Workstation Recommendation for a Cheapskate

I am currently doing the great majority of my image editing with an older HP Pavilion m7463w desktop that has been tweaked and upgraded numerous times over the past few years. The most recent upgrade was to boost the power supply as the original just wasn't up to powering the load. I now seem to have another problem because I get blue screened more frequently with the system just shutting down on me. After waiting a bit the computer can be re-started and will run for a while longer. While it is running it seems to do quite well and works relatively quickly. Although I haven't done any checking on this most recent glitch I suspect that I have finally overwhelmed this poor tower's cooling capability since it seems to happen more often when the weather is warmer.

The fan on the CPU is humming nicely, I even disassembled things and refreshed the dielectric grease thinking that may have been a problem. The new power supply's cooling fan is also running well and moving air out of the tower. When I installed the new power supply in November I also cleaned everything very carefully so dust was not an issue. I tried running for a bit without the cover but it was worse so I suspect that cooling air movement is not as good with the cover off. I moved the tower from under the desk to a small platform above the desktop but that did not seem to have any effect.

I am not against replacing this thing but I am retired now and live on a fixed income. I really do not want to throw too much more money at this poor thing, but neither am I interesting in shelling out another $600 plus on something else that may or may not work.

I would be interested to hear ideas or thoughts on what I could do to extend the life of this machine, or what I should possibly consider as a high value (read that as very inexpensive) replacement. I am not a gamer nor do I use my system for really taxing computer graphic work, other than the image editing using the standard Photoshop Elements and a few assorted plug ins. Up to this point I have invested more in peripherals such as my monster ColorEdge flatscreen monitor, my RAID array, and so on.

I recently did some quick checking and find that most people are recommending some relatively high budget (in my opinion) hardware that is actually more suitable to gaming than editing. All I can say is that they have different needs than I do, and certainly have a lot more spare cash to invest in one of these things. I am even willing to rebuild my current machine but am afraid that the old motherboard combined with the interior configuration of the tower itself may be part of my problem with cooling. Anyway, enough of my old rattling, does anyone know of an inexpensive solution for an old camera buff?

I think more hardware specifications are required to come to a conclusion. I would have first suggested that you check the power supply but you say it is newly changed.

If it is a heat issue you can monitoring software like speedfan to check your system temperatures.

Most of the blue screen problems are due to bad drivers, wrong drivers or poorly programmed drivers. And because it is not easy to determine whether this is a hardware or software problem,
I suggest you to download Ubuntu or similar OS and give it a try if your problem is hardware related, the system would behave oddly in that environment too.

You can use wubi to install ubuntu so you can uninstall it later through windows interface. It is quite easy to install and dual boot with wubi.

Thanks. I do appreciate your suggestions and I'll give them a try. I would much rather use the hardware I currently own rather than go out and buy new, particularly if it is not necessary.

I had not thought to give another operating system a try. And I have not heard of speedfan either so both are great suggestions.

Pioneer said:

Thanks. I do appreciate your suggestions and I'll give them a try. I would much rather use the hardware I currently own rather than go out and buy new, particularly if it is not necessary.

I had not thought to give another operating system a try. And I have not heard of speedfan either so both are great suggestions.

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I hope these might help to find the culprit.
One more thing that comes to my mind, there might be some configuration error in the bios, often incorrect RAM timings. Memtest is a great tool for memory test, but it takes hours to test completely. You might want to look in to that too.

I have been occasionally plagued by chronic system crashes and blue screens. They were almost always caused by heat build up by disk drives. At one point I had so many relatively new Seagate drives failing that I replaced them all with Western Digital equivalents. That pretty much solved the problem.
- if your disk drives are hot to the touch, they are in trouble
- things you can do:
move drives to external enclosures
add cooling to the case or upgrade you case
make sure the air flow is not blocked by cables or boards
make sure that cooling is maximized if it is under BIOS control

If you find you can eliminate heat, then replacing the motherboard is a relatively inexpensive option and would be an upgrade for you as your CPU is only single core. Integrated components do fail and can cause system crashes; you might try turning off any integrated ports and adapters in the BIOS if they are not being used.

