This started out as deemed necessary Memory Upgrade and may become a new PC? - when cost of replacement is not the main issue.

For this I went to Medion Users forum for advice:-

Hi.  I am thinking of those poor kids in the undeveloped world who are burning e-waste – circuit boards and wiring to reclaim precious metals.

I have a Titanium 8080XL which has served me well over the last 4 years. Only the graphics card has failed (18 months ago) and an engineer came out and fitted a replacement 4 days after making the phone call (and reminded me that I had a 3 year warranty). Unfortunately it failed again after a fortnight but he returned to fit a better card which is working well to this day, hence am prepared to buy another pc from Medion (when the time comes?!!)

 I have recently installed Windows Live One - the BETA version is 60 day free trial, which I suspect is primarily intended for Vista O.S. since it is slowing down my XP operating system significantly  (always ‘on’ in the background - perhaps that is a sign of things to come?) Admittedly, I only have the original 512MB of Ram. (2 x 258MB grr..)

 It suits me to save files to my desktop but this is taking longer than before - and will not always open until I have been back online. Could this be an unrelated problem?

Should I      i) Uninstall Live One?

                    ii) Add more Ram, Crucial matched pair 1Gb  £59.21 Kingston costs about the same. Elixir is a generic brand costing about £20 less (but I have been warned about them!?)

Will the extra ‘speed’ put more or less stress on the graphics card?

        OR      iii) Buy the new MD8833 now. (3GB as against 2GB RAM) It is a tough decision to make since I won’t in all probability be making full use of a Quad core PC with its 8 channel HD on board Audio.

• Robert99 I thank you for you kind attention and am sure the main reason for ‘going slow’ is as you suggested since there are many progs. working (lurking?) in the background. I do delete them from time to time but they are soon back! Windows Live OneCare performed defrag and ‘tuneup’ as recently as 30.03.08  It is also supposed to ‘remove unnecessary files’ and check for files that need backing up. (It is now set to do this automatically during ‘Tuneup’ - which it is doing at this very moment – we shall see what ‘sort of a fist’ it makes of it! If it works as well as ‘System Restore’ I shall be well pleased with Microsoft. Started at 15:30 finished at 16:47 hours.

I shall file your posting for future reference in the hope that I will never have to perform anything as drastic as this (same as a format - everything is deleted?). I hate using DVD drives and writers and make extensive use of 2 large external Hard Drives for backups, SD cards and USB keys for transporting data, even so I would be reluctant to do as you suggest. It would take many hours to do the job properly, manually  as the Hdd has been defragged a time or two to no great effect and is still 2/3 full (?)

• . If I were to make a direct copy of the drive, then restore as is, things would be back very much the same as before?
•  Only the Freeview Satellite TV- Tuner will be required in the future to ‘timeshift’  (I am using the inbuilt analogue TV- Tuner which will soon become obsolete. The Sky box in my lounge has only one tuner (I do not wish to have a subscription) and so am unable to record programmes whilst watching another until after I have powered up the ‘desktop’ at my computer station). The ‘Akoya’(?) tower, though quite large, would not be too intrusive in my lounge and as long as it made no more noise than MD 8080XL I wouldn’t have to buy another satellite receiver but it has only a 1 year (or 2 year warranty), depending on where you purchase it? If  Medion have confidence in their product why not a 3 year warranty as before? Perhaps, if I wait awhile it may be offered? I will also have the benefit of some more user feedback. Am I being over cautious, just a ‘tight-fisted old git’ (or what?  )  
•                                                                                                                                                                                                  teret