Topic kind of explains it. I've got a 10 year old Dell Inspiron 530, pulled it out of storage after 2 years as the laptop my wife is using can't handle Photoshop CC2015/16 and bombs. The older PC is a 64bit Q6600 core 2 duo quad PC with 4GB of RAM in it and a Radeon 65XX series card with 2GB of ram. It will work.
Problem is it has a very crusty problematic install of Windows Vista 32bit, all the old discs and stuff are long gone and it's being a pain. Also being stupid, there's 1x4 1GB memory sticks in there, PC reports 3GB due to 32bit limitations.
I need windows 7, just the basic cheap home edition 64bit. I can get the ISO from their own website, but it needs a key.
Does anyone here know the absolute cheapest reliable place to buy a key for it? I don't want to be blowing like $50+ on something this lame. I can see online I could get a pretty slick PC for around $300 that would do her far better but we just don't have it at all or I would.
PC revived, had to get win8.1 on there, tweak things.
PC revived, had to get win8.1 on there, tweak things.
Last edited by Tanooki on Mon Nov 21, 2016 1:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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casterofdreams
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Re: Need to revive 10yo PC, Windows 7 product key for sale?
I know next to nothing on the subject because it's been ages that I haven't kept up with development but what I've done in the past was refurbish old PCs that had old operating systems and replaced them with Linux. I've been out of the game for a few years now but I remember I had Photoshop running through WINE on Linux for someone. I haven't a clue if that's still possible now.
Re: Need to revive 10yo PC, Windows 7 product key for sale?
PM'd
Can you just take one from a laptop that was never registered and the harddrive went corrupt?
I looked in my recycling cupboard with a pile of dead laptop shells I haven't brought in yet.
If it works for you, it's free, of course
Can you just take one from a laptop that was never registered and the harddrive went corrupt?
I looked in my recycling cupboard with a pile of dead laptop shells I haven't brought in yet.
If it works for you, it's free, of course
Re: Need to revive 10yo PC, Windows 7 product key for sale?
Yes that can work if it wasn't assigned in some oddball way.
Sorry I wasn't online up until an hour ago, but I actually resolved the issue.
Bought a Windows 8.1 key, grabbed the ISO off MS's site. Spent the whole day up until an hour ago roughly off and on throwing Vista into an .old directory and installing 8.1 on there. Then once set, made 2nd account for her, grabbed all her files from the old vista area (pics, music, pdfs) then nuked the vista setup entirely. Had some driver issues, windows update downright failed hard in a searching loop. Killed that, manually updated it, got Photoshop CC 2017+Lightroom on there for her, and it works.
It's not the best, but good advice, don't bother using Adobe pic/video editing on any computer without a dedicated video card/chip made in the last say 8 years~ as older and Intel HD(etc) are not supported and won't even install to the computer (and it won't take WIndows Vista either, 7 and later.)
Thankfully the old Dell is good enough in there. It takes a bit to load due to the low RAM but it works fine once Photoshop decides to open. I read it can unofficially take up to 8GB of RAM on the specific mobo in there, by the book though 4. I looked int he case, all 4 slots are used, not sure if one is a dummy or what in there.
Sorry I wasn't online up until an hour ago, but I actually resolved the issue.
Bought a Windows 8.1 key, grabbed the ISO off MS's site. Spent the whole day up until an hour ago roughly off and on throwing Vista into an .old directory and installing 8.1 on there. Then once set, made 2nd account for her, grabbed all her files from the old vista area (pics, music, pdfs) then nuked the vista setup entirely. Had some driver issues, windows update downright failed hard in a searching loop. Killed that, manually updated it, got Photoshop CC 2017+Lightroom on there for her, and it works.
It's not the best, but good advice, don't bother using Adobe pic/video editing on any computer without a dedicated video card/chip made in the last say 8 years~ as older and Intel HD(etc) are not supported and won't even install to the computer (and it won't take WIndows Vista either, 7 and later.)
Thankfully the old Dell is good enough in there. It takes a bit to load due to the low RAM but it works fine once Photoshop decides to open. I read it can unofficially take up to 8GB of RAM on the specific mobo in there, by the book though 4. I looked int he case, all 4 slots are used, not sure if one is a dummy or what in there.
Re: PC revived, had to get win8.1 on there, tweak things.
Glad you got something working. I have a drawer full of ram as do a couple of friends. If you find out what you're lacking, I'd letter-mail it to you with a solid layer of packing tape as protection for free just to know some of it was going to good use.
Re: PC revived, had to get win8.1 on there, tweak things.
That would be helpful thanks.
I should crack open the side (with it off) and pop out the ram and look at the stickers on there to narrow it down.
What has me is that there's 4 slots, but still reporting at 3GB of ram. I'm going to have to guess they put in 2 1GB and 2 512MB chips which seems odd, unless you can put a dummy and a 3x1GB in there.
This nightmare all started with her needing to work on some family photos for her brother, his kid is 18 this year and it's family and senior school/sports photos. My wife had strong talent in adobe and with a nikon camera and does fairly professional level stuff.
I went and took some pictures of things and then ran the service tag sticker through Dell's site.
