(FORTUNE Magazine) – This past Christmas, I decided to end our family's tradition of technology hand-me-downs. Before that, when I upgraded my home PC, my son would get the old one. But now that he's a teenager, I decided to give him a new machine and simply upgrade my own. After all, he needs the computing power for games and videoconferencing. I do most of the testing for this column on PCs and Macs in the office and use my home computer for word processing and accessing the Net.

My experience upgrading the PC was a reminder of how far the computer industry still has to go to become consumer-friendly. (It may also help explain why some longtime PC users are turning to iMacs.) I'm an experienced computer user; over the years I've added and removed hard and floppy drives, memory chips, and sound cards. I figured I would spend around $300 to add a couple of years of life to my aging PC. Financially, I spent less than that--but the cost in terms of time and effort was virtually immeasurable.

The object of my upgrade: a Micron Millennia. I was having doubts that my Millennia would make it to the millennium. It was state of the art when I bought it three years ago: 133-Mhz Pentium chip, 24 megabytes of RAM, and a two-gigabyte hard drive. Now it was underpowered. Loaded with software and linked to an ISDN line, the Micron was sluggish--the hard disk churned a lot, and programs loaded slowly. And I didn't have enough memory to run new programs like Dragon Systems' voice-recognition software.

What's more, I was using Windows 95, which needs lots of elbowroom. (Forget about Win98--I didn't even dare attempt that with this older machine.) My strategy was simple: I would add more RAM and install a second, larger hard drive. My timing was great. Memory is cheap, with rebates galore. I bought a 6.2-gigabyte Western Digital hard drive for $199, with a $30 rebate; 32 megabytes of RAM was just $59.95, with a $20 rebate. My total cost: $209.

Unfortunately, I failed to consider labor in my calculations. When I opened the PC's case, I found all four memory slots filled. A little math determined that my system had two 8-megabyte memory modules and two 4-megabyte strips. I popped out one of the 4-megabyte modules and installed the 32-megabyte strip, expecting to end up with 52 megabytes of RAM total. But when I rebooted the PC, nothing seemed to have changed--as far as the Millennia was concerned, I still had 24 megabytes of RAM. I looked for some kind of switch to flip--but there was none. I fiddled with the connector, making sure the memory strip was properly seated. I restarted the machine several times. Nothing changed. The Millennia insisted that I had just 24 megabytes of RAM.

I'm not one of those guys who are embarrassed to ask for directions. So I called Micron. After ten minutes on hold, a technician explained that I couldn't change just one module--I had to change two simultaneously. That meant a subway ride back to the store for another 32-megabyte memory module (and another $50). After I popped both modules in, bingo! the PC ticked off 80 megabytes.

That small victory gave me courage to take on the hard drive, a more difficult task. My PC, like most in recent years, came with an IDE hard drive. (IDE is the prevailing standard for hard drives in Windows PCs.) To keep things simple, I was going to add a second IDE drive by linking it to the existing one. The new drive's skimpy instruction booklet gave clear directions for connecting the two. I read that I needed to make one drive the "master" and the other the "slave." By moving a tiny jumper I designated my new drive as "slave," but selecting the old drive as the "master" took some guesswork.

After double-checking my connections, I turned on the system. Once again the Millennia was oblivious to my efforts. I went to the PC's setup screen, which configures the BIOS (basic input, output system), the built-in software that controls the PC's basic functions. After I rebooted and hit the F2 key, up popped a screen full of information about drives and other hardware. I tried to enter information on the new drive, but the PC wouldn't let me.

When I checked my connections again, I found a line in the setup screen for the IDE controller, which manages the hard drive. Though it read "automatic," something wasn't happening automatically. I clicked on that box and saw options for "single" and "dual." I had visions of wiping out three years of data on my old drive, but I plucked up my courage and clicked on "dual." Reboot, and voila! My PC realized I had a second hard drive.

But now a new problem arose: The PC saw the new drive's capacity as only two gigabytes, one-third its actual size. I knew this was a limitation of older machines running early versions of Win95. Only after I installed some so-called "translation" software that came with the new drive did the system recognize all my new storage capacity.

My old PC was definitely snappier after the upgrade. The drives didn't churn as much, and some applications appeared rejuvenated. I'd stayed within my $300 budget, but I had invested at least ten hours of labor. If I'd hired a computer consultant charging $100 an hour, I would have been better off with a new machine.

Oh, my son's new PC? I went with a brand name this time. I found a good price ($1,199) for an IBM Aptiva with 350-Mhz Pentium II, a DVD drive, and 96 megabytes of RAM. On Christmas morning we tried to turn it on, but the machine froze at the Windows 98 screen. I spent the next two hours talking to IBM support. (Grudgingly, I have to admire IBM for having people on duty during the holiday.) But nothing would revive the Aptiva. The next day we exchanged it for another one, which worked fine. I hope it lasts him a while--I'm not ready to upgrade again anytime soon.