Memory, motherboards and hard drives, what’s the dif?

Lisa Hendrickson | January 8, 2010 | 0 Comments

Many of my clients will call and say their computers are slow and usually they say “I think my computer is out of memory, I have deleted a bunch of stuff and it’s still slow”

I explain to them that their memory is not out of space, but rather their hard drive may be out of space, and that’s not usually the culprit of a slow computer. Let’s first start with explaining what memory is and what a hard drive is.

Today’s blog is to help the basic user understand the differences!

MEMORY: Your computer comes with 2 types of memory, but the only one we will talk about is RAM (random access memory). These are little green sticks that are installed inside your computer. Every computer has RAM installed, but it’s usually the bare minimum. You need to purchase more to make the computer go faster. Or rather I should add, do more work. With more memory, you can run more applcations and work much more efficiently.

Here is what memory looks like:

The easiest tool on the internet to find out how much memory you have installed and how much you can upgrade to, is to use the Crucial Scanner, Their scanner is awesome and also allows you to buy the memory you need to get your computer up to it’s optimal speed.

HARD DRIVES: This is where your operating sytem and programs are installed and what makes the computer start up and get going. This is also the place where your pictures, music and your documents are stored.

This is a picture of a hard drive. It’s in the computer right next to your DVD player.

MOTHERBOARDS: Finally, here is what a motherboard looks like. It’s like your car’s computer, it makes it run. Without it, you have no computer. There is really no reason a basic user will need to do anything with this componet of the computer unless you want to install your own memory. I don’t recommend you get in there and play!