I'm helping an elderly friend keep his computer alive, since he doesn't want to buy a new one.
It's a 10 year old tower (which at least was moderately high end, 10 years ago...).
Obviously, it's been abused, was Vista, then Win7, then Win10 upgrade. Piles of antivirus on top of each other, etc.
Hard drive was going out (physically).
So, this weekend I've done the following:
Replaced hard drive
Installed a fresh Windows 10 64bit Pro
Bumped ram to 8GB
Added a PCI wireless card to replace the weird dongle he had.
So, I'm in about $100 now, on a computer that doesn't need to have $100 spent on it.
The last thing I'd like to do is toss a video card in, both because it'll take the load off of the cpu and because he likes to watch Euro sports online using various unsavory VPN type websites and programs. I think that a video card will help with that a bit. also, maybe he can hook it to his pretty new fangled TV via HDMI and watch the games from his couch, instead of hunched in front of a 15 inch monitor.
So, can I toss a 512MB or 1GB passive PCIex16 card in there and actually see any difference? Or, is that really just burning cash at that point? I see a few $30ish cards at Frys, but is that even worth it, or are they even more powerful than what the computer can handle?
https://www.cnet.com/products/hp-pavilion-a6220n/specs/
now with a 500GB Western Digital drive, and 4x2GB ram. 64 bit system.
OR...would I be better off putting together something like a Google Chromecast stick, and having him cast to the TV from the computer?