can this computer be helped? or is it garbage?

[TeacherMark1]

This computer is S L O W  and freezes up ALL the time.   Half the time the programs wont close down (not responding)...   Computer has   4GB DDR4-2400 SDRAM memory..   Is that my problem?   Can it be saved??   Its only been out of the box NEW  for a couple of months..   But  sat in my daughters closet NEW in box for over a year (no warranty)..

[Grzwacz]

Hi,

You can do some upgrades to improve performance. You cannot turn this PC into a high end gaming PC but you should be able to eliminate freezing and slow performance.

The first and best upgrade I would do would be to replace the slow platter HDD with a SATA SSD or a M.2 SSD. Move the HDD operating system image to the new SSD. Use the slow platter HDD as a data drive.

Next you could upgrade the CPU to a i7-7700. Other CPU upgrade options can be reviewed at this site (Link). And you could upgrade RAM to 16 GB (two 8GB sticks). Crucial Memory (Link) is a good, reliable memory upgrade option.

Graphics card upgrade options are limited due to the motherboard layout, the chassis, and power supply upgrade options.

I would not sink much money in upgrades due to cost benefit considerations. The HDD option is the best bang for the buck.

Regards

[WAWood]

@TeacherMark1 

I have a different take on your situation ...

Any Win10 PC that has been offline for more than a couple of weeks, when you turn it back on and connect to the Internet, it going to automatically launch Windows Update.  And that is going to spend HOURS searching for updates, downloading them, and installing them to your PC.  That will drive the processor to 100% and the disk utilization to 100% -- and bring the PC to a crawl.  There is nothing you can do to fix this other than let Windows Update finish.

Plus, these updates come out on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning -- so tomorrow is going to be much of the same.

If this problem persists for several days, then it is a different issue.

[Grzwacz]

Hi @TeacherMark1 ,

Go with @WAWood to see what happens.

I though you were running the PC in this scenario for a couple of months. Updates and indexing should be done after a couple of days.

Then look at a HDD to SSD upgrade, a memory upgrade, and a CPU upgrade.

Regards