Possible improvements for a computer system and their costs and benefits - D2

There are many components of a computer that can be improved and upgraded. this can benefit running software and can benefit the efficiency of the jobs the system must do.

RAM
You have the ability to change the amount of RAM that your computer has. this has benefits that will widely increase productivity by the system; the reason for this is because the speed at which your computer runs depends on your amount of RAM.
Here are just a few examples of features that will become faster:

• System Start Up
• Any Programs

Some programs also require a minimum amount of RAM to run, therefore if this was upgraded you can have choice of some high quality software that you couldn't use before. 

What that is also very helpful is it's cost, RAM is fairly cheap. As an example think of this scenario,  you computer runs on DDR3 RAM and holds 2GB of it, you may decide to double this to 4GB, on average this costs around £20-£25. Therefore you have the chance to double the efficiency of your computer system for a fairly cheap price. 

Hard Drive

The hard drive is one of the most important pieces of hardware in a computer, but it can be easily be upgraded and this can be a huge advantage to you. the hard drive is the saved memory of your computer, therefore if you upgraded to a larger size you could save a lot more onto it, therefore you can store more software programs, sounds/music, videos, images, word processing and much, much more. 

The price isn't too large either, if you were working on a 250GB hard drive and managed to use most (or all) of it up, you will need a new hard drive. if you are going to replace the whole thing, make sure to back everything up before the upgrade, however you may be able to add a second hard drive to the system. 

An example of a potential price is around £35 - £40 for a 1TB hard drive, that is more than 4 times the 250GB before. 

Graphics Card

A third way of improving your system is by upgrading and maybe installing the graphics card. This will take a huge load off the RAM and CPU as they do not need to load and process graphics themselves, the graphics card will do that for them. The graphics card is like a stick of RAM as it holds its own memory, however this memory is only used as a means of processing graphics. therefore, the RAM which would run some graphics will be used instead to run programs.

You can get a 1GB Graphics Card for as little as £35.

To conclude, I would say that all these benefits certainly outway the costs as they are rather cheap anyway. you will have the chance to make your computer system much better for little cost.

How software utilities can speed up your computer - D1

Anti-virus and Firewall Software

Although this software is mainly used to increase system security. By protecting from malware you can make sure that there is nothing using your CPU or RAM other than what you are doing at the time. This is because some virus can cause these problems:

- Playing with settings - Some virus may edit your original settings making it hard for you to use, but also perhaps   make some programs run without you knowing, and therefore using the CPU and RAM.

- Malware is software - Malware is software and therefore it runs on your RAM, because of this the malware is using up RAM rather than leaving it for other useful jobs. A virus may also be designed to deliberately use large amounts of RAM.

For these reasons you should always hold some kind of antivirus software, this will ensure that nothing thats unwanted will take your RAM.

Firewalls however have an added feature, they control the connections between your computer by the use of ports, it will keep most closed and only open the ones you require. not just will this protect you from any unwanted hackers it can keep the connections on your PC to the bare minimum, connections cost RAM and therefore less will mean more speed. 

Space Management Utilities

Utilities that can also increase speed is Defragmentation and utilities such as Disk Clean-up, these will not only increase hard drive space but will also increase computer speed. for example the computer will spend RAM to keep fragmented files "together", by permanently keeping these fragments together you will save the memory it takes to keep them together. 

M3 - how the task 2 configurations made the system more appropriated for the specified purpose.

In task two for P6 I had configured a PC to meet the user needs, in this report I shall be explaining how this made the system more appropriate for it's purpose.

Changing the theme:
The theme can actually slow your computer theme, a complex theme will require the graphics card to use the RAM and show your theme. choosing a simple and plain theme will decrease the RAM required for the graphics card and therefore speeding the PC up. Another point is specifically for the user. some complex themes can be rather confusing and it can take some time to find what is being looked for. with a simple theme you can find these things easier therefore easing the job for the user.

Changing the power options:
To keep things running you need power, and power costs money, so wasted power is wasted money. therefore changing the power options can save money. This is how it works, if a monitor is left on you can make it turn off after 5 minutes of no use, this means that if you accidently left it on when your not using it, after 5 minutes it will turn off, saving power, you can also make it sleep and hibernate in a shorter time, again saving power, and therefore saving money.

Changing the language settings: 
This is mostly done to suit the needs of the user more than the overall company. With the increase in migration between countries you may get a worker that has a different mother language. obviously if the PC ran with their main language it can be easier to use for them, after-all some words they may not understand and if this is the case, the job required may take longer than expected. That is why I have done this.