The first question is going to be why you want or feel the need for a change in your computing hardware. Is your current system doing what you want it to do?  Does it run the applications that you want to use? Does it run these applications well or does it seem to need a little boost? Do you have a need for a new application that your old system does not seem to be able to handle? You need to evaluate your computing needs to decide what kind of power you need in a computer.

All of these questions will help to point you in the direction of the answer to your dilemma. If your system is three years old or less, you might be able to get away with a memory and processor upgrade and prolong its life a few more years. If the computer does all that you need it to do but just seems to be a little sluggish, more memory and a faster processor will usually help you out of your problems with the least amount of effort and expense. If your system is more than three years old then the cost is going to be higher because of the availability of parts for your older system.

Memory is getting cheaper by the day as the manufacturers increase the speed. 256MB of PC133 or PC2700 DDR will cost about $30. This will help to decrease the amount of time that it takes for your system to open programs, as well as switch between programs. You will want to take a look at the memory that is in the system to find out what you need. There is usually a sticker on the chip that will tell you what the speed of the memory is. You will need to get the same speed of memory that you have in the system. There are also limits to the amount of memory that each motherboard will handle. The manual for your motherboard is the first place to look. You can also find the information on the Web site of the manufacturer.

If you want to increase the processor speed of your computer, you will need to do a little research to find out if your motherboard will be able to use a faster processor. If you have a name brand computer, you can usually get the information about your motherboard off of the Web site of the manufacturer. If you cannot find the information, a call to their parts department could get you the information that you need. You do not need to buy the processor from them but they should be able to tell you what your system will handle. If you have a white box or custom built computer the motherboard manual will give you the information that you need. The manufacturers Web site will have the most current information. There are bios upgrades that are available to allow some motherboards to handle some of the faster processors or more memory. As a general rule you will only be able to upgrade within the same family of processor. Pentium II motherboards will only handle Pentium II processors. You should be able upgrade from Celeron processors to the same family of Pentium without a problem.

Hard drive space is another place that a lot of people need to upgrade. With all of the Web sites that allow you to download music it is easy to fill up the 6GB drive that we thought would never fill up three years ago. There are now 200GB drives available but if you don’t have a need for that much space then just go for something in the range of 20 to 40GB. These are the drives that are the best buy for the money right now and for the average user, that is plenty of space. But then we will probably be talking about how small that 200GB drive is in a few years.

If you decide to put in a new drive, I would suggest that you find a way to get your old drive copied to the new drive and install the new drive as your main drive. I have seen to many systems that have run out of space and someone has sold the user a new drive and added it as a second drive. You still have a main drive that is full and you are left with trying to move your files to the new second drive to save space on your C drive. It is better to do the job right and replace the old with the new. There is software that is available at little or no cost to copy the drives, install the new drive as the C drive and then use the old drive for storage if you choose to. It is ridiculous to have a full 6GB drive for your C drive and a 40GB drive for storage.

Memory, processor and hard drive upgrades can help to increase the life of your system. If you have a little bit of technical ability you should not have any problem with the memory or the processor change out. The copying of the hard drive takes a little bit of experience to get it right so be sure that you know what you want to do and how to do it before attempting the changeover. As long as you don’t make any changes to your old drive until you are sure that the new one is working, you won’t have any problem that you can’t get out of. With the right upgrades done correctly you will be enjoying a much faster and more enjoyable computing experience.