311-7749 : 3GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
Part Number
Quantity
Description
WK007 (qty:2) DUAL IN-LINE MEMORY MODULE, 1G, 667M, 128X64, 8, 240, 1RX8
X8388 (qty:2) DUAL IN-LINE MEMORY MODULE, 512, 667M, 64X64, 8, 240, 1RX8
System with bios 1.0.18 can take 8GB of RAM though Dell keeps saying 4GB from my research. It's due to the foxconn DG33M03 motherboard, most 530s had the cheaper 03 that had less power through the memory area to save on cost locking it to 4GB.
I'd think at the least removing those 2 512 chips and replacing them with 1 or 2GB chips bumping it to 4GB or 6GB (which is what the laptop she was using had but was shared system memory) would cut it. 8GB would be a max but that would be replacing all the chips with going with 6GB I could keep the 1GBs in there.
I should crack open the side (with it off) and pop out the ram and look at the stickers on there to narrow it down.
What has me is that there's 4 slots, but still reporting at 3GB of ram. I'm going to have to guess they put in 2 1GB and 2 512MB chips which seems odd, unless you can put a dummy and a 3x1GB in there.
This nightmare all started with her needing to work on some family photos for her brother, his kid is 18 this year and it's family and senior school/sports photos. My wife had strong talent in adobe and with a nikon camera and does fairly professional level stuff.
I went and took some pictures of things and then ran the service tag sticker through Dell's site.
311-7749 : 3GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
Part Number
Quantity
Description
WK007 (qty:2) DUAL IN-LINE MEMORY MODULE, 1G, 667M, 128X64, 8, 240, 1RX8
X8388 (qty:2) DUAL IN-LINE MEMORY MODULE, 512, 667M, 64X64, 8, 240, 1RX8
System with bios 1.0.18 can take 8GB of RAM though Dell keeps saying 4GB from my research. It's due to the foxconn DG33M03 motherboard, most 530s had the cheaper 03 that had less power through the memory area to save on cost locking it to 4GB.
I'd think at the least removing those 2 512 chips and replacing them with 1 or 2GB chips bumping it to 4GB or 6GB (which is what the laptop she was using had but was shared system memory) would cut it. 8GB would be a max but that would be replacing all the chips with going with 6GB I could keep the 1GBs in there.
Re: PC revived, had to get win8.1 on there, tweak things.
Is it a 32-bit computer, that is, does it have a 32 bit processor? Those can only access up to 3GB of RAM, which is probably why (aside from the fact that you found that the motherboard was power-limited to cut costs) it only has 3GB when it can handle 8. My previous laptop was able to have 4GB, but only 3GB was installed because it was a 32-bit machine.
Xeogred wrote:The obvious answer is that it's time for the Dreamcast 2.
Re: PC revived, had to get win8.1 on there, tweak things.
Core 2 Quads are 64-bit - Core to Core 2 is when Intel did the swap to 64-bit. The OS can still be 32-bit, of course, and limit things. I think some computers at the time included or advertised 3GB of RAM because of that.
Re: PC revived, had to get win8.1 on there, tweak things.
It was a setup I custom did with Dell back in the day and was limited to a hard budget.
My only error was placing Vista 32bit on there, or Dell forced it that day I don't remember.
It's a 64bit quad core processor, that's why I put 8.1 64bit on there as a replacement with a total reinstall.
Because of the hard limit of the 32bit OS, Dell maxed the selection at 3GB, so there are 2x1GB and 2x512MB chips in there. Back then I had a $1K budget or a little less if I recall right. I went with the fastest CPU I could get so I ignored the dual core stuff, went with a larger (for then) 500GB HDD, and then went with a crap Radeon 2600XT (256MB) video card for it. Later when needed that's when I upped the system to a 2GB Radeon card I found at Frys and the performance jump in gaming was huge.
All in all it's a nice PC still. It has a DVDRW and a CDRW on it, an 8in1 card reader for all kinds of memory cards, gigabit internet card in there, on board audio. She's got like this 19 or 21" ASUS screen which is very beautiful with it. I had to get a wifi netgear adapter (usb) for it so it can get online where it is and that works fast and fine.
My only error was placing Vista 32bit on there, or Dell forced it that day I don't remember.
It's a 64bit quad core processor, that's why I put 8.1 64bit on there as a replacement with a total reinstall.
Because of the hard limit of the 32bit OS, Dell maxed the selection at 3GB, so there are 2x1GB and 2x512MB chips in there. Back then I had a $1K budget or a little less if I recall right. I went with the fastest CPU I could get so I ignored the dual core stuff, went with a larger (for then) 500GB HDD, and then went with a crap Radeon 2600XT (256MB) video card for it. Later when needed that's when I upped the system to a 2GB Radeon card I found at Frys and the performance jump in gaming was huge.
All in all it's a nice PC still. It has a DVDRW and a CDRW on it, an 8in1 card reader for all kinds of memory cards, gigabit internet card in there, on board audio. She's got like this 19 or 21" ASUS screen which is very beautiful with it. I had to get a wifi netgear adapter (usb) for it so it can get online where it is and that works fast and fine.
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fastbilly1
- Site Admin
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- Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:08 pm
Re: PC revived, had to get win8.1 on there, tweak things.
Ive had four of those boxes, I still run one as my primary, Ive had both of the main mother boards and none of them have accepted over 4 gigs of ram on Win7 64bit. Its a great machine, and the built in 400w power supply can handle a 4gig 960. It will run modern games at acceptable settings like a champ.