Make Your Old PC Scream
© 2000 Jonathan Leger

     I run a small computer repair shop in a small town in Louisiana, and part of what we do is upgrade PCs for our customers. We'll often have a customer who has an old 486 or early-modle Pentium computer come in and say "I want to upgrade this, what do I need?"

When upgrading a computer, there are three major areas you'll need to consider:

[1] The amount of memory you have
[2] The processor speed
[3] The hard drive size/speed

In this article, I'm going to approach all three aspects of upgrading your computer, and show you why you don't want to overlook any of them.

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Memory
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The first thing you'll want to check in your computer is how much memory (RAM) you have. To see how much RAM your computer has (if you have Windows 95 or 98), right-click on the "My Computer" icon of your desktop, and chose "properties" from the menu. A window will open up that says "System Properties", and there will be a
picture of a monitor to the left with a list of information to the right. At the bottom of the list of information is how much RAM your computer has.

If you are running Windows 95, you want a minimum of 16MB of RAM (24MB or 32MB is preferable). If you are running Windows 98, you want a minimum of 32MB (64MB is preferable). Why is that so important? Because Windows will use your computer's storage space
(called your "hard drive") as memory once you run out of RAM to use.   Although allowing Windows to have the resources it needs by doing this (which is called "swapping to disk" or "virtual memory"), your computer's hard drive  is much slower than its RAM.

What this means to you when upgrading is this: you might have a fairly fast (or even very fast) processor (the brain of the computer), but if your computer doesn't have enough RAM, it will still run slow!
So make sure that you have enough RAM first.

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Processor Speed
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The second issue to consider is your processor speed. As mentioned before, your processor is the "brains of the operation." It can be considered the "engine" of your computer, it's where the power comes from. Without it, your computer is just a heap of worthless electronics on your desk.

How fast is your computer's processor? That's a little more tricky to find out. Usually, when you first turn on your computer (or "boot up", as we like to say), your computer will tell you how fast its processor is. This is rated in megahertz (which is abbreviated Mhz). For the sake of illustration, we'll think of the megahertz of your computer as the horsepower of a car. The more horsepower, the
faster it goes.

As a rule of thumb, if you are running Windows 95, you will get poor results if your computer's processor is less than 100 Mhz. If you are running Windows 98, you will get poor results if it is less 200 Mhz. 'Why does the operating system change how fast your computer needs to be?' you might ask. That's a question worthy of an answer.

Think of Windows 95 as a Ford Escort, and Windows 98 as a Lincoln Towncar. Now, we all know that an Escort is much lighter than a Towncar, because not only is a Towncar much bigger, but it also adds all kinds of nice luxuries and technologies that makes the car heavier. Because of that, it requires a larger engine to move it
comfortably, but man, it sure is nice, isn't it?

Windows 98, compared to Windows 95, has added many features, nicer graphics, animations, all kinds of pretty things and functionality (including much better internet functionality), that makes it a "heavier" operating system. As such, it requires more "horsepower."

Does this mean that you have to junk your old computer if you want to run Windows 98? Not necessarily. There are processor upgrades that you can get now that will replace your computer's old brain with a newer, faster one. They are fairly inexpensive, too, at around a hundred dollars, and take about 15 minutes to install if you're a do-it-yourselfer.

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Hard Drive
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The third and final aspect to look at in your computer is its storage space, or hard drive. The hard drive is where all of your programs and your files and documents sit on your computer, waiting to be moved into RAM so that your computer can work with them. It is also the device that Windows uses like RAM when it runs out of RAM.

Windows will almost always use your hard drive as memory, unless you have an enormous amount of RAM (for Windows 95, you'll need 128MB for it to work well without using your hard drive, for Windows 98--forget
it). So the speed of your hard drive matters, and as with all
things, newer hard drives are faster (and can hold more), than older ones.

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Summary
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So, in order of priority, if you're looking to upgrade your old
computer instead of getting a new one, look into adding more memory first, then look at the processor upgrades, and finally, look into a new hard drive. Street-pricing for memory upgrades ranges from about $49 for an extra 16MB to $89 for an extra 32MB (but that figure varies enormously depending on your computer's setup). For the
processor upgrade, expect to pay about $100. For a new hard drive, expect to pay around $149.

I'm telling you what you should expect to pay because many "computer repair" guys are like mechanics, and will charge you through the nose if they think they can get away with it. So be well-armed by reading over this article a few times before going into a computer repair shop to get your computer upgraded, if you're not going to do it yourself.

So, if you were to upgrade each aspect of your old computer, you're looking at around $350 or so. The other option is to use your old monitor, keyboard and mouse, and just replace the 'box' with a new one, which cuts costs way down because you're not having to pay for the peripherals.

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About the Author
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     Jonathan Leger is the publisher of a newsletter dedicated to helping you with your computer problems, free of charge.  Think you're a computer dummy? Need some free help and advice with your computer problems? Then his newsletter, PC Helpmate, is for you!   Weekly (Friday) mailings of the answers to a few of your perplexing PC problems.

To subscribe free of charge, send a blank e-mail to:
PCHelpmate-subscribe@egroups.com

Or visit our web site:
www.egroups.com/group/pchelpmate

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