Some info about computers

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How do you know when that old computer needs to be upgraded or just completely replaced with a new computer? Is a Pentium III CPU still good? Well I say that the CPU is still as good as it ever was but the software is becoming more complex. The software you use to get on the internet with now is a lot more complex than the software 5 years ago. That old Pentium III can still get you on the internet with up-to-date software but it will do it more slowly than a Newer Pentium 4 or a Core 2 Duo. I'm sure that they could optimize software to run better on a Pentium III but why bother? If you notice your computer is running slowly, is virus free, and has at least 1GB of RAM under Windows XP then after you check the hard drive for errors and defragment you can conclude that your CPU needs to be upgraded. You can't always upgrade the CPU though so you have two options. You can either overclock the CPU or buy a new computer. Sometimes Overclocking can give you enough improvement to hold off on buying a new PC for a while but most of the time overclocking just isn't enough. For those running Vista Basic with 512MB of RAM. It's not your CPU that's the problem. Don't go upgrading your CPU in this situation. You should either downgrade to Windows XP or upgrade the RAM to 1GB. It's recommended by Microsoft that you run windows Vista with at least 1GB of RAM. Think of RAM as like a sponge. A small sponge can't hold much water but a big sponge can hold lots of water. 1GB by today's standards isn't a big sponge but it can hold enough water usually. Trust me it's not really a downgrade going to XP from Vista. In my opinion Windows XP is the best of the two. Sure Vista is all about the good graphics and security but with Windows XP you can get free programs that do all the extra stuff that Vista does and Windows XP still outperforms windows Vista on the same hardware. Stay away from Vista at all costs! Wait for Windows 7! Also I've noticed that some people get confused when they hear the word memory when talking about computers. What we normally refer to is the RAM short for Random Access Memory. Some people might think about the hard drive. I remember talking to someone back in 2004 telling them I had 512MB of memory and they said well my computer has 80GB of memory. I knew right away that he didn't know what he was talking about. I had to explain the difference between RAM and Hard drives. I told him to imagine that he had a paper he needed to get from a file cabinet and I told him to imagine the file cabinet is the hard drive. Then I told him to copy that paper and put it in a notebook. I told him that the notebook is like RAM because it can be accessed faster. Ram just temporary storage for quick access and the hard drive is long term storage.Could you imagine having to keep getting up and going to a file cabinet every time you needed the same paper? It's a lot easier just opening that notebook and the paper being there already it saves time. Then I said write down some of the information from the paper on your hand. That's like L2 cache. There's not much space to write things on your hand but it's faster than looking in the notebook. Then the stuff you have memorized is like L1 cache you might not remember much but it's faster to already know the information than having to look for it somewhere.