Planning to buy a new computer.

[CastletonSnob]

My computer is 7-8 years old, and I plan on buying a new one.

What should I look for if I just plan on browsing the internet? What's the price for a good computer?

I'm looking at buying, not building, and I would like a desktop.

I know I don't want a laptop, because I had a laptop, and it stopped working after a few years because it overheated because I was on it all the time.



I like to watch stuff on YouTube and streaming services.

I don't play games on my PC much, and the games I have aren't that demanding (TF2, CS: GO, etc)

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

For all of that, you might just be better off sticking with what you have unless it's actually not functioning in some way. All PC prices are ridiculously inflated right now and probably will be for the rest of the year.

 

[CastletonSnob]

I'm just worried my current computer is dying because it keeps freezing. Like, it freezes when I close a tab.

I'm worried my computer will die soon, and I won't have a computer at all.

 

[Gordon_4]

I'm just worried my current computer is dying because it keeps freezing. Like, it freezes when I close a tab.

I'm worried my computer will die soon, and I won't have a computer at all.

Tell us what’s in your PC as best you can and we can see if there’s recommendations we can make to inject a bit of life into it and fix it. Tabs - assuming Chrome - are for instance notorious memory hogs so if you only have 4GB of RAM it might be time to upgrade that to as much as if feasibly expensive - say 16GB.

 

[CastletonSnob]

I usually have like 20-30something Chrome tabs on at a time.

It freezes several times in a row, and occasionally for a minute or more.

But other than that, it works fine. I did tests, and everything seems to be fine.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

I usually have like 20-30something Chrome tabs on at a time.

Why.

It freezes several times in a row, and occasionally for a minute or more.

But other than that, it works fine. I did tests, and everything seems to be fine.

Could be the most recent Windows 10 update, a lot of people are having problems with it. But if it's just Chrome... either get more RAM, or manage your tabs a little bit. Otherwise, I'm not totally sure what to suggest beyond that

 

[CastletonSnob]

You think it's just Chrome?

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Try downloading Firefox or Opera and giving it a shot.

If it's not freezing doing anything else, that's a cheap way to check

 

[Chimpzy]

You think it's just Chrome?

It might be. Here something to help you check

• While Chrome is running and you have a ton of tabs open, press CTRL + ALT + DELETE
• Select Task Manager from the list of options. A window will open, showing you all the processes that are currently running on your pc (apps, background stuff, ....)
• At the bottom left of this window is a button labeled More details. Click it. If it says Fewer details instead, ignore it and just skip to the next step
• You'll now get a table showing you how much cpu, memory, and so on, each of the processes running are using, and at the top a total for how much all processes combined are using of your pc's total resources, expressed as a percentage.
• Check the total percentages for Memory and perhaps CPU at the top. If either or both are at (close to) 100% and consistently stay there, something is hogging up all your pc's resources.
• Click either CPU or Memory, whichever is at 100%, to rank the processes by which use the most resources, in descending order. Chances are good Chrome will be at the top. If it is, try closing it down, see if that makes those total percentages drop, perhaps dramatically.
• If yes, you've found your culprit. As MysteriousGX said, try Firefox or Opera instead, see if those are lighter on your system.
• If not, check what other processes are using a lot of resources. Do you really need these to be running all the time? If not, close them. If not sure whether they're important for your pc to work, look them up online first. Also perhaps check if they're stuff that starts up along with Windows, and if yes, check if you can turn that off.

 

[CastletonSnob]

Looked at Task Manager, and I'm using up 68% of my memory right now with all the Chrome tabs I have up.

I think I know why my computer has been freezing.

 

[Chimpzy]

Looked at Task Manager, and I'm using up 68% of my memory right now with all the Chrome tabs I have up.

I think I know why my computer has been freezing.

68% memory usage isn't enough to cause performance problems. Something else must be up. Unfortunately, that could be a lot of things.

Perhaps a thermal issue. Cpu overheating and throttling hard to prevent damage. A good indicator of that is if the fan on the cpu is running full blast/loudly all the time? Or perhaps not running at all, in which case it failed, and this could be causing the overheating. Maybe your harddrive is failing. Like, when you're doing stuff on your pc, is the hdd making odd noises, or noises it didn't use to make? Or it could be the power supply. Or you've got busted RAM.

 

[CastletonSnob]

No, my computer hasn't been making odd noises. I ran Command Prompt, and it said my Disk Drive was OK.

I did a Memory Diagnostic, and it didn't find anything wrong.

 

[CastletonSnob]

Here's the problem: When I go to Task Manager, it says my Disk is at 100%.

How do I fix this?

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Buy another hard drive
EDIT: Never mind, thought it was something else.

Turns out there's lots of things that can cause that, from superfetch, to windows search, to bad sectors or low power, to chrome eating all your hard drive capacity, etc.

100% Disk Usage in Windows 10 Fixed With 15 Tricks

Got 100% disk usage in Windows 10? Here are several potential fixes! One is bound to help you fix this vexing Windows issue.

www.makeuseof.com

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Here's the problem: When I go to Task Manager, it says my Disk is at 100%.

How do I fix this?

-Turn off anti-virus programs (you really don't need them)
-Turn off indexing on your drives (right-click on C:, D:, etc, click Properties, and uncheck the indexing box)
-Turn off virtual memory if you have at least 8 GBs of RAM (Start > Run > sysdm.cpl > Advanced > click Settings in Performance > Advanced > then change all your drives to have no paging file, requires restart to take effect)
-Open Task Manager > Startup > disable everything

If you're still are looking at buying a new PC, the mini desktops like this one with a Ryzen are just great machines for probably like 90+% of people. HP and Lenovo (maybe other companies too) make these small desktops that places like hospitals use, at my job we use the HP minis. It'll have no problem playing your games and probably any game pre-PS4/Xbone generation (or indies/AAs that aren't that graphically demanding). I know the HP minis have room for a laptop HD (or another SSD in that size) along with the m.2 SSD that comes with it. You might wanna find one with 16 GBs of RAM just so you'd definitely never worry about having enough. 8GB should be enough but the integrated GPU does take a 1GB or 2 of RAM for itself so you don't have the full 8GBs. You can make Win10 pretty lean if you want to and it can take up less than 2 GBs of RAM if you debloat it. Lastly, these mini desktops come with Win10 Pro vs Home because they are used primarily in business and Win10 Pro is much better than Home.

 

[CastletonSnob]

Bought a new computer yesterday because my current computer says 100% disk usage, and I'm paranoid that it's dying.

But my computer's actually doing well right now, so I'm having second thoughts. But lots of people buy new phones or computers they don't really need, right?

 

[meiam]

You could just buy another hardrive and try sticking it in the computer, you can find really cheap one and then can just transfer everything onto the new one. 7-8 year is usually when you have to start thinking about your hardrive dying on you and if you don't have a backup that can be painfull.

PS don't forget to buy a SATA cable

 

[CastletonSnob]

On HDDScan, I saw a caution sign next to Current Pending Errors Count and Uncorrectable Errors Count, but still showed a green sign next to State.

How fucked is my hard drive?

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

On HDDScan, I saw a caution sign next to Current Pending Errors Count and Uncorrectable Errors Count, but still showed a green sign next to State.

How fucked is my hard drive?

Going by just that, I'd say "salvageable", but get a replacement ASAP. Problems like that love to cascade from "you're okay for now" to "drive dead, lol" in short order.

Fortunately, high-capacity HDDs are dirt-cheap these days, and SSDs aren't too bad either.

 

[Gergar12]

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