Big-name tech manufacturers areagainfacing delays, but this time the pandemic isn’t to blame. Commitments to reduce energy consumption and a widespread coal shortage have resulted in some Chinese Apple and Tesla suppliers slowing production and even shutting down for days at a time.
Chinaannouncedin April that it would be cutting its energy use by 3 percent by the end of 2021, as well as reducing its use of coal down to under 56 percent of its overall energy consumption. (Coal consumption made up 56.8 percent of the country’s energy use in 2020.) But coal shortages have now forced the country to ration its supply by curbing energy use in northeastern China and implementing earlier cuts than expected. As winter approaches and some areas experience near-freezing temperatures at night, China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) has had toaskthe nation’s natural gas and coal companies to ensure sufficient supply to warm homes through the winter, creating a sense of competition between the needs of residential communities and industry.
Apple just released the iPhone 13 this month, along with the new iPad Mini and Apple Watch 7. (Photo: Apple)
Therein lies the problem for Apple and Tesla: as Reutersreports, heavy industry has taken a hit, and that comes with unfortunate consequences for tech companies as we approach the season of giving. Some suppliers, like Apple’s Unimicron Technology Corp, halted production for nearly four days beginning Saturday, lest they violate the government’s energy consumption limits. Concraft Holding Co Ltd, which supplies speaker components for iPhones, told Reuters it would suspend operations for five days this week and pull from its current inventory instead. Eson Precision Engineering, which supplies key mechanical parts for Apple and Tesla, halted production on Sunday and won’t resume until Friday. Though the tech giants are major focuses as the production facilities face shutdowns, even small and mid-size enterprises are facing the domino effect that comes from major overseas supply chain issues,accordingto Asian news outlet Nikkei Asia.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese chipmakers United Microelectronics Corp (which works with Qualcomm) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd have stated that production at their China facilities has yet to experience any impact. “UMC’s Hejian fab in Suzhou is currently running at full capacity utilization of 80,000 plus wafers per month,” the chipmaker told Reuters.
The pause in production could mean clear inventory issues, especially following a major Applereleaseand as the world continues to navigate global chip shortages. Economists at China International Capital Corpestimatethe power shortage will drastically slow the country’s economic growth, as cuts are expected to extend through March of next year.
One of the perks of being a science journalist is being regularly wowed by the very best images from the world’s various space agencies. This week, Hubble was the darling, and the venerable space telescope has provided us these five absolutely beautiful images of stars, galaxies, and nebulae.
We’ll start with an elegant barred spiral galaxy about 130 million light-years from Earth, called NGC 5728. This image was taken in the optical and infrared bands, which provide a striking composition by themselves. What the image only hints at, however, is that NGC 5728 is a “monumentally energetic” place called a Seyfert galaxy. The brilliant glare in the center is what gives it away. These extremely high-energy galaxies are powered by their active cores, known as active galactic nuclei (AGNs).
NGC 5728. Credit: ESA/Hubble, A. Riess et al., J. Greene. (source)
Some AGNs emit so much radiation that they can blind the telescopes looking at them, but confining our observations to visible and IR light means that we can look straight into the center of this galaxy’s reactive core. To capture the portrait, Hubble used its Wide Field Camera (WFC), which is sensitive in these bands. Better still, the image is available from the ESA in sizes that make excellent wallpaper.
Next up is a glorious nebula surrounding a stellar nursery named NGC 346, which lies at the center of the Small Magellanic Cloud. The star-forming region is surrounded by a dramatic structure of columns and filaments. Outflows and explosions from the hot young stars are buffeting the clouds of the nebula, eroding the denser regions and leaving smokelike trails in their wake.
NGC 346. Image Credit: NASA, ESA and A. Nota (STScI/ESA). (source)
The sinuous ridge of dust that encircles the region stands out like an artist’s flourish. Hubble saw this structure in a highly detailed silhouette against the (very pink) background glow of the region. As new stars are born, more of the dust will be cleared away, revealing yet more star-forming regions within the cluster.
Elsewhere in the sky, the globular cluster NGC 6717 lies within the constellation Sagittarius, near the center of the Milky Way. Backscatter from the glow of the galactic center creates a luminous veil of dust around these tightly grouped stars. This obscuring effect is called “extinction.” Extinction makes it a challenge to observe this and other similar globular clusters, so astronomers used both the WFC and Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys to create this image.
