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Hi guys, some advice please. I think I,m in need of a new hardrive soon, My present unit is getting noisy sometimes on startup these last few weeks and now she is shutting down as I,m trying to boot her up, Could be a dust bunny issue But the drive is definitely load now. . Also this will give me a chance for a clean install without reformatting my present drive, and load only what I need now. I have looked at several but really have no idea of what I should get to suit my MB. My specs: Motherboard: MICRO-STAR INC. Model MS-6788 Disk Space Disk C: 88 GB Available, 153 GB Total, 88 GB Free I know you may need more information but I would rather wait and find out what I have several programs to tell me this info. Cheers

Hey TOMT, The MSI MS-6788 is a bit of an old motherboard but by the looks of it, it should support any modern HDD. I think the questions you need to ask yourself are: How much are you willing to spend? How much space do you want? What do you usually use your machine for? The last one seems trivial but it does allow you to choose between certain speeds and caches on certain HDD's. And if your budget is particularly high, you could get yourself an SSD. (Solid State Drive). These have no moving parts and are much much quicker. But then again, they are really expensive.

Hey there, yep this PC is @ 4yrs old now.. Budget… well if my pockets were that deep I wouldn't be trying to source another drive… lolol Solid states are a top end unit here in NewZealand… I dont think I will need those for a few more years… Im not after a topend gaming pc…. 1 other issue i was thinking of trying to resolve was my graphics card, since this has played up ( videos etc do not play well) since an overheating issue when i first had this PC. yet again, what to replace it with? My uses are internet mainly with my kids using this PC for school work, so I run Office 2007.. Im not looking at running anything other than XP at the moment. That is why I thought about just overhauling this system.. maybe a new 160gig or 250gig drive.. This system is plenty fast enough for me on the www. So what is the difference with certain speeds and caches, what do they effect? Cheers

TOMT,

Let's have a look at how that machine is presently performing

PCPitstop OverDrive Full tests will give us a pretty good look at the machine's components and their current performance.

Please post an OverDrive link so that we can see what is taking place on your computer.
You will need to register an account, login, and run the full tests from the link below, then copy and paste the URL from the results page into your next reply here in this Topic Thread.

http://www.pcpitstop.com/betapit/

If you need help, there is a tutorial here:

http://forums.pcpitstop.com/html/helpfiles/techexphelp.htm

Hey Doug…. we gota stop meeting like this lol… well I have been trying without a win on the Pitstop.. Seems I just cant get " Java Script " enabled.. it shows in IE as enabled, it shows in FF as enabled… I have used Pitstop before without any issue… now tho…. Have tried both browsers, no luck.. Should I turn off my Protection and try? I run McAfee. I also gave her a blowout, I have a dust issue were I live (Farm/Lifestyle block) Also I have just found that I can increase the speed of the power supply fans… so I have upped them a tad and she is running quite smooth again, no shutting down issues etc.. I will try the Pitstop again later, might be something Im missing… This new drive and clean install is looking even more nicer.. There is just so many junky programs…

Use your Control Panel - Add/Remove to uninstall "all" JAVA JRE/JDK items.

Then go here to Oracle JAVA SE Downloads
Select "Windows" as your platform
Download the JRE Windows Offline Installation 15.54mb

Close all Browsers, then double-click on the downloaded file - JRE-6u20-windows-i586.exe, to install the latest version of JAVA JRE.

When you go back to PCPitstop OverDrive Full Tests, you will be required to download and allow installation of a fresh copy of the ActiveX to run the Full Tests.

Post your results back here.

I imagine Nahumi may jump back in here, which may be better for me as I have a heavy load just now.
I have subscribed to this Thread, so I'll follow along and offer suggestions as they may arise.

Doug

Hey Doug, now do I do this on FireFox… or Explorer??? When I had a look at the site at java, it came up with a window to say I wasn't running the correct version for FF.. so I downloaded that.. but yep I still cant run Pitstop as its not supported.. I will leave this till the weekend when I have a bit more time… as I do not want to rush into it … you know me I will uninstall as directed and download what you told me.. I will let you know. Cheers..

Use Internet Explorer (7.0 or 8.0) to Run the PCPitstop OverDrive Full Tests. Be sure that you are using a local login username account that has Administrative privileges when running the Full Tests. Once you have completed the OverDrive Full Tests, you can post the link from Results back here into this thread, and then return to your ordinary practice of running your machine from a Limited User Account. (If that is your ordinary practice) Best Regards

Sorry Doug, I still have not managed to do this yet, I am on days off thursday so will try again then I have done a couple of things in the meantime… I got a good deal on a Lomega Prestiage 250gig USB hard drive, so I am in the process of transfeering all photos, films, documents etc onto it… and boy so far its made a ton of difference to the speed of the old girl.
I am researching drives.. have a question, cache.. bigger the better??? can you glance at this one for me please..

http://www.elive.co.nz/western-digital-cav…sata-sy2089.php

I will see what the specs of mine is now when I,m home, I dont know what the cache size is… As you know I,m not in any panic and if I dont watch out I might end up building a new machine lololol Yikes

Cheers

That WD caviar Green 500gb wi 32mb Cache is a decent HD and the price is within the competitive range. And yes, when it comes to HD cache size, bigger is better. (32mb is currently the recent available) I run a few WD caviar Black 640gb with 32mb cache, and am very satisfied. The designation Blue, Green, and Black purports to feature various levels of quiet running and energy efficiency. Green is supposedly the quietest and least hungry on the energy use. It is unlikely that you will notice much difference between Blue, Green and Black, but the Green is most likely to run cooler(a good thing) and quieter.