Need to upgrade my PC How do I and whats cheapest way?
I need to increase to I G hdd, and1 G mb.
I am not computer literate so someone else will need to fic it for me
Answers:
If you are in the UK, take it to your local branch of PC World or Maplin and ask for an upgrade.
What you want is unclear - your terms are conflicting with what you want.
Upgrading your RAM (memory) from 256MB to 1GB may help and you could simply add a second hdd rather than los your 40GB drive. Depending on your BIOS (it may need upgrading through a process called 'flashing'), you may be able to fit a large capacity drive, ie, greater than 200GB but stick with a 160GB drive for now. This should be able to be put in with your existing drive - the techie people will know how to do this for you.
If there is only room for one hdd (some PCs are crippled this way) then the Tech Guys should be able to do a transfer from your 40GB hdd to the new larger hdd and it will run the same way.
You could also do some work yourself and buy a 500GB external drive from Maplin for about £100 - PC World do it for about £85 - that drive just plugs into a USB socket in the back of your computer so no literacy needed there... Then you copy all of the files from the My Documents folder to the new drive.
And then defragment your main hard drive.
As for the RAM (memory) that's a five minute job at Maplins or PC World and would be minimum cost.
Although, if you know what RAM you need, you can order it on-line at www.pcworld.co.uk under Accessories and then go into the store and pick it up. Maplins tend to sell the memory for around twice the price of PC World at the moment and PC World have special discounts for web ordering. You don't need to buy it just have it reserved at your local store.
I've never used the 'Value' branded RAM - it's very cheap.
But I use the PNY or Component Shop memory and 512MB is around £24 to £30 for the 3200 type.
I'd bluff the Tech Guys at PC World and ask them what sort of memory you need to upgrade your PC. Let them tell you and then make an excuse that you don't have enough money at the present time. Then go home with the info, pre-order the memory and go in the next day with your computer case and go to the info desk where you pick up and purchase the memory chips. Then ask if a Tech Guy can fit the memory - it's only five minutes work. Then pay for the work done.
Hope this helps.
I expect you would pay around £40 or so for the RAM upgrade labour and around £50 for the actual RAM chips. So there's £90 plus £85 for the external hard drive so that ~£175.
If you buy a 160GB internal hard drive (~£60) and have the Tech Guys fit it, I hope they don't charge you any more otherwise it'll be an extra £40 or so and that would be expensive for you. You'd be spending £190 to upgrade your memory and get a disk that's only 1/3rd the capacity of the external one...
Sometimes you can save money by doing it yourself and it's not tricky to connect the external drive. Full instructions are supplied.
You could buy spares and upgrades from other suppliers and save some more money but the Tech Guys or Maplins techie people may not want to handle items not bought in their store as they cannot guarantee them...
you can take it to bestbuy or circuit city near geek squad near by and they can install more ram and a new hard drive recommand 1 gb of ram or two 512mb and 160gb hard drive
umm well you would be down grading if you going from a 40 to a 1 GB HDD but just take it in and see how much it will cost to get new HHD and 1 or 2 gb of ram
It's cheaper to just buy a new PC
Not quite sure what you wanna do. Installing more RAM will help, particularly if you have Windows on your computer. So going to 1 Gb should help loads.
As far as the hard disk is concerned: I think you might be off easier and faster by installing a second hard disk. On that hard disk you can put your data (like your movies, word documents, music, etcetera), so you can keep your first hard disk for the operating system. That way reinstalling XP (or any other Operating System for that matter) can be done without having to go through the process of making lengthy backups and restores.
Make sure the memory you buy is the right memory for your computer: goto the website of the manufacturer of the motherboard and see what they recommend. Don't add RAM, replace the RAM installed. That will save you the headaches of different timings in memory, causing all kinds of errors and blue screens.
NOTICE: read all before attempting :D and shut off computer
step1: notice on box computer came in or front of computer look for RAM and if it's ddr or ddr2
step2:get 1gb of ram from the store
step3:open computer and look for the same size of chip as one from store
step4:take chip out of computer and then insert one from store CAREFULLY
step5:close computer and enjoy
REPEAT STEPS FOR HD
First, check what type of RAM you have, usually its DDR, DDR2, or RDRAM. Then check the socket type of your processor (I think depending on what pentium you have it's either 423 or 478.
If your RAM is RDRAM, consider getting a new motherboard as RDRAM is obsolete with the intoduction of DDR2.
When you have that basic hardware information, go to your nearest CompUSA or Fry's electronics and pick up what you need. There's also thousands of internet sites that sell computer hardware.
As for the hard drive, get at least a 120GB drive or two 80GB drives. Theres not many compatibility issues with these.
I'm guessing you want to upgrade to a 100 GB hard drive (rather than a 1 GB). Installing a new hard drive isn't a big deal, but the problem is you have to install Windows on the new HDD. It's not a big deal, but it's time consuming. Just make sure you have the Windows install disk before you start. If this is what you want to do, then you can hook your old HDD up as a slave and that way all your old files are easy to access.
The other alternative is to leave your current drive just as it is and install the new drive as a slave. In this scenario you can install programs on the new drive and use it for storage. This is not the best solution, but if you don't have a Windows install disk or if you don't really know what you're doing then it might be the the right solution for you.
Adding memory is probably the easiest and least expensive way to boost your system's performance. But you need to make sure your machine can take 1GB of memory and make sure you get the right type. I would recommend you visit Crucial.com. You can put in your computer's make and model and the site will tell you which RAM is right for your computer. http://www.crucial.com
Another upgrade that might be worth a look is a new video card. Chances are you could find a better one than you currently have on eBay or some other site for not a lot of money.
Lastly, before you do anything, backup your important documents to CD/DVD so you don't lose them if something gets messed up.
It looks like you have a Pentium 4. You definitely need to upgrade your RAM to 1GB. Don't go for to 2GB, though, as that won't help you at all.
You have several options with your hard drive (I assume you meant 100GB not 1GB).
The easiest way to upgrade is to make your current hard drive the master hard drive and the new one the slave drive. Use the new drive as storage.
If you want the new one as your main drive, you'll either need to clone your old hard drive into the new one, or reinstall your OS in the new one, backup your data from the old one, and format the old one to use it as storage.
The cheapest way is to buy the memory from Crucial and the a hard drive from newegg and have someone install the memory and the new hard drive (as a slave, which requires the least amount of work) for you.
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