PC much faster and I am so happy!

[Alan SHARP]

Greetings from NZ.

I've read this thread with interest. All that talk about memory. Like most of you my experiences have also been with memory problems in recent days, not so much the speed of recall, but the, at times, almost total lack of recall, and even total black out. It just will not compute and packs a sad!

You would be excused for thinking that the older the memory the more compressed and decayed it would become making it harder to recall, yet it has been the more recently stored material that I struggle to find, and to bring to account. Very very frustrating in this age of rapid technical information and exchange, especially so when you are into research and peoples names.

ABOVE: - I see examples of the "DELL" brand over 6 years old being problem some, but my "SHARP" brand is over 60 years old, so possibly I should be content.

But more to the point. Our household had always relied on hand me downs, which the kids computer savvy friends kept tinkering with, each time a new game came out, needing more power. Then they got themselves an adult life, leaving Dad with one of their machines. Six years ago the onboard clock/battery failed and that was the beginning of the end as far as getting it to work.

I went out and shouted myself a new, but cheap computer loaded with Windows Xp and some saved programmes from our old hard drive. In recent times just one photo processing programme, kept folding with lack of memory warnings when I attempted to make too many changes, and add too much detail by way of captions etc. Then six weeks ago the email dial-up would not function correctly, so in for it's first service it went.

The first request of the technician, was to be able to up-grade to a 1Gb ram. Parts cost $NZ80 and boy was the machine given a new life as far as processing times go. I knew it was getting slower, but I had just put that down to the extra power required by the filtering programmes required today, and my ever increasing album of digital images since the kids gave me a digital camera. Stored on four attached large memory sticks. Still trying to get my head around the addition of a plug in extra hard drive, as recommend by the kids. (Op's - young adults.)

Presumably the technician also defragged the files, all things that us self taught users are not very conversant with.

Perhaps we should have a "New Years - Housekeeping for dummies" forum so that we can do a better job of looking after the health of our computer (life line).

Alan SHARP.