Kevin Ackland, Managing Director, talks about upgrading workstations.
It galls me to throw away a computer workstation that I’ve paid good money for only a few years ago. I know that technology moves on and we need the extra facilities but just throwing away computer workstations seems such a waste. And it is.
There are a few things you can do. You can redeploy the machine, you can clean it up to get it working faster OR you can UPGRADE the hardware. Which is what I’m suggesting.
Computers can be upgraded – the insides of a computer are all replaceable and it’s really easy to do once you have weighed up the pros and cons to see whether it is worthwhile.
The best outcome is to get a computer that has the same setup as before but following the upgrade it is much faster. There is little inconvenience and big gains.
One of the most common causes of a computer slowing down is too little memory capacity. If a system doesn’t have enough memory it swaps data with storage, using the storage as temporary memory. This will mean the system will be chugging along really slowly and the hard disks red light will be lit up like a Christmas tree decoration.
In more detail, it works like this. When your computer starts up, it loads up part of Windows from the storage to memory, after that it loads the programs it needs into memory too. Once Windows has loaded and a few programs have been loaded too, the system will probably want to connect to the Internet for updates of the anti-virus or windows security. Sometimes that means all the memory is used up and it has to swap out data from the memory to the hard disk. And that’s where the speed issue takes place.
That’s the problem; to solve it you can do three things.
1. Upgrade the memory capacity. That will give it enough room to work in. The memory will start filling up but not so much that it has to swap the data to storage. The red light on the hard disk doesn’t come on and the speed of the computer stays the same.
2. Upgrade the main processor. Getting a processor that speeds up that entire process will really help.
3. Upgrade the storage. Getting a bigger and faster hard disk will give better through put. The data leaves and arrives faster into memory.
Now I know you get all that when you get a new PC but what you also get is Windows Vista. As a company we have qualification in Administering Vista so we do speak from a position of knowledge on the operating system. My observations are two fold;
The operating system is stable and quite easy to use. There are some differences but you, like everyone else will get used to the changes quite quickly.
It has been resisted in businesses. In the offices that I visit the predominance of operating systems is Windows XP. That’s the same operating system that everyone hated in 2002.
So how will you know whether it’s best to upgrade or buy new? Personal computers are just that – personal. You need good advice from someone that has your interests at heart and not their commission.