Update -
The temperature monitoring with speedfan is up and running. So far the highest temp is my GPU at a high of 52C, which doesn't seem terribly bad. When I remove the side panel that dropped back to 50 C within about 10 minutes. However, I am not stressing it at all right now.

The memory test with MemTest 86 is currently running and no errors have shown up. The test has only been running about an hour so I suspect it will go a while longer.

Obviously, since I am now trying to find a problem, it has been running without a single glitch or hint at a shutdown for the last 4 hours.

I did find a glitch with my two DVD Drive/Burners. They didn't show up as available devices and I had to troubleshoot and update their drivers before I could run Memtest. I am not sure what is going on there as they have been OK in the past, and I don't have the foggiest idea if that is an indication of other problems. Another little issue that I will have to sort out is that my RAID array does not seem to be working at this point. Again, this is new so I'll have to do some testing to see why that is an issue.

I haven't had the chance to download or install Ubuntu yet, will do this later today or tomorrow.

Pioneer said:

Update -
The temperature monitoring with speedfan is up and running. So far the highest temp is my GPU at a high of 52C, which doesn't seem terribly bad. When I remove the side panel that dropped back to 50 C within about 10 minutes. However, I am not stressing it at all right now.

The memory test with MemTest 86 is currently running and no errors have shown up. The test has only been running about an hour so I suspect it will go a while longer.

Obviously, since I am now trying to find a problem, it has been running without a single glitch or hint at a shutdown for the last 4 hours.

I did find a glitch with my two DVD Drive/Burners. They didn't show up as available devices and I had to troubleshoot and update their drivers before I could run Memtest. I am not sure what is going on there as they have been OK in the past, and I don't have the foggiest idea if that is an indication of other problems. Another little issue that I will have to sort out is that my RAID array does not seem to be working at this point. Again, this is new so I'll have to do some testing to see why that is an issue.

I haven't had the chance to download or install Ubuntu yet, will do this later today or tomorrow.

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50C is fine for GPU on idle, it can resist heat more than CPUs on stress. The nominal temp for CPU depends on the model. Can you observe HDD temperatures? If you have enabled SMART in bios you can see the values. There are HDD monitoring tools as well to see life expectancy and error rate, transfer rate of HDDs.

MemTest can take 5 to 8 hours depending on the amount of memory and speed. Do you run memtest under windows? There is version that you install as bootable CD and it runs under DOS, that is a better way.

You might want to check all the drivers and update if necessary, that might be the reason behind the bluee screens.

Good luck

I haven't had the chance to download or install Ubuntu yet, will do this later today or tomorrow.

Installing Unix won't provide a definitive test. Even if it mitigates the problem, what does that get you if you need to run Windows? You need to monitor the system under load; maybe find some system burn-in software and run it for a couple of days so it has time to stress all the subsystems.

What about your video card? Some modern video cards do run really REALLY hot.
Also, have you checked your disk drive's operating temperature? Older PCs cared little about cooling disk drives. Today's fast and high capacity drives do generate quite a bit of heat.

I also use a relatively old workstation. I ended up adding a fan and operate my PC with case OPEN to facilitate better ventilation.

Sorry for the delayed response on this end. I am in and out, and when I am out I have no internet access. Great for taking pictures, not so great for forum posting.

I am starting IntelBurnTest tomorrow and we'll see if the poor girl survives.

I have removed the cover and the temps seem to have either come down, or have stayed relatively steady. I will check around for a small fan to pull air through the case but now that I am seeing the temps from Speedfan I don't think that high temperature is my problem.

I don't know what my hard drive temperature is. I have been running a Western Digital WD1002FAEX 1 TB 7200 RPM SATA drive that has been really reliable since mid-2010 and I have had no reason to suspect it of having any problems. However I will see if I can get this "SMART" running so I can check it out. It may actually be running and I just don't know it. I am using a Phoenix Award BIOS so I'll rummage around in there to see if I can find it.

My video card was upgraded to a NVidia GeForce 8400 GS when I bought my Eizo 24" flat screen monitor a couple of years ago. At the time it was the best video card I could get that my poor little power supply could push. As I already mentioned, I finally upgraded that power supply last year so I could probably upgrade to a flashier video card, but I am not really dissatisfied with this one. It has been doing the job pretty well.

