My 10 year old computer is finally gasping its last breaths and I am considering several different computer options at Best Buy. None of the computers they have has a power supply larger than 300W, and the only Nvidia card they have that says it will work with a 300W power supply is the GeForce 210. Is this card any good for adventure games? It comes in both 512MB and 1TB flavors.

In addition , there is a lot of stuff on this old computer that I would like to salvage, and the sales person told me that all of the flash drives and external hard drives that they have say that they require USB 2.0 but they will still work with USB 1.0 (which my old computer has) albeit with a slower transfer rate. Is this true? The slower transfer rate would not be a major problem if it would work, I would only have to make that transfer once and then either leave it on the external drive until needed or copy it over to the new computer which would have USB 2.0. The only question is will it work at all.

TIA for any advice any of you tech savvy gamers might have on these two subjects.

Uncle Reg

I will leave the hardware questions to others who know more than I do. USB 2.0 will work on USB 1.1, albeit very slowly. Do you have XP? If you do, you might want to consider using the Easy Transfer option to move your data to the new Windows 7 computer. Remember that you can only move things like documents and settings.

There's a short tutorial video down towards the bottom of the page. Windows Easy Transfer

Not really. It's pretty poor for any type of gaming, though it's probably OK for many casual games. It would probably be sluggish with many of your newer adventure games.

You should probably consider getting a computer online from a place like ecollegepc.com
Alternatively you might check your phone book and see if there is a shop near you that custom builds computers and can make you one that will work with adventure games.

Jenny's suggestion about finding a computer shop to build a computer is what we did when we decided to buy a new computer. Our computer shop was our son, who built two for himself in the past years.

One reason I decided to have a computer built was that I got tired of buying name brands and get all the garbage they decided to include on their systems.

We told our son what we wanted, he made up two wish lists, gave his opinion about both lists, and we made our choice. Based on his opinion, and his choices, we are very happy with what he put together. Including a power supply, 775w, that's larger than most name brand computers provide.

Yesterday I set up a computer for a friend who is 79. Sherwood can make a dime squeak from 40 paces, he is so tight with money. His budget for a new computer and a monitor was around $500. I just couldn't keep his 10 year old computer running well any more. He ended up having ecollegePC build him one and I found him a nice 18.5" Acer monitor at Newegg for $97, free shipping and no tax. So we got him in right at his budget. All he does is email, watch his war movie DVDs and play solitaire, so he didn't need much of a computer. However, what he got runs beautifully with 64-bit Windows 7. The best thing - NO BLOATWARE!!!

He ordered it on Monday and it was delivered on Wednesday. His old computer has USB 1.1 like yours, Uncle Reg. I downloaded Easy Transfer to his old computer and ran it. It took an hour and a half because of the old USB, but we got it on my exterior drive and transferred all his settings and files to the new one in about 5 minutes. Once we downloaded Windows Live Mail, set it up and transferred all his email and contacts into it, he was up and running.

I opened up the case and was really, really happy with the components and the job ecollegePC did. I've helped a couple of internet friends order from them, but this is the first one I've had hands-on experience with. With their extremely high customer service ratings, I'd definitely recommend them.

Thanks for the help. I have taken a look at ecollegepc, I might get one from them. What's a good video card for adventure games from the ones they offer? Some of them are probably overkill, one of them is over $600.

For an ATI, I'd recommend an HD 5750 or 5770.
For an Nvidia, I'd recommend a GTS 450.
They're more than you'd need for current adventure games, but adventure game requirements may go up in the next few years.

Thanks for the advice Jenny. Sorry for the delay, but my old computer died completely, the boot drive quit working. I managed to get it going again with a new inexpensive hard drive ($75 at Best Buy), and I'm currently copying everything from the 2 other drives off to an external USB drive.

Even though I got the old one running again, I decided to get a new one anyway. I got one from ecollegepc, and I took Jenny's recommendation and got the Nvidia GTS 450. Just got it turned on this afternoon, and I'm still working on getting it set up. So far it's looking pretty good.

Thanks again for the advice,

Uncle Reg

Enjoy your new one, Uncle Reg. It's going to feel like driving a Rolls Royce after the old one. Don't forget to activate the new Windows 7 operating system!

Ten years is a respectable run for a computer, though it does sound like its only problem (other than being slow) may have been the hard drive.

I hope you enjoy your new one and that it lasts you as long.