Three years ago, I bought a perfectly adequate Gateway computer for my collegebound daughter. She has used it since to write papers, chat with friends online, E-mail home, and browse the Web. It cost about $1,500. When her brother heads off for campus in a couple of weeks, he will use his new Dell computer far more ambitiously. Today's college students regard computers not just as educational tools but as their central nervous systems, where they surf the Web, "instant message" one another while playing CDs, or watch TV and movies.

Such multifarious usage places a new set of demands on the computer, requiring far more memory and faster components. Much like their parents at work, students discover that being connected to a high-speed network that is always open for business ushers in a whole new world they are more than happy to explore.

That makes them among the first with cutting-edge technology that the rest of us will soon be using. And here's the bonus: These screaming machines don't cost a penny more than my daughter's now-ancient Gateway did.

That means parents of collegebound kids can spend as little as $1,000 on a name-brand computer that won't freeze when asked to juggle Web browsing, E-mailing, and term-paper writing at the same time. Or they can move up several hundred dollars and buy a real dream machine.

We settled at the start on a brand-name computer. Saving a few bucks by buying a no-name or used computer is often a bad bargain. Campus computer departments can best support the machines they know. It may be best to choose the specific brand a college recommends. That doesn't mean other computers are subpar. It just means the technicians at the other end of the campus hotline stand a better shot at nursing a known model back to health. We chose Dell because that is what James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., prefers, and JMU will be our son's new home. (Many colleges publish recommendations on their Web sites and in handouts.) With that principal decision made, we began dealing with the nuts and bolts:

Power. Many people think speed-how fast the microprocessor inside the computer crunches data-is synonymous with power. In fact, the processors in even the slowest of today's machines-500 MHz in Windows-based PCs and 300 MHz to 400 MHz in Macintosh computers-are speedy enough for almost any task that doesn't involve intensive graphics or mathematical modeling. To boost power meaningfully, add random access memory (RAM). "Get more memory, as opposed to the fastest machine available," advises Gary Kimminau of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Computer Shop.

The more RAM, the less likely that a computer will stall when asked to handle multiple tasks. Entry-level systems typically come with 64MB of RAM. Doubling that to 128MB, which most colleges advise, usually costs less than $100.

Hard-disk capacity. Supersizing the hard drive is another smart investment. Colleges typically suggest 10 g...