My internal SATA drive is only for program use as well as temporary storage. It is nowhere near full and still has over 800 Gb free. I use three other external USB 2.0 drives for picture storage and backup files. They aren't the speediest but they really don't have to be. At some point I had hoped to get a RAID array up and running but obviously have not gotten there yet.

Just for the record, I am using a pretty standard 3.00 GHZ Intel Pentium running Windows 7 Ultimate at 64 bit. I have 2 Gb internal Ram, and I think I'm maxxed out on RAM unless I upgrade the motherboard, but I'll check that. Actually, system speed really isn't the problem so I doubt that RAM is an issue. Besides, MemTest ran fine and no errors were found after a 6 hour run. I suppose I could go further but I feel pretty comfortable on that end.

Drivers could certainly be an issue and I do show an "Unknown Device" that has no driver, or maybe the incorrect driver. So far I can't figure out what it is. I need to see if I can figure out what that device is, maybe then I can locate a driver for it.

I certainly do not mean to sound like a computer guru because I certainly am not. I'm an old retired fart and I can find my way around the inside of a computer if I read up on what I am doing first. Scott Mueller's "Upgrading and Repairing PCs" is my friend and, hands down, the most useful computer book I have ever owned. But that frequently gets me into trouble as well, especially when I start thinking I am more knowledgable then I really am. I am wayyy more comfy with hardware than software, and software is usually where things begin to go south for me.

I do appreciate all the help and will try to keep you updated regularly as I fiddle around here and try to implement your suggestions. I shoot tons of film but after that I go digital pretty quickly so I am lost without this computer.

Good luck with the computer. It has come to my mind recently, are you using wireless usb or pci card on your computer?

If you can't seem to find the problem after the tests and drivers, check Windows 7 Forums. Don't forget to fill in your system specs, you might find more answers there.

Herzeleid said:

are you using wireless usb or pci card on your computer?

If you can't seem to find the problem after the tests and drivers, check Windows 7 Forums.

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Thanks for the tip on the forums, I'll give this one a try.

I am not using wireless usb or pci card.

I did finish running IntelBurnTest this afternoon and the computer passed with flying colors. So far all the diagnostics are coming back with nothing. In a way that is good news, but it leaves me with no explanation for the intermittent blue screens.

BTW, I found out that the unknown device with no driver is a my Away Mode system. My system has windows media and it appears that the 64 bit version of Windows 7 is not compatible with the Away Mode system used on my system. Hmm, Windows has trouble keeping things compatible within their own systems. Imagine that. Anyway I am supposed to be able to shut it off through my BIOS.

I suspect you're getting a lot of hidden issues with running Windows 7 on that old a piece of hardware. You CAN run it with 3 gigs of RAM, but it would definitely be happier. The same is true with your CPU and your motherboard, if they're both still original. I realize that you're on a fixed income, but it sounds like you're having a LOT of downtime spent trying to fix the computer instead of using it. You might be better served biting the bullet and spending a little more money to upgrade your machine - even in retirement your time has value. I know I'd rather be shooting, working in my darkroom, or scanning and printing (or doing something else on my computer) than downloading diagnostic software and running it and/or taking trips to MicroCenter to buy parts.

Just for the record, I am using a pretty standard 3.00 GHZ Intel Pentium running Windows 7 Ultimate at 64 bit. I have 2 Gb internal Ram, and I think I'm maxxed out on RAM unless I upgrade the motherboard, but I'll check that.

I would have to agree -- debugging this is probably time wasted, especially as the system is essentially obsolete. Even an inexpensive dual core Celeron is going to provide a performance benefit over your Pentium. If you are going to run a 64-bit OS, you have the ability to address a lot of memory, so running with only 2Gb is a severe limitation, especially for image editing.

Any Recommendations??

As for updating my present system, I don't necessarily disagree, and that really was my initial thought when I started this little thread. But the idea of keeping what I had and spending little or nothing was certainly tempting, so I don't feel it was a waste of my time running some diagnostics for a couple of days. After all, I have learned some things I didn't know before, and that is always good.

