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More Computers for Poor People

J

Jimbo

Platinum Member
My friend's "mum" in England had her computer give up the ghost a few weeks back and since she has been so sweet and let me stay at her house for a few weeks in the UK, I told her I would do what I could.

She's a mid-70's pensonier, and can't afford to but anything new, but she's mostly housebound and her computer is her link to the outside.
Well, I found a nice Lenovo M57 USFF refurb (this thinkcentre has to be mailed overseas - so I went with IBM/Lenovo's Ultra Small Form Factor (USFF)).
The computer was still in the Lenovo plastic when it arrived and there was not a speck of dust anywhere inside the computer when I opened it up. In my mind, I consider it pretty much a new machine.

This box will live it's life just surfing the net and e-mailing and writing letters to the local housing council, so she didn't need much horsepower.
She never plays games, and isn't doing any video transcoding, so I think I'm OK on the specs.
I upped the RAM to 2GB and put on a fresh Win7 install and Office 2010 that I had an extra license for that was sitting unused, so on that went.
I also yanked the anemic stock 80GB drive and slapped in a Velociraptor 150GB that was also not doing much but collecting dust.

Q1: Is this type of a machine still relivant considering that it is 5-years-old?
I don't want to give here a POS that will be a headache, but I need to keep costs down, so I'm working with what I got.

http://shop.lenovo.com/ISS_Static/me..._Datasheet.pdf
(hers is the smallest one in that picture)

Q2: How big of a deal are these Win7 experience numbers, for how she is going to use the machine. She is not playing ANY types of games beyond Farmville and Solitare.
For some reason I can't see to figure out how to post a picture here, so I'll just say that her two lowest indes numbers are 3.9 for "desktop" and 3.4 for "gaming".
The processor is scoring a 5.8 and the RAM score is 5.5 and finally disk transfer is 5.9.

Does anyone see these numbers as being a problem?

Thanks!
Jimbo
 
Last edited:
T_Yamamoto said:
Experience numbers are useless IMHO
Click to expand...

They are not much value as a benchmarking tool, but they are supposed to be a referance indicator of a range of capability. I looked, but other than gaming, I'm finding little else on the subject.

The pass mark numbers of this specific machine were within of a few digits of an entry level i3 box.
I expected a box this old to not even do that well.
 
Windows 7 boosts potential scores to a new weird max of 7.9 instead of 5.8 or 9. Increasing the max score from 5.9 to 7.9 should take account of the new advances in hardware so there should be no need to "downgrade/cap" the score of older hardware. Well! In my opinion it is good for her needs as you told that she’s not on gaming.
 
There are thousands of pallets of core 2 duo machines that have been off lease and are just sitting around collecting dust because the idiots on ebay are trying to hawk them for $200+. They better lower their prices before they get made totally obsolete by the next generation atom and brazos. But I doubt they will. I still see P4 machines selling at over $100.
 
I am still using a core 2 duo E7200 processor at home with an Intel MB DG35EC which is integrated 720p sd video. I think mine might have 2gig of RAM. Still runs pretty fast.

You could have went with something like an H61 chipset and a G-? CPU, if you were going to add your own hard drive and slapped in 2 Gig of DDR3. It just depends what you want to spend. This is about what the HTPC builders are using quite often.
 
I'm kind of stuck with the Q35 and Intel 3100 video.
It's an usff Lenovo so I can't go out and get a new board for it without spending more than I did for the entire computer.
 
Jimbo said:
Q2: How big of a deal are these Win7 experience numbers, for how she is going to use the machine. She is not playing ANY types of games beyond Farmville and Solitare.
For some reason I can't see to figure out how to post a picture here, so I'll just say that her two lowest indes numbers are 3.9 for "desktop" and 3.4 for "gaming".
The processor is scoring a 5.8 and the RAM score is 5.5 and finally disk transfer is 5.9.

Does anyone see these numbers as being a problem?

