Older computer, what to do?

[Dave Sherman]

My GF's two boys are big into Minecraft. They have a 2.5 GHz Celeron still running XP, which a few years ago got a new video card and more RAM (3.5 GB) to be able to play Minecraft. Now they are complaining that it's crashing, and my GF noted that Chrome is reporting that it won't receive updates because it's on XP. Some time ago I had to clean it of a ton of malware that was on it, it's possible I need to clean it again.

Without buying a new computer outright, is putting Win 10 on that machine just a losing proposition? I have an old IBM Thinkcentre with a 2.5 GHz Pentium 4, but only 1 GB of RAM and it would also need a copy of Win 10. It's only got two RAM sockets though, so I don't know if I could use all the RAM from her machine. Don't know how much of any upgrade it would be going from a Celeron to a P4, but my machine is just gathering dust.

 

[mazdamonky]

An upgrade to windows would probably not be a bad thing. If it handled minecraft fine until recently, that could help, however I would normally think it was something else. As for the chrome issue, I would vote to move to firefox. It is lighter on resources and still has great support for XP.

 

[javacontour]

Any chance of re-imaging the XP machine with XP?

That might be the way to go.

Regardless what machine you give them, make sure the account the kids use doesn't have admin rights.

Make a regular user account for the kids.

Make a regular user account for each you and GF

Make a super-dave and/or super-gf account for adding software and other admin actions that has Admin rights.

Giving only regular user access to the kids and for your day to day work will eliminate most if not all the cruft that slows down the machine.

This is true even if you install Win10 on the candidate hardware.

 

[razel]

Win10 may not even run on that Celeron. It may not support that CPU. I tried on my old elder Pentium 4s and it was not supported. The earliest CPU I could get it on was a laptop Intel Core. I hear that last model Penitum 4s may work as well.

I wouldn't fret through. HP Stream laptops are in the low-mid $100 and is more than enough for low res Minecraft.

 

[StorminNorvin]

I see you can install Minecraft on Linux...

http://www.howtogeek.com/198476/how-to-install-minecraft-on-ubuntu-or-any-other-linux-distribution/

That being the case, I would recommend Ubuntu MATE...

https://ubuntu-mate.org/

You could run the current LTS (long term support) version which is 14.04 and will be supported until 2019...

https://ubuntu-mate.org/trusty/

BUT, 16.04 will be in release next month. They do have a BETA version which should update to the release version just fine...

https://ubuntu-mate.org/xenial/

Eventually 16.04 will become LTS and have support until 2021.

 

[Colt45ws]

That machine is really old. It might be crashing due to a power supply that can't keep up or bad capacitors in the power supply or on the motherboard. Both of which would be more trouble than its worth to fix.

 

[asand1]

Inspect for bad caps and then install Mint or another Linux distro. I ran Mineshafter (cracked Minecraft) with no issues, Minecraft should run just the same for you. On that machine you would want Mate or XFCE 32bit, unless you have more RAM to throw at it.

 

[dparm]

Drop XP immediately. It's unsupported and the security flaws won't be fixed, hence the propensity for it to get malware.

That P4 will be a waste of time -- take it to a recycling center.

 

[Andrew1972]

Windows 10 is designed to run on low cost celeron and atom processors. Xp and win 7 are actually less efficient running on similar hardware.

I'd try it and see.

 

[901Memphis]

Newegg has some screaming deals on more modern rigs if you know how to search advanced and look at the refurbished units, you can score an older generation i5 setup ready for a video card for between $100-200 depending on luck

 

[901Memphis]

If you have the software even a core 2 is a huge upgrade and can run Windows 10. This is like $75.

Here is a great deal on the Refurbished: Dell Optiplex 360 Tower Computer Core 2 Duo 2.66 Ghz, 2GB, 80GB, DVD, NO Operating System, No Software, 1 Year Warranty , http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5962RX6067
I found.

 

[Doog]

Go to the Dell auction site and buy them a used one with a win7 OS and video card and then put a new HD in it and they will be good for 3-4 years.

All of my work computers are from there. new HD and max the ram and your in business

 

[redbone3]

+1 on Linux Ubuntu. It runs much faster than windows on an old computer.

When you install it you could have a dual boot.l

 

[asand1]

If you really want to run 10, I hear you can buy a key for $20 on Kinguin.com or some such.

 

[DrRoughneck]

A fresh copy of Windows 10 costs around $100.

For $100 you can get a refurbished machine with 4x the power of what you currently have, and windos7 installed which you can upgrade to win10 for free.

 

[Dave Sherman]

Thanks all, I see there are some nice refurbs on Newegg that make upgrading to Win 10 a no-go. She wasn't in favor of putting Linux on it, even though it would not be a huge adjustment and I've used a few different distros. Maybe I can turn her onto those refurbs and see what she thinks.