Do you have any recommendations for an inexpensive work station that will allow me to edit and print my images with minimal fuss? When I go on-line and search for image editing work stations the recommendations I get back would make my 25 year old, game addicted son drool.

Any ideas for me to check into?

Pioneer said:

As for updating my present system, I don't necessarily disagree, and that really was my initial thought when I started this little thread. But the idea of keeping what I had and spending little or nothing was certainly tempting, so I don't feel it was a waste of my time running some diagnostics for a couple of days. After all, I have learned some things I didn't know before, and that is always good.

Do you have any recommendations for an inexpensive work station that will allow me to edit and print my images with minimal fuss? When I go on-line and search for image editing work stations the recommendations I get back would make my 25 year old, game addicted son drool.

Any ideas for me to check into?

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You don't really need much -- dual or quad core CPU, 6-9 Gb RAM, and at least 2 fast disks. Spend the money on stuff you need -- like a good iPS panel monitor, display calibration, and a good printer. )

You already have a good monitor and keyboard? Look at a Mac Mini - base price is $599. Add an extra 2 GB of RAM for another $100, and the external SuperDrive (CD/DVD R/RW)for another $79. On paper your old CPU is faster (3.0ghz vs 2.3) but you're comparing kumquats to, well, Apples That 2.3 ghz cpu is an Intel Core i5. You wouldn't need to buy any new software because you can set it up to dual boot to Windows 7 using BootCamp, and run all your existing Windows versions if you want. Or get a copy of either Parallels or VMWare and run Windows 7 in emulation mode.

pschwart said:

You don't really need much -- dual or quad core CPU, 6-9 Gb RAM, and at least 2 fast disks. Spend the money on stuff you need -- like a good iPS panel monitor, display calibration, and a good printer. )

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Well, 7200 RPM 1 terrabyte and 500 Gigabyte hard drives will have to be good enough. The Eizo Color Edge 2400 flat panel monitor along with the Spyder 3 monitor calibration still works beautifully. A good printer I definitely need, but that can wait until later. Don't misunderstand me, I am not against spending money if it will provide a very visible result, I just don't like spending money where the payback is questionable.

I guess I will start looking around for a basic dual core computer with enough RAM on board. Does anyone think it matters if I choose AMD or Intel? (Hmmm....maybe we can skip that one. That may be a little bit like asking if I should pick a Nikon or a Canon)

Thank you each and everyone for taking a bit of your time to answer my silly questions. I do appreciate it and I hope I can return the favor someday.

My Option

This is what I am looking at. $317 delivered to my door. This is a bit higher than I had hoped and I will shop around a little more to try and drop the price a little, or maybe bump the RAM to 8 instead of 4, but this, combined with the parts I already have, should work...Yes?

Intel Celeron E3500 2.5GHz, 800FSB (Dual Core) 1024K
Spire Socket 775 Intel fan
ASRock G41C-VS, DDR3. Onboard Video, Sound, LAN
4GB (2x2GB) PC10600 DDR3 1333 Dual Channel (Check board compatibility)
Hard Drive Cooling Fan Aluminum Internal
All-in-One Memory Card Reader Internal Black
Realtek HD digital audio (onboard)
Ethernet network adapter (onboard)
PowMax Black Mid Tower ATX Case w/ Front USB
Case Fan 80 mm DC fan
Logisys 480W ATX Power Supply
Standard assembly and test 3-5 business days

If you are looking for an upgrade and reasonably good performance, Celeron won't be sufficient. If you are buying now, I would at least look for i3 or i5 processors. If you must use older parts, I would suggest minimum of Dual core stuff. (Celeron is a single core even with "D" designation).

Here's a problem with asking what computer you should buy and if something is sufficient. This is like asking car enthusiasts what car you should buy and which car is fast enough. There isn't a right answer. In the end, you'll have to establish what minimum requirement you'll have to have and let your budget be your maximum. Then let your good judgement pick something between those two extremes.

Do you really want to build it yourself? These days, money saving by building yourself is pretty much non-existent. You could just as well buy a nice one from Dell (for example), sometimes less than what you can build by yourself. My personal system is a Dell Vostro 200 which I bought from Dell surplus (refurbished). It's an older system but so far, I've been ok with it.

tkamiya said:

If you are looking for an upgrade and reasonably good performance, Celeron won't be sufficient. If you are buying now, I would at least look for i3 or i5 processors.

