PC Healthcheck

[maggioneato]

As I did'nt know anything about computers, I bought a package from PC World. It's now 12 months old and they are offering a free health check. Is it worth taking it in, it is working fine, or will they give it the treatment and mess it all up. Anyone know?

[bughunta]

If it aint broke don't fix it.

I wouldn't go near them, but it's up to you. Read the small print and beware if they tell you 'things' need replacing if you feel it's been working perfectly fine.

bug

[fobotcso]

bughunta is right. No need to take it anywhere near them if its working to your satisfaction.

Although PCWorld has gone up steadily in my estimation in recent years, their staff turnover is very high and the level of knowledge is poor.

Mostly they know tiddley-squat except what they can read on the side of boxes.

I wanted to open a Business Account with them, but after sitting alone for an hour in the almost deserted Business Area listening to an "agent" explaining the intricacies of the floppy disk to a customer I thought better of it.

[Mac the Knife]

For GOD's SAKE MAN! Are you CRAZY???

Health check my ASS! They'll DESTROY it! It'll NEVER BE the SAME!

"Mostly they know tiddley-squat except what they can read on the side of boxes." Yup, they're morons - kiss your system byebye.

"If it aint broke don't fix it." Agree.

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

maggioneato,

You would do a lot better coming here with your questions than going to a place that just wants to get you in the door so they can sell more computer hardware and software. (That you most probably do not need.)

Take Care,

Richard

[timmcat]

Maggs.. try PCpitstop.com (http://www.pcpitstop.com) Discussed at length recently here, the general concensus is that its a good performance monitor and can highlight some areas of concern.

Oh, and its free...

Tim

[BUMPFF]

If you run Windows you can DIY from your desktop:

Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools then

Disk Defragmenter/Scandisk/Disk Cleanup, etc in turn and let each do it's own thing. Monthly defrag is recommended. You can also set Maintenance Wizard to carry out these tasks regularly.

Invest in a virus protection prog. Norton AntiVirus does a good job

Hope this helps. It works for me and was highly recommended by the IT whizz-bangs at my pre-retirement place of work.

PS: Clear out your emails. Don't maintain a web history. Delete all temporary internet files (Start > Control Panel > Internet Options and follow the prompts).

[maggioneato]

Timmcat, thanks for the suggestion about PCpitstop.com, all the checks came up with, was deleting a few unused items, all seems to be ok, I do clear emails and temp internet files, and defrag on a regular basis, so thanks guys. It's not going anywhere near PC World.

[Binoculars]

Just thought I'd give Pcpitstop a try, so I just did a disk health check. Result; Poor; very high fragmentation levels.

Oh OK, thanks. Did a fullscandisk and defrag and reran the disk health test. Result. Poor; Very high fragmentation levels. :confused:

Don't think I'll bother with the full suite of tests.

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Binoculars,

Did you reboot before running the test again? (If IE pulls info from its cache, you will get PCpitstop telling you that something you fixed is still wrong.)

Take Care,

Richard

[Binoculars]

Once again Binos accumulates a piece of knowledge from Pprune. Thanks Richard.

But bear in mind this is a 6Gb disk which I fdisked just last week before reinstalling W98 and a few regularly used programs then defragged. Now Pitstop tells me the vol size is 6.6Gb, Used space 1.1Gb, Free Space 4.4 Gb ( :confused: :confused: ) and my overall disk health is Average; Medium levels of disk fragmentation.

Sheesh, does it ever give a clean bill of health?

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Binoculars,

Well never put too much faith into the thing. It is after all, a free program over the net.

Here is a thread where forum members posted about PCpitstop:

Test your system (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=103017)

To answer your question, yes you can get a clean bill of health, but it takes some work.

One of the more popular benchmarking programs is Sandra (http://www.sisoftware.net/) but I do not pay much attention to what she says, since she lies. :eek:

Take Care,

Richard

[timmcat]

Binos..

Windows defragger aint' all its cracked up to be. Dont necessarily blame pcpitstop.

I downloaded O&O Defrag Professional (http://www.oo-software.com/en/products/oodefrag/pro.html) last night. Defrag'd the primary partition on my pretty clean and recently windows defragged 80gb drive (used the 'sort in accessed' priority). First time I have seen a noticable difference after a defrag.

Tim

[bughunta]

Binoculars

My suggestion would be the same as my response to the original post, 'If it aint broke, don't fix it'

To my mind that extends to carrying out unnecessary tests on your 'perfect working order' PC, and then starting to question the results. You know your PC is fine, I know its fine, who cares if Windows defrag isn't wonderful?

You can fdisk, do installs, defrags, etc. You know when something is wrong, you don't need these things. Clearly you're right, Pitstop is wrong; never use it again until something happens to give you reason to suspect the PC is playing up.

Testing for testings sake, and you end up sleeping on the Embankment...

bug