| I'm looking to upgrade my PC that's served me well for about 8 years, but
| it's starting to be unreliable and I can't upgrade the RAM beyond 4GB.
Unreliable: probably not worth the effort to diagnose.
Can't upgrade beyond 4G: Really? My 8-year-old desktop computers can
do a lot better than that. What model is it?
It's an old AMD-based ASUS mobo that's supposed to take more. I bought upgrade RAM according to the docs, it was seen in the BIOS diagnostic but the OS refuses to see it. I'm tired of throwing good hours after old ones after reading and following every possible remedy. Enough.
I like these little computers. There's not a lot of reason to add
PCIe cards or optical drives to a computer these days. The one
remaining need is for graphics cards.
There is an HDMI port to the Intel one as well as a Thunderbolt port to handle Displayport video. I'll need to read up and figure what equipment I'll need to split out 5.1 audio (with is currently done using an optical cable).
Wasn't Thunderbird an Apple thing?
- often only room for one "disk", 2.5" SATA, but sometimes also m.2
(SATA or NVMe). I like having both: a fast SSD and a larger
capacity spinning disk.
I already have a 2.5 SSD ready to be used.
The
new Intel NUCs have a capacity for something called "Optane", which
looks like fast NVRAM (16 or 32 GB) used as extended cache. I have a choice of
installing one of those, or using the M.2 slot for a conventional SSD to
hold the OS.
There are or were other brands of NUC-like computers. Gigabyte's BRIX, MSI Cubi, and who knows what else.
I've looked at/for many of these brands as well as the category-creator, Shuttle. The Intel and Zotac still look best.
Thanks for your help!
- Evan