[rpoz-29]

Our old Gateway is almost 6 years old. It's been updated a couple of times, but has gotten pretty slow, and "locks up" frequently. I'd like to spend as little as I have to. It isn't used by my son's for school any more, and therefore isn't used to download music, or other memory eating stuff. We use our computer for selling or buying on ebay, poking around on the internet, basic communications, etc. Should I buy a "package deal", or keep my monitor, keyboard and replace only the modem?

[pknowles]

I always build my own. It's not usually cheaper than a $299 deal from Dell, but I get what I want (and it's still not terribly expensive).

That's the way I've always done it as well. My first roommate in college was a computer science major and got me started on all this computer stuff.

We use our computer for selling or buying on ebay, poking around on the internet, basic communications, etc. Should I buy a "package deal", or keep my monitor, keyboard and replace only the modem?

For the money you can't beat the price of a Dell if you just want a newer computer. Like every computer they have their "issues", but are great about tech support from what I here.

Things to speed up your current computer in the mean time
1. Defrag your hard drive (This can really help a lot)
2. Clean out your C drive. If your disk is getting full this can really slow you down.