A laptop would be a better value than a tower IMO.

Perhaps, but might run slower.

Should be no problem on a 5 year old machine, specially for the uses described.

cheaper http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5468537&CatId=2627
Still a dell.

Right? Always wary or refurb. What's it got that the Dell doesn't? I have Win 7 now and would go down from 10 to 7 if possible.

Better processor, more ram, you can get the protection plan for 2 years for 39.99, still worth thinking about.

most electronics failures are 'infant mortality'; it will go bad shortly after purchase.

If a device has ben returned to the manufacturer because of a failure, it will be repaired and brought back to 'like new' condition, or very close. But, it will have had a full extra round of testing done, individually, that will most likely catch any other problems.

I haven't had a problem with any factory refurbished electronics that I have purchased over the past 30 or so years.

Now I know. I kept picturing duct tape, string and chewing gum.

Upgrade it with additional RAM to 16 GB. Would be inexpensive and increases system performance.

A solid state drive would be ideal but is more $$$.

an upgrade to 16GB memory, but this machine I'm typing on started with 8GB and upgrading to 16 didn't make that much of a difference.

Assuming you already have the monitor, mouse, keyboard and speakers, this should do it.

I would suggest the WD external drive, though. That's a decent price and the security of having an external backup is worth it.

I would check staples for the same model you can often get it cheaper

This might work.

Thanks for everyone's help on this. Really appreciated!

For you looks like a solid machine. Should be very zippy. If you have issues with it they should show pretty quickly be sure to get on dell about it if you do they have a good service policy.

How much difference will that make as opposed to a low end dedicated Radeon 6x card?

for Facebook games it will be fine. Candy crush that sort of thing. That said there will be a slot for a video card it just wont have one. If the graphics are not good enough for the games you play you can always add a card later.

For normal surfing though and facebook stuff it should be fine. Integrated graphics have come a long way. You wont be playing 3d games at full res and with the eye candy turned on but you will probably be able to play even some lower end 3d games if you wanted as long as you kept the settings conservative.

I dont know what your gaming is so it is difficult to give you a good estimate but assuming anything you can play on facebook as a baseline you should be fine with everything you would find there.

For almost the difference in price between the dell direct price and the staples price you could pick up one of these if you felt the need in the future and up the gaming on that rig to run pretty much anything you would want, again not at highest settings but smoothly in higher end games.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150753

No candy games for me, thanks. Mostly download the occasional Hidden object or Match 3. They are always .rar files so don't actually get installed on HDD. Some get up to 1.5gb. Shoot pool online. Other than that it's streaming hockey games - most important! and watching TV shows sometimes.

I sorely wish I could update things on my Acer Aspire M3970. Paid $700 five years ago. Been a trusty friend. And also don't want to leave Windows 7. The CPU tested good yesterday. Just don't know enough to possibly update the Acer.

Thanks again, Perfect Avatar!

I would not toss the acer for that dell if I was you. Of course I do the work myself so it would be cheaper for me to bring that acer back but. My bet is that acer just needs a new SSD hard drive and a fresh install of 7 and you would be right back to being happy with that machine.

Before you purchase maybe call a local geek shop and ask them what it would cost you to install one of these and move the windows 7 license to the new drive with a fresh install.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147373

$139 for the part and I would guess somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 for the labor. Should bring that machine back to life even better than before.

First I'll watch some youtube vids on putting in ssd drives. If they can do it, I can do it! Need to buy a Win7 CD, too. Know a good place? May end up taking it to puter guy. We'll see. Problem is I have no TV or anything else to fall back on so, if I can do it myself that would be perfect.

Thanks a million!

it is not that difficult at all.

You can get a copy of windows directly from microsoft for free here

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7

There should be a license sticker on that machine somewhere just plug the license number into that webpage and it should download the correct version of windows for you.

Next you need to burn it to a cd or install it onto a flash drive for the install. For a flash drive install I use this to create a bootable flash drive. https://rufus.akeo.ie/

During the install it will ask you for a cd key. Just put in the license number on the sticker on the computer.

Heres a quick video on installing the SSD

I was just at the Microsoft site when I saw your msg! I've been in bios before so not afraid of that as long as I have step by steps. Turns out my SATA is III so, that should give me more zip, right? Already watched a quick vid Have a few flash drives here. Just have to order the SSD from the link you posted. Can't thank you enough. Unless you live in Iowa and want to get paid for doing it for me!

thanks for the offer.

I really love it though when people are willing to try to do it themselves. More than happy to help you get it done in any way I can from here though.

As far as the sata III yup that will ensure good data transfer speeds from the SSD.

You can do it and when it is done you will be pleased with yourself and a lot less intimidated by future problems.

Worst case cenario you purchase that drive and completely fail that drive would also be an upgrade for the dell you were looking at.

I am pretty confident that as long as your old machine still boots you can pull this repair off.

if you plan to use a flash drive for the install it needs to be at least 4 gigs.

A guy there love futzing with computers; he said he'd put in a SSD drive and install Windows 7 on the PC if I'd buy the drive. So I did. 500 GB SSD drive, and it's pretty damn fast.

From pressing the power button to ready to log in... maybe 15 seconds. I don't think the PC itself is anything special; just a regular office machine. No super-fast RAM or high-powered graphics card or greased-lightning system bus or anything, but that SSD makes it pretty snappy.

I just use it for internet and video, maybe some word processing and picture editing, and I recently go into SDR a little.