NGC 6717. Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA, A. Sarajedini; CC BY 4.0. (source)
Foreground stars from closer to home can be seen in the center of the image. They are surrounded by “criss-cross diffraction spikes” resulting from interactions with Hubble’s secondary mirror.
Where NGC 6717 has extinction, observers of Palomar 6 must contend with reddening: a phenomenon where interposing gas and dust absorb some frequencies of starlight, changing what we see. Palomar 6 is another globular cluster close to the center of the galaxy. It is formally named ESO 520-21, and lies within the constellation Ophiuchus.
The constellation represents Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, who is depicted grasping a snake. Ophiuchus was one of the original 48 constellations described by Ptolemy circa the second century. All 48 are among the 88 constellations currently recognized by the International Astronomical Union.
ESO 520-21, AKA Palomar 6. Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA, R. Cohen. (source)
And finally, I present to you the blazing halo of color that is AG Carinae. This image is a composite of prior observations, layered with Hubble’s 31st-anniversary image of the stunning newborn nebula. Ionized hydrogen and nitrogen are shown in red here, while visible-spectrum images of dust reflecting starlight are shown in blue:
AG Carinae and its nebula. Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA, A. Nota, C. Britt. (source)
AG Carinae is a rarity, one of only fifty or so of its kind known to exist in the entire Local Group. It’s a very young star that will only live a few million years. The star’s mass is estimated at around seventy times the mass of our sun, but it shines a million times as bright. That enormous mass makes it unstable; the star sits at the center of a shell that it has hollowed out with its repeated explosions, forming an iris-like nebula as wide as the distance between Earth and Alpha Centauri. It will continue this tug-of-war between gravity and its own radiative force until it has finally cast off enough material to become stable.
For more on AG Carinae and its nebula, check out the ESA’s press release on this new analysis, which includes a nifty slider tool you can use to compare versions.
Scientists believe that the first beings we could call modern humans emerged in Africa some 300,000 years ago. Over the millennia,Homo sapiensexpanded across the world but didn’t reach North America until around 13,000 years ago, or that used to be the prevailing wisdom. A discovery of preserved human footprints in White Sands National Park in New Mexico has pushed that timeline back by thousands of years.
After leaving Africa, humans spread quickly across Asia and Europe, outcompeting our less adaptable humanoid cousins like the Neanderthals. The last ice age gave our ancestors a way to cross into North America via the Bearing Land Bridge. Twenty years ago, everyone accepted that humans arrived in the Americas between 11,000 and 13,000 years because that’s when we begin to see evidence of tools used by the Clovis people. This is also when the ice sheets began receding, which opened up migration opportunities. Recently, evidence has pointed to human habitation even before that, perhaps 16,000 years ago. The new discovery, however, pushes the date back to at least 20,000 years ago during the glacial maximum.
White Sands National Park has a huge number of fossilized footprints from the ice age. Scientists regularly find the tracks of extinct animals like mammoths, saber-toothed cats, and giant land sloths. The newly uncovered human footprints were obscured by several layers of sediment, and it’s tricky to date formations of this type. However, the scientists from the University of Arizona caught a break when they found seeds embedded in the ancient stream bed surrounding the tracks. Radiocarbon dating was able to confidently date the seeds as 21,000 to 23,000 years old.
As far as archeological evidence goes, this is pretty much a slam dunk. This unequivocally shows that humans were walking around in North America much earlier than previously known. This is an important discovery because it opens up new areas of exploration. Researchers have found numerous sites that have unconvincing evidence of earlier human habitation. Now that we know humans were in the Americas at the time, those sites can be reexamined with that knowledge in mind.
The footprints can also help us understand the behavior of ancient people. For example, most of the prints found in White Sands are those of children and teenagers, but there were several adults, as well. Unfortunately, soil erosion is obliterating sites like this every day. It’s a race against time to find and catalog our history before it’s too late.
Apple just released the new version of its popular 10.2-inch iPad that has a faster processor and upgraded features over its predecessor. This new device is also now on sale for the first time with a $30 discount.
Apple’s latest 10.2-inch iPad features the company’s A13 Bionic processor that gives it exceptional performance for everyday tasks like web browsing, watching videos and talking with friends. The tablet also has a high resolution display and stereo speakers that make it a highly enjoyable multimedia device. This tablet just recently launched but you can buy one now marked down from $329.00 to just $299.00.
