Hard Drives - Internal Storage - The longer that you own a machine, usually the more files and information you build up. It won't be long until that drive will be full. Adding an additional hard drive will allow you to store much more data. A large number of PC desktops will have space to run multiple hard drives (which would appear as a D: drive along side C:) and they are very inexpensive to add. IDE hard drives work on a Master and Slave system, whereby two devices may attach to each connector, one is a master and one is a slave device - your new drive will need to be set to the right setting. If you are unsure please ask us before purchase.

Connectivity - Connectivity is the means by which devices connect to your computer. These are used for a great number of purposes - from printers, scanners and mice to external storage and optical writers. Second Chance PC supply a wide range of upgrade cards which can increase your connectivity. Here is a brief summary:

• FireWire - FireWire is a high speed connection used by many external devices. Mostly it is used for the import/export of digital video and connection of high speed storage devices. FireWire can be added very cheaply into a free PCI slot, and is a user upgradeable part. Once you have FireWire you can add external hard drives, external CD/DVD writers and many other devices to enhance your computer.
• USB - USB is stands for Universal Serial Bus and has two revisions. USB 1 is used for the connection of printers, scanners and mice, it has a slow connection speed (ideal though for these devices), the majority of new peripherals are USB - so a cheap USB card can expand the connectivity of your machine considerably. USB 2.0 is the second revision of the USB connection it has a much faster connection rate and, like FireWire, can be used for a wide variety of storage and optical devices. USB 2.0 is backwards compatible with USB 1, so a USB 1 device will work on USB 2 - and the other way around, albeit at a slow speed - as always if you have any questions, please let us know.
• IDE - IDE is the most common internal device connectivity, it is used for CD writers, hard drives and removable media. In larger PC desktops it is possible to run out of IDE connectors on the motherboard, but still have space for more devices, in these cases an additional IDE PCI card can help by giving you extra connections.
• SCSI - SCSI stands for Small Computer Systems Interface and is used for connection of hard drives and CD drives internally, and scanners and some specialist equipment externally. SCSI is a fairly difficult connectivity to master, and requires a great deal of thought beforehand - it can provide the fastest internal transfer speeds but at a cost (SCSI hard drives can be up to 6 times more expensive than their IDE equivalents ). A lot of high end scanners also use SCSI to get the fastest throughput.

Optical Drives - Internal and External Optical devices - CD writers, DVD writers and Combo drives are available. These can fit either internally to your machine, or externally  these devices allow archiving and additional storage, and the ability to write your own CDs and DVDs.

Graphics Cards - The graphics card is the device which your system uses to display on its monitor(s). These are quite easily replaced with a faster, better card which allows greater resolutions and increases speed in things like games and other 3D graphics applications. Second Chance PC only sell new graphics cards for the Mac, but PC ones can be easily purchased elsewhere. There are two types; AGP and PCI - the former is a newer technology and can handle cards with up to 256MB of memory, allowing the fastest possible output (it is worth noting that if you have a slow processor then these make less of an impression). The latter are an older type of connection, there are PCI graphics cards that you can buy, but they are of a lower spec than those available for the AGP slot.

Processors - The CPU - This is the central processing unit of your computer. It acts on your data and gives the result. These can in some cases be upgraded, but are generally more complicated, as there are a number of manufacturers and many types of connection type. Second chance PC does not currently offer PC processor upgrades, and generally we would only advise you to go down this route if you are confident you have enough knowledge in this area to choose and install one yourself.