Thanks!
Jimbo
Click to expand...
Those numbers are absolutely fine for a daily-driver PC.

I built a few slimline dual-core C2D machines for F&F, they had an E5200 and an E3300 (both 2.5Ghz dual-cores), 4GB DDR3, 500GB HD, and a Biostar G31 or maybe it was G41 chipset, with X4500 IGP.

They scored around that for WEI, and they run perfectly fine for ordinary things.

Not hardcore gaming, nor heavy video editing or transcoding, but for basic internet stuff they're fine. Even watching videos. (Though I don't think I ever specifically tested 1080P flash videos.)
 
VirtualLarry said:
Not hardcore gaming, nor heavy video editing or transcoding, but for basic internet stuff they're fine. Even watching videos. (Though I don't think I ever specifically tested 1080P flash videos.)
Click to expand...
I've had both video chipsets on this Core 2 Quad - though the extra processors don't matter for most things. I've never been limited, in anything but games, by my video. Plus, I'm in Linux, so my drivers aren't nearly as good as the Windows drivers. (Although I am on a 1280x1024 monitor. What size does she use?)

As for the WEI desktop score, that means sliding, semi-transparent, wobbly menus (or things like that) may not look knock-your-socks-off amazing. Just set up Win7 to look like whatever version of Windows she was using, and she'll be perfectly happy.
 
Do you know what the specs are for your particular machine? The datasheet you linked is pretty generic. It's most likely fine unless it comes with a cripplingly small amount of RAM.
 
mfenn said:
Do you know what the specs are for your particular machine? The datasheet you linked is pretty generic. It's most likely fine unless it comes with a cripplingly small amount of RAM.
Click to expand...

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6550
(4M Cache, 2.33 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB)

2G of RAM

150GB Velociraptor (WD1500HLFS)

Onboard Intel Q35 / GMA x3500 graphics
 
Jimbo said:
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6550
(4M Cache, 2.33 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB)

2G of RAM

150GB Velociraptor (WD1500HLFS)

Onboard Intel Q35 / GMA x3500 graphics
Click to expand...

That's what I was afraid of. 2GB is definitely more usable on Windows 7 than it was on Vista, but it is kind of at the borderline. Everything else is perfectly a-OK.
 
mfenn said:
That's what I was afraid of. 2GB is definitely more usable on Windows 7 than it was on Vista, but it is kind of at the borderline. Everything else is perfectly a-OK.
Click to expand...

I was worried about that too, but in testing with both 2GB and 4GB memory, usage never went over 1.8GB, and that was with me opening everything and having a dozen internet explorer windows open.

The biggest question I had was how long this machine will be usable/relevant/not-totally-obsolete?

It used to be that if your machine was 5-years-old you had a real slow clunker, now it seems like as long as you meet the 2GB of RAM threshold and have a dual-core you are pretty much OK, as long as you are not transcoding, Photoshopping, or playing games.
 
mfenn said:
That's what I was afraid of. 2GB is definitely more usable on Windows 7 than it was on Vista, but it is kind of at the borderline. Everything else is perfectly a-OK.
Click to expand...

For very basic use that a 70 year old might put a computer through, 2GB should be enough (with Win7 32-bit preferably, 64-bit might be a bit more of a struggle).
 
Jimbo said:
I was worried about that too, but in testing with both 2GB and 4GB memory, usage never went over 1.8GB, and that was with me opening everything and having a dozen internet explorer windows open.

The biggest question I had was how long this machine will be usable/relevant/not-totally-obsolete?

It used to be that if your machine was 5-years-old you had a real slow clunker, now it seems like as long as you meet the 2GB of RAM threshold and have a dual-core you are pretty much OK, as long as you are not transcoding, Photoshopping, or playing games.
Click to expand...

I agree that a Core 2 will be good for a long time. The most demanding thing will probably be the continual increase in Flash complexity/bloat.
 
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