if you've got an empty slot on the mother board you could pick up cheap memory but check out how much memory your system can use. There are limits on older pc's.

Yep, thanks. I have currently 2 x 256mb sticks with one spare slot, but have tried the Crucial website, but they can't help as the manufacturer of this motherboard (Eveshamvale) went bust quite a while ago! Will have to root around for some second hand DDR1 RAM. Not really worth buying new. Adding a 512mb stick should help things along if the BIOS recognises it.

I have a 64mb i think, will have to check an old pc. But I know my win 98 comp processor could only use 320mb in total so you might be up to the limit with your 256 + any extra you already have.

Harry old chap you are a successful portfolio manager, what are doing scratching around for some second hand ram for?.. Go on treat yourself -):

Was just going to add before stan got in, i just bought daughter a referbed lap top for £110..... you really can't go wrong these days.

On a serious note I agree BB, bide your time and there are some really good units out there.

LOL! One of these days I will get the latest laptop with Windows7, but I have 3 PC's already + 1 laptop. They all work but are getting a bit slow now due to the complex web pages, but I don't really want to throw away stuff that still works! Old habits......! At least I have got past the old PC which worked at 16Mhz & had a boost button to double the speed. Had to load Windows 3.1 from floppy disks!!!

lol, I'm just the same, hence i had 3 printers along with 3 desktops + 1 laptop also a scanner from win 98 days....... now thinned out to the recyle bin since a house decorating session this month.,.
edit, I meant to follow that by if it ain't broke don't chuck it out.,.

I'm thinking of having my keyboard 'bleached'.



This is worth reading for the COMMENTS about half way down.

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It: Ancient Computers in Use Today

It’s easy to wax nostalgic about old technology--to remember fondly our first Apple IIe or marvel at the old mainframes that ran on punched cards. But no one in their right mind would use those outdated, underpowered dinosaurs to run a contemporary business, let alone a modern weapons system, right?

Wrong!

Although I'm firmly in the above camp, I'm about to replace my 10 year old PC for much the same reasons - it can't hold more than 1GB of RAM.

I'm getting conflicting advice about WIN 7 v WIN 8 (fully up to date patch wise etc)
any current views please, as with DELL (who I will probably use) they are both available at no cost differential.

Also any views on free virus software, as I have had enough of Norton?

Avast is the best free AV, imo.
Why Dell? They are tricky to fix when they go wrong and there are lots of good brands out out there with options of mega graphics cards and plenty of slots to add if you want?

Harry - my last 2 PC's have been DELL with the only problem being the power supply on the current machine @9 years old.

I've had a scout about and can't beat their price, they are currently offering a VOSTRO 470 MT with an I5-3470, GeForce GT 620 1G vid, 1TB drive (which I don't really need) and 4GB RAM.

They are also 'throwing in' a 20" LED monitor - for £515 inc VAT & delivery.

As always - I'm open to suggestions.

skinny, agree with Harrycat re. Dell. I've used a couple of Dell machines and have not been impressed. When my teenage son demanded a high-spec machine, I got him one from PC Specialist. Simply awesome machine. Never had a single problem with the it. He does a lot of his animation work on that system and it's still running like new.

As for anti-virus s/w, I've got on fine with Microsoft Security Essentials and a weekly scan with Malwarebytes Anti-malware. Both free! :-) My son prefers Norton though.

skinny
Try Win 8 if possible. It is really designed for touch screen systems. The interface can be very annoying especially on a laptop with a track pad instead of a mouse.