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Thanks. I will certainly keep that in mind. I am actually not upgrading because my present system isn't fast enough. For the most part I have been quite happy with the system speed I have now. It has been the occasional blue screens and associated shutdowns that are pushing me towards an upgrade. I am not so sure that the CPU (single, dual or quad core) will actually have enough of an effect to be noticeable to the type of work I do. Interestingly it has been my experience in the past that the amount of RAM on board, as well as the quality of the peripherals, has had far more effect on my actual computing speed than which CPU I happen to be running at the time. But, since I am looking at upgrading anyway, it certainly makes sense to get the most up-to-date CPU that I can reasonably afford.

tkamiya said:

This is like asking car enthusiasts what car you should buy and which car is fast enough. There isn't a right answer. In the end, you'll have to establish what minimum requirement you'll have to have and let your budget be your maximum.

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I realize that in the end I have to make, and live with, my own decision. But things like your comment regarding the Celeron are still valuable input to my decision making process. Believe me, I know what my budget limitations are, what I am not always sure about is whether the money I am getting ready to spend will really improve my situation. Unlike with cars, for some of us it is not always clear whether the computer hardware we are looking at is really worth the cost of admission or not.

tkamiya said:

Do you really want to build it yourself? These days, money saving by building yourself is pretty much non-existent. You could just as well buy a nice one from Dell (for example), sometimes less than what you can build by yourself.

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Again, valuable input and thanks for the advice. Personally it makes no difference whether I build it myself, buy it refurbished, or find a decent used unit. Certainly if I can buy something turnkey that does not require me to open up the case I'll jump on it. If I were intending to buy all the parts needed to furnish a complete computer system I would agree that buying a turnkey system is almost certainly less expensive. But so far nothing I have priced includes all the parts I already have for anywhere near a price that I can afford to pay. Since it seems fairly certain that I am going to have to go inside and add in some of my current components anyway a build it yourself kit makes sense.

As you advise, I will look for a system with an i3 or i5 processor. Thanks again. Everyones advice goes a long ways towards helping me understand what is probably important, and what may be extra fluff I can do without.

I would get more than 4GB of RAM. Go with 8GB as a minimum. It's amazing how fast an app like LightRoom or Photoshop will eat up the RAM. And it's cheap now. Also getting a processor one or two levels down from the top has always seem to be the best balance of power and price. A nice i5-3450 quad core chip looks to be available around $200 from newegg.com.

Looking at the specs of what you posted, the most important thing to verify is that A: it can take more than 4GB of RAM, even if that's all you buy now, and B: the other major components will be upgradeable in the future too. If it is shipping with a Celeron, make sure the motherboard is capable of handling a dual- or quad-core CPU if you want to get one in the future. And you WILL want to get one in the future if you don't get one now. Yes, Windows 7 on paper will run on that Celeron. But Win7 is a 64-bit OS - running it on a single-core slow chip like that is kind of like putting a 1200cc 4-cylinder under the hood of a Ferrari. Yes, it will still go forward and back, and get you to the store, but you're not taking advantage of the functionality or performance it has to offer. This may also be part of the reason you're having the issues you're having now - a mismatch between software and hardware - and you'll perpetuate the problem if you're buying hardware that doesn't fully support 64-bit addressing to run an OS designed for it.

The Celeron E3500 is dual core and 64-bit. If you are on a really tight budget it's a good deal. If you are willing to spend more, look at a quad core i5 and more memory.

Intel® Celeron® Desktop Processor

Thanks. I'll keep my eyes open for a package with a Celeron E3500.

As for the RAM. Whatever I do end up buying will almost certainly come with at least 8 gig, maybe even higher if I can. Memory has been the most cost effective upgrade I have ever made.

As for my current mismatch between hardware and software, I completely agree. Things seemed so much easier with Windows XP, but since we were starting to understand that OS Microsoft had to exchange it for something that did not work as well. I really am wishing that I had avoided this upgrade.