I know many of you are not in a position to buy a new computer, or even buy a refurbished one right now. The economy has hit us all in various ways financially. I understand this, and here to help out a bit with some ideas for upgrading your existing computer to get more life out of it. All of the things I will show you can be done on a tight budget, and could do yourself. This doesn’t mean you HAVE to do them yourself, as these services are available from me. So lets get down to the list and the long and short of them.
- Memory upgrade – If you have less the 4gb of memory in your computer, you might think about this upgrade. The more memory your computer has the faster it will be able to work with the data your computer is processing. If your machine is a 32bit operating system don’t get more than this as it will not be able to use it anyways and would be a waste of money.
- Video Card upgrade – The video card is what shows your the pretty pictures on the screen.
If you upgrade this item, your main processor won’t have to do as much work on drawing these and has more time for the rest of it’s jobs….therefore a things get done faster. This upgrade is not difficult, but you may need to find out what kind of video card your system can handle. There are many types and brands to consider, and not all cards work with all machines. If you don’t know how to figure this information out contact us for more information. - Hard drive – The speed of access for hard drives has gone up drastically in the last few years, as well as storage capacity. If you can upgrade to fast larger drives, the information your computer is using can be accessed fast and with more room to operate.
- Operating System. Your machine still using windows 95? It may not be able to handle the latest operating systems like Windows 7. If someone installed to beefy an Operating system this could slow you WAY down. You need to match you OS with your machines abilities.
- Processor – This one needs to be looked at by a trained technician. There are many variables in what kind of processor your motherboard can handle. Not only the motherboard, but it is a delicate operation if you are not sure of what you are doing. Simple static discharge can destroy a processor just by one touch in the wrong place and the wrong time.
- BONUS – MotherBