Howdy!
My parents have a 10+ years old HP that is almost unusable, but they want to keep the computer since they use it to print documents and it “looks nice.” I’m trying to find a viable solution to make the PC run smoother. Here are the options I’m considering, and I want your opinion on those:
- Install a Windows-like Linux distro so my parents aren’t lost. I showed them Ubuntu, but it wasn’t conclusive.
- Running a thin client that connects via RDP to a Windows 10 or 11 VM on my Proxmox server. Would USB passthrough work? We have a stable network, so latency isn’t a big issue.
Since I’m only home during weekends, I don’t want something that could break easily. Technology and them is not a match.
If you have any other ideas, I would really appreciate it.
Happy homelabbing!
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Speaking from experience: do not give your parents something that looks like windows and isn’t. Actually, don’t give them Linux period. I wiped and reset the PC after a ransomware thing. Gave it centos and locked it the hell down to web browsing and mails and no admin perms. It lasted 2 months before failing to get to GUI.
Get a half decent mini pc for like $200. It’s a small box and “looks nice” and will connect to any printer you want. It will be virtually silent and use almost no power.
If they ask what happened just say it always looked like that.
Do we have any idea the specs on that system?
Its a all in one HP pavillion from 2010. I can look into a ram and disk upgrade. It currently has 8gb DDR3 memory and a 256 Gb HDD drive.
Buy them an iMac 😂
In all reality - if you can drop in an SSD and find more ram. That’s what it will need
It’s Black Friday! go to, Costco, Sam’s club, Best Buy, or micro center and buy a new all in one.
It will “look nice-er”
Limping a 10 year old computer for printing is a fools game especially in the home environment.
I don’t know about option 2… if you are only home during weekends, I would stick to something more reliable. (and no, I am not sure if USB passthrough would work this way or not.)
If you want to really boost performance, I would change the hardware. Since the laptop is 10+ years old, it likely has DDR3 SODIMM memory and something like a 640 GB super-slow 5400 RPM 2.5 inch hard drive (of course, check inside the laptop before buying parts if you plan on changing hardware).
I would give it at least 8 GB of RAM (for printing / editing documents and web browsing) seems like a good idea (I would get Crucial or Samsung because then you don’t have to play with XMP, which is unsupported on some laptops, to get the full speed). Of course, upgrading to a 2.5 inch SATA SSD would greatly improve boot and load times. But, be careful, as some laptops only leave enough room in the 2.5 inch drive bay to just fit a thin 5400 RPM hard drives. A lot of SSDs are thicker than that, so make sure you have the room if you choose to do this.
With an SSD and 8 GB of RAM, you could just theoretically use the built-in Windows reinstall feature to get a completely fresh Windows install, and it should work fine for a while (should be Settings > Update and Security > Recovery > Reset This PC).
Or, you could get a nice Windows-like Linux distro like Kubuntu or Linux Mint.
Hey dude, that’s indelicate. My main rig is 11 years old.
Sorry mate, I’m sure your PC is running great ! Hope it will last an other 10 ;)
10 year old PC is fine especially if its not one of those atom processors and the processor was current at that time. just upgrade the memory, replace the HDD with an SSD and do a fresh win10 install. it will do fine until win10 EOL. i am currently using such 10 year old PC myself as a daily driver.
Why make it complicated? Throw an ssd and at least 8gb of ram, should be fine to run windows 10.
See if you can fit another motherboard in the HP case. If that works, new motherboard, cpu and ram. Just tell them u had to change the windows version because of updated printer drivers. New pc, same case, same printer. Done!
It’s a all in one computer unfortunately… I will look at a ram upgrade. It has 8gb of ddr3 memory right now.
Ah. A AIO, that’s crap. Then go for the ram upgrade and maybe look if you can fit a SSD.
For what it’s worth, i know all about the: it looks pretty and we only use it to print, why change it. My mom has been playing solitaire on a 486 with 4mb ram and Windows 95 till 6 years ago. And, no it wasn’t connected to the internet! 😅
Thanks for the advise ! I’ll look into it. And pretty impressive from your mom xD
But yeah, the all in one is far from the greatest to work with…
An SSD would be a night and day improvement. They’re getting pretty cheap. Then reinstall windows. See if you can get 8 gigs of memory in it and call it a day. I have a late 2012 MacBook that runs like new now that I have an SSD in it.