Let me say right up front that I don't claim to know much about computers, but I do have a 19 year old son, who perhaps thinks he knows more than he does, but is very helpful. ;-) 

My computer is running slower and slower and I think it may be because it needs to be upgraded, or perhaps I just need to scrap it for a new one (?). So I'm looking for advice. If its worth upgrading, how would I go about doing that? 

Its a Vaio Pentium 4, 3.40 GHz, 1 GB RAM, and 225 GB HDD (with about 50 GB free), and a RADEON X300 series graphics card. Windows XP Media Center, 2002 edition, service pack 3. It has a nice, Sony large flat screen monitor that came with it, so is also 5 years old. 

I use it mostly for email (Outlook), internet (Firefox), creating documents (WORD), EXCEL for spreadsheets, photo storage and some photo manipulation with a Nikon program, watching my library of knitting instructional videos (using ImgBurn to rip them and daemontools lite to watch them), watching tv through Comcast (sometimes recording a program to watch later), and watching the occasional movie online at Netflix. Oh yeah, and backing up my PALM phone and downloading podcasts from radio (Creative Central) and syncing them to my Creative Zen. 

I use Windows Live OneCare for virus protection. 

I remember when it responded to commands faster than I could snap my fingers. It no longer does that, which is why I'm thinking it may need a faster processor or more active memory. I don't even know it its advisable or even possible to do this, so that's my question. 

Any and all advice would be appreciated. Just please use novice-speak, or I won't get it. 

Cynthia 












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