At some point, it is time to bury the old computer and make the ultimate upgrade and buy a new one. It is only natural. As the old George Harrison song proclaims; "All things must pass."  There are advantages, of course, to buying a nice new computer. However, it isn't always necessary.

There are times when we are more financially able to invest in a new computer and this is, many times the deciding factor in our decision as to whether or not it's time to abandon our old.

Should it Stay or Should it Go Now?

The topic of whether or not to buy or hold can always be a very confusing subject. However, I have a short checklist that might help anyone who is confused by this topic. Maybe, this checklist will help you decide on a plan of attack on the tricky subject of buying new or staying with the old computer. 

This checklist doesn't take into consideration expendable funds. There are times in one's life when buying new just isn't an option; I realize this. In any event here is the checklist:

· Does the computer have less than a Pentium 4 microprocessor or equivalent like an AMD Athlon XP 2400+? The key here is you're looking for a processor speed of 1600MHZ (otherwise known as 1.6GHZ) Pentium III's go up to about 1GHZ but more commonly are 750-800MHZ.

· When the computer was new, was Windows XP home or professional, or Windows Vista installed. Or was it an older operating system?

That's it! Two questions are all you need to separate a modern day computer from a golden oldie. In short, Pentium III's do not support the speeds that are needed to keep a computer running fast at all times with all larger files that compose everything these days; even websites.

Is Performing Regular Maintenance Too Hard on the Computer?

Virus scanners and spyware scanners have evolved into pretty large software programs. So, what happens is; you'll be surfing the web without a problem, suddenly an automatic spyware scan will start up and this will make your computer very, very slow if your computer is outdated!

Of course, you can schedule your scans to run when you are not using your computer but still, this is an illustration as to how a Pentium III machine is not able to keep up with today's normal computing workload.

If it Came With Windows ME, it is at Least a 10 Year Old Computer!

The second question about the operating system being older than Windows XP was just a confirming question. 1600MHZ speeds came out so they could support Windows XP. Computers that were sold with Windows Vista installed as their OS are even more powerful and Windows 7 machines are still more powerful than that!

If your computer is one of the pre-Windows XP machines you have to make sure to keep it free of spyware, viruses and registry corruption. Still, there may be times it will not give you very good speed, especially while multi-tasking. 

This would be when you were surfing the web and the virus scanner was running at the same time. This might not work. So, when a vintage computer like this starts to fail you, it may be time to consider it over the hill.

Pentium 4 machines that have become slow usually are slow because of registry corruption. Many times it only takes a registry cleaning to get them going fast again. So, make sure you try that before you give up on it. Unlike a Pentium III machine, a Pentium 4 PC will multitask if it is not being slowed down by a virus, spyware or registry corruption.