is there any hope for upgrading a computer purchased through people pc?

my mother purchased her pc through people pc. it was pre-loaded with all of their software. and only has a 64mb ram.

after the three yr. period of paying $ every mo. she now owns the pc. but there is not enough space to add any new software. and the pc runs really slow when connected to internet through AOL.

any suggestions to fix?

To help you with this we will need allot more information...........Brand and model # of computer would be a good start. Then we can check out the specs on the computer in question and make some informed decisions on whether or not it's worth upgrading.

Womaninky,

You can certainly add more RAM to the PC. This will speed up the PC when you are doing several things at once as it will be able to keep more simultaneous information in memory.

It is also definitely possible to upgrade or replace your hard disk. There are 2 options and the one you choose will depend on your technical computer ability.
1. Adding a second hard disk is easier because you can keep Windows and everything on your original hard disk.
2. Replacing the original hard disk with a single new one is a more thorough option because new hard disks will be faster and you'll be able to install everything from scratch, avoiding any "junk" that has collected over the past 3 years ........... but you'll have to install everything from scratch!

What version of Windows are you running? If it's Windows 98, then removing your 64Mb RAM memory and fitting a new 128Mb RAM module will give you a noticeable performance increase. If you are running Windows 2000, then it would be best to fit 256Mb RAM (many people fit more but this isn't necessary if all you use the PC for is Internet and email).

Notice that I haven't suggested adding to your existing RAM - I've suggested replacing it completely. The reason for this is that memory in the quantities that we are talking about is not expensive and so it's not worth the hassle of possible conflicts when you fit old and new memory (we answer lots of posts here with problems such as "I've just fitted this extra memory and now my PC doesn't start up") - best to chuck out the old stuff (or sell it to someone else) and just have new memory in the PC.

Bear is right in that sometimes it's not worth upgrading a PC and you should look at just buying a new one. However, if you haven't got that kind of budget, then we should certainly be able to advise you on a cost-effective way to get a bit more life out of your system if it's only 3 years old

P.S. Running the D-A-L.com Online Hardware Scan (to which there is a link at the bottom of my signature) and then copying and pasting the contents of the scan's log file here will give us the technical info that Bear was asking after

thanks
i will get the info on her system and reply.