Computer Basics Terminology: What is a Hard Drive, What Is RAM

http://www.worthgodwin.com - This simple, plain English explanation of two commonly confused computer terms will make a lot of sense. More free, easy computer lessons are available at WorthGodwin.com

Category:

Education

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[videopublish]

Argh. I just accidentally removed a nice comment trumbachd1 made on this video. :(

YouTube *really* needs an undo button for the "Remove" feature. I wasn't looking carefully and clicked remove instead of reply. My apologies.

[JOHNEY101]

hi i just want to ask a question i play alot of video games on my computer and my computer is slow and lagg alot so is this the solution to make my computer faster or should i just reboot my computer so its good as new?

[videopublish]

Many things can cause your computer to bog down like that -- it could need more RAM or a bigger hard drive, or it may not have a fast enough processor, or a good enough video card, or if it's an Internet-based game, your connection may be slow, or you could have a virus or it's even possible the antivirus program is "confused" and trying to defend against the game. I had that very problem with GTA IV bogging down in cut scenes until I told my AV program to ignore it.

Many possible causes.

[jdogisdxruler12]

I have a problem with my computer I always get a blue screen. It says that i need to do a memory diagnostic, or that i didi not install somthing right. I have 893mb ram on a 32-bit is that the problem.

[videopublish]

Blue screens can be caused by a variety of problems. It is possible (and this is an educated guess since I am not able to examine the computer myself) your PC may have bad RAM -- the actual part may be bad. On the other hand, it could be a driver issue, or something else; I really can't say without checking it out myself. Hope that makes sense.

[ahmear01]

so is ram like sort of extra space or just where certain things are stored please write back

[videopublish]

Again, it's like a tabletop or work bench -- a space the computer needs to do its work. Think of taking a book off a shelf and placing it on a table to read it -- that is like when your computer loads a Word document off of your hard drive into memory. When it's done it "puts the book back" so to speak.

[videopublish]

Downloadable files (games or otherwise) take up space on your hard drive once you have downloaded them, if that is what you are asking.

[videopublish]

Yes, you probably can save documents (like Word documents, pictures, music, etc.) if it has the free space. Some companies use a second "partition" (most likely, drive E: is not a second physical drive, but a section or partition of the only hard drive in the computer) for the restore information, so you want to be careful not to disturb that in case you need to restore to factory settings in the future. But otherwise, it's probably fine.

[videopublish]

Thank you; it's the result of practice and hard work. I used to be terrible, and I still think I have room for improvement.