Dell engineered this model to be a large display with tons of desktop real estate. This makes it easier to multitask on multiple windows at the same time. The display also has a high 4K resolution and a USB-C port that doubles as both a video connection and a charging port for compatible notebooks. Right now you can get this display from Dell marked down from $1,159.99 to just $869.99.
Arlo designed this doorbell to be a highly capable home security device. The high quality 1,536×1,536 camera is equipped with night vision for seeing in the dark, and it has a built-in siren as well as a motion detector. Currently you can get one of these devices from Amazon marked down from $149.99 to just $111.00.
Corsair’s Force MP600 supports the new PCI-E 4.0 interface, which enables it to transfer data at a blazing fast rate of up to 4,950MB/s — significantly faster than last-gen SSDs. This particular model also has a 1TB capacity, giving it enough space to store several games and numerous applications. For a limited time, you can get one of these drives from Amazon marked down from $249.99 to just $149.99.
Note:Terms and conditions apply. See the relevant retail sites for more information.For more great deals, go to our partners at TechBargains.com.
Technology is developing at an ever-increasing pace, and applies to more and more sectors of everyday life. Cryptocurrency is at the forefront of finance and technology, and new developments even bring a similar Blockchain technology to art with non-fungible tokens (NFTs), giving digital artworks the potential to be unique and, thus, worth money. It’s a huge development for artists and it’s possible to take advantage of yourself if you only know how to do it. Learning how to create your own NFTs can put you on the path to earning more from your creations, just like learning about cryptocurrencies can help you to build your wealth in a new way.
Right now, you can get The Complete NFT & Cryptocurrency Wealth Building Masterclass Bundle for the reduced price of $29.99, a significant discount of 97 percent off the full ordinary purchase price of $1,200 start learning to make NFTs and take advantage of cryptocurrency to your own benefit.
The bundle includes six comprehensive courses divided into 152 easily digestible lessons spanning 11 hours of essential content to take you through creating NFTs and using cryptocurrency. If you’re interested more in NFTs, take the grounding class for beginners to build out your knowledge before tackling the masterclass that’s included in the elearning bundle. Those more interested in cryptocurrency will probably like to start with the complete crypto trading course, covering all the essential information, before moving on to concepts like candlestick trading, staking and lending, and predicting market moves. The courses are taught by top-rated instructors light Benjamin Wilson, an entrepreneur and marketing innovator with a 4.5-star instructor rating out of five.
Apple unveiled the iPhone 13 family earlier this month after surprisingly few leaks. The lack of leaks might be thanks in part to how boring this year’s iPhone refresh is. The devices are a little faster, have a slightly smaller notch, and the cameras might perform a bit better. Also, it turns out a reasonably priced third-party screen replacement will break Face ID. So, maybe that’s a reason to stick with the iPhone 12.
Face ID is the gold standard for face unlock technology. Apple’s IR face scanning system can identify the phone’s owner in a blink, and no one has come close to the same level of security and functionality. Google toyed with face unlock on the 2019 Pixel 4, but subsequent Pixel phones have stuck with fingerprint sensors. Virtually everyone who buys an iPhone 13 will use Face ID. Unless, of course, they have a busted screen fixed by a third-party repair shop.
According to the Phone Repair Guru YouTube channel, Apple has apparently taken its repair hostility to a new level. After conducting some tests with the iPhone 13, the Guru says that replacing the screen causes Face ID to stop working because the sensors are paired with that specific piece of hardware. Replacing components like the microphone, ambient light sensor, and proximity sensor doesn’t hurt anything, but a non-verified screen forces you to use a passcode every time. Guess what the most common iPhone repair is. Yep, broken screens.
Apple will charge $229 to $329 for an iPhone 13 screen replacement that isn’t covered by an AppleCare subscription. You could get the same component installed by a third party for less, but they most likely will not be able to mate the new screen with the existing hardware. Thus, the phone will report a non-genuine screen and deactivate Face ID. The Phone Repair Guru notes that some non-Apple service centers will have the chops to properly configure the screen, but they are in the minority. For most shops, replacing iPhone screens will no longer be an option.
It’s unclear how the screen and Face ID sensor could be so intimately connected that replacing one would disable the system. Usually, when Apple does something to inconvenience third-party repairs, there is at least a rationale it can wave in everyone’s face. As it stands, this move seems to fly in the face of increasing calls for “right to repair” legislation. The Biden administration and the FTC have both signaled support for these rules, which would prevent companies from blocking third-party repairs. Apple has yet to explain what’s going on with the iPhone 13 screen, so there’s an outside chance it’s just a mistake.
Speeding up a slow PC can be a challenge, particularly when dealing with older hardware that may be on the cusp of needing an upgrade or replacement anyway. Sometimes, a system simply needs a fresh OS install or driver update to perform significantly better. In other cases, upgrade or wholesale replacement are necessary.
This article is designed to help you troubleshoot a slow machine. Specifically, it walks through the process of determining whether your problem is more likely to be caused by software, hardware, or simply the age of the machine.
Initial Questions
Whether you are doing this for someone else or for yourself, here are a few “big picture” questions to consider:
Has the system’s performance changed recently? If the answer to this is “Yes,” did it change when you installed a specific application or OS update?
Has the entire PC slowed down, or just specific applications? If the problem is isolated to one app or a specific group of apps, have those applications been recently updated or modified?
Does the machine feel sluggish and slow to respond to feedback like typing? Does it have this problem in all cases, or only when certain programs are running? Does it have the same lag if booted in Safe Mode?
Does the system begin to run slowly after a few minutes of work or gaming, or is it slow from boot?
Is the system just slow, or is it also unstable? If it crashes, is there a specific application or application(s) that makes this happen reliably?
The answers to these questions will help you understand where the problem is likely to be. If the machine is smooth and responsive in Safe Mode but lags badly when booted to a normal desktop, check and see what applications automatically start when you boot up Windows 10.
The answers to these questions are as important as the baseline specs of the system, especially if you’re trying to save money.
How Do I Tell If My PC Is “Just” Slow?
A PC that’s “just slow” shouldn’t have any other real problems apart from the lack of performance. You should have a feel for how long it’ll take to open a webpage or launch a game, and you shouldn’t see any unexplained variation in those times or particular instability when performing them. A slow PC may thrash the hard drive if you ask it to open too many browser tabs simultaneously, but there should be a reasonable and predictable (to you) relationship between how much work you are asking your PC to do and how quickly it can do it. A machine that’s “just” slow shouldn’t have problems with pop-ups or persistent trojan and malware infections, and it shouldn’t be unstable.
If you’re a gamer on an old gaming PC, said system should still run the same games you bought it to play back then (with allowances for OS compatibility or driver issues). If you could run BioShock Infinite at 60fps on your current computer in 2013 you should be capable of running it today. If BioShock Infinite (or any other old game or application) plays and runs perfectly, but newer software doesn’t, you may be looking at a situation where you need to upgrade as opposed to dealing with an underlying hardware or software problem.
Any PC still using a magnetic HDD is going to feel slower than a PC equipped with a SATA or M.2-based SSD. Any PC with less than 4GB of RAM is going to struggle at least some of the time under even moderate workloads. 8GB should be considered a minimum for any modern gaming. Dual-core CPUs without Hyper-Threading / SMT and CPUs based on Intel’s Pentium, Celeron, or Atom product lines are more likely to “feel” slow, even if the system is well-configured. Systems based on old AMD CPUs from the Phenom II era or the Bulldozer/Piledriver product families do not offer particularly high performance.
A system that was brand-new in 2013 and hasn’t been upgraded since shouldn’t feel like the latest-and-greatest in 2020 — but it shouldn’t be riddled with unexplained performance drops, either.
Tracking Down Software Problems
Performance problems are more likely to be software-related if they are associated with an underlying change to the OS or target application. If you’ve been gaming with no problems but recently bought your first new title in months, your GPU drivers may need to be updated to play it appropriately. It’s never a bad idea to check the minimum specifications for a new title to make sure you meet them: If you’ve got a GTX 480 and the game recommends a GTX 770 as a minimum card, you may well have found the cause of your problem.
Similarly, if you have an older system and you are having issues related to a specific subsystem (networking, sound, video), it may be worth updating your chipset and component drivers as well. The chance of this solving a problem is much higher if there’s an actual identified issue with what you’re using already, but I’ve had reinstalls clear up issues before from seemingly unrelated causes. It’s rare, but the chance isn’t zero.
Tools like Task Manager can sometimes be used to troubleshoot basic software problems with responsiveness and performance. Consistently high CPU usage may indicate a problem with an application, especially if it’s a browser and especially if killing the process improves system responsiveness. Some browser extensions can cause higher CPU usage under certain circumstances.
When you check Task Manager for CPU usage, you can also check the Startup tab. Make sure you recognize the applications that are loaded and running. You may not recognize every process listed in the “Processes” tab, but look for suspicious names or random, nonsense strings of text. In some cases, this may be a sign you’ve been infected by malware — and malware can steal CPU and GPU time for cryptocurrency mining and harm overall perf.
Event Viewer may contain data related to a performance issue or slowdown, but honestly, it’s a crapshoot and interpreting Event Viewer isn’t all that easy for the common user. I’m not touching on it much here as a result.
If you are concerned that old 3D drivers might be hanging around on your rig and cluttering up its performance, tools like Display Driver Uninstaller can be used to completely remove these traces. I use DDU for reviews when testing AMD and Nvidia cards. Booting into Safe Mode, running the tool, and then booting back to Desktop adds some steps compared with just installing a newer driver. But if you’re trying to troubleshoot performance issues, DDU is a good way to ensure you’ve cleansed your metaphorical palate. If you are having issues with your sound card or network solution, it may be worth visiting your motherboard vendor to see if they’ve released updated drivers for these components, for example.
When all else fails, a full Windows reinstallation will almost always nuke any software-related problems and let you determine if a hardware upgrade is necessary. I try very hard not to take this step for obvious reasons — “Just reinstall Windows” is the kind of advice that cost US citizens millions when deployed as part of a scheme to lie to people about the state of their software. Most people do not want to go to the hassle of reinstalling Windows and losing their current data installations in the process. But if you are facing weird performance issues that you can’t lock down any other way, and you’ve tried the other steps discussed here, it’s one way to deal with the problem.
There is an exception to this. Sometimes, a Windows Update is responsible for changes to user systems that cause high CPU usage or break Start Menu functionality. Upgrading components or an entire PC is no guard against these sorts of failures. In these instances, even a full Windows reinstall may not fix the issue.
We’ve discussed the software side of the equation. Let’s talk about what which hardware issues are most likely to slow a PC. I’ve tossed in a fair bit of discussion about what component failure looks like in each case to illustrate the difference between the problems that sap performance and the problems that turn your computer into an expensive paperweight.
Hardware Failure Characteristics (and Which Ones Hurt Performance)
RAM: Failing RAM can make a game run more slowly, but only if the CPU is still having some luck pulling data out of it at all. More commonly, applications just crash. The distinguishing characteristic of RAM failure is that there isn’t automatically a distinguishing characteristic. If the failure has occurred at a high memory address, you may only see the issue intermittently when you have a lot of programs loaded. It may happen mostly in games if games are what you typically run, but a RAM failure will pop up anywhere given enough time. Applications like MemTest86+ can be used to test RAM. MemTest86+ is the only RAM test I recommend — I’m not saying it’s the only good application available, but I’ve seen other RAM testers claim that memory was good when it actually wasn’t. I’ve never seen MemTest86+ throw a false positive or false negative.
GPU: A failing GPU may display odd colors and textures whenever you run a 3D application, or function perfectly for basic desktop work but fail if asked to render a video or play a 3D game. Using a third-party utility like MSI Afterburner may allow you to resolve the issue by either lowering the GPU/RAM clock or increasing the chip’s voltage, but these fixes tend to be temporary. Games may crash at load or may run for short periods of time. The problem may begin in a specific title, but it probably won’t stay isolated. A failing GPU may also refuse to install its own driver.
A GPU that runs perfectly for a long period of time before you start seeing errors or texture flickering may be overheating, but may not be damaged yet. Dust the system and see if that improves things. Many games offer benchmark modes for testing GPUs, and running these tests in a loop will often produce a failure, though it may take multiple loops through the test to see it happen.
GPU failures typically will not slow down the system, unless lowering the clocks yourself (temporarily) fixes the problem.
CPUs: CPU failures are difficult to categorize because CPUs almost never fail. If your CPU’s performance is dropping, chances are it’s a thermal issue — either a mismounted heatsink or a thick build-up of dust. Make certain that your heatsink is properly mounted with an appropriate amount of TIM (thermal interface material) between the CPU and its heatsink.
Power Supply: One way to discover your PC PSU needs replacement is for it to burst into flames without warning. (Ask me how I know!) A far less terrifying method is for your machine to simply flip off or reboot during a gaming session or rendering run. In some cases, your motherboard may warn you that power delivery from the PSU was disrupted. Power supply failures can superficially resemble RAM failures, but MemTest86+ won’t return errors and the PSU won’t trip while running basic desktop tasks unless it’s truly having issues. In these cases, your motherboard may also report that one or more of the power rails is low. Bad PSUs often don’t cause slowdowns; they cause shutdowns.
Hard Drives: Mechanical spinning drives may click quietly and repeatedly when attempting to access certain parts of the drive, or I/O performance may drop badly when attempting to access data. Event Viewer may also log hardware failures if the OS can’t read data across the bus properly. SSDs will not click (no moving parts), but they may display the same longer-than-expected access times or sharply reduced performance as the CPU tries to read data from damaged parts of the drive. In many cases, these types of failures will kill the drive altogether rather than leaving it limping along at a lower level of performance.
Low Storage Space: Not a “failure” as such, but it’s a hardware issue, not a software one. Windows generally does not like to run without hard drive space. The less free space you have, the less the OS likes it. This can lead to errors, application crashes, and cache thrashing, all of which harm performance.
Heat: I’ve decided to list “heat” as a common characteristic of hardware instability and lost perf, rather than breaking this out by CPU and GPU. Dust is an amazing insulator. Pack in enough of it and fans won’t even spin. I’ve lost count of how many gamers and readers I’ve met who were afraid they needed to buy new hardware, only to discover that dusting what they owned restored the performance they were missing. Laptops can be a little trickier to dust than PCs, but if you have a desktop and are experiencing instability while gaming, pop the side of your case off and see if things don’t improve. It’s no guarantee — but it’s not a hard thing to test, either.
A PC with issues in just one game or a handful of games may only need a driver update, especially if the titles are newer. A machine that never crashes during desktop or browser work but slows down and crashes during gaming may need to be dusted. When I run into people who are suffering PC crashes while gaming, one of my first pieces of advice is to take the side panel off their computer. The growing popularity of laptops for gaming has made this fix a little less applicable than it used to be, but you’d be amazed how many “unstable” PCs become stable if you just improve airflow. Dusting is obviously the best way to do this, but you can’t always take time from a raid instance or Fortnite game to hunt down a can of compressed air. Just taking a side panel off is a quick way to test this theory.
Systems are less likely to crash outright from high temperatures than they used to be, but throttling can still play merry hell with game performance. I always check thermals when I’m evaluating system behavior.
Of all the issues here, I’d say dust, driver updates, and low disk space are the three most common factors likely to cause slower-than-desired performance in the absence of hardware failure. Broken software can absolutely cause all manner of problems, but these cases tend to be specific and particular to the user in question (or the hardware in question) and are much harder to resolve in a general-purpose guide like this.
What Can Be Done About It?
Alright, fine. You’ve run through the checklists and you’ve determined your PC is just slow. Now what?
Finding hardware love in the time of coronavirus requires being willing to spend more money than usual in some cases. If you want to buy a consumer GPU for gaming, it’s a bad time for doing so. You can expect to pay 1.5x MSRP or higher at the moment. This is better than the 3x MSRP cards were selling for earlier this year, but it’s not a situation anyone regards as good.
If you are attempting to upgrade your general-purpose PC, look at two characteristics: RAM and storage. If you have an old machine stuck on a spinning hard drive, check into whether it can be upgraded to an SSD. Even some laptops can be thusly equipped, though whether your system qualifies depends on its storage interface and how user-accessible it is. While upgrading such a system is out of the scope of this article, there are options.
The difference between a RAM upgrade and an SSD upgrade for an older system is this: RAM will help you if your problem is that you don’t have enough RAM. Trying to run an application on 1GB of RAM if it needs at least 3GB to run well will lead to drive paging and a lot of slowdowns with erratic overall performance. If you already have enough RAM, though, more RAM won’t necessarily help. 4GB of RAM is quite small for a new machine these days, but a 4GB machine should still be capable of running web apps, word processing, and other basic tasks without a problem.
A solid-state drive, if you don’t have one, is not a replacement for RAM. But if RAM bottlenecks are not specifically your problem, a solid state drive will speed up everything else. In a specific situation where a PC is low on RAM and needs more for an application you need to run, get the RAM. In a generic situation where you just want to speed up the everyday experience of using a PC and low RAM is not the problem, pick up an SSD. Even older SATA-only models have an order of magnitude better latency than conventional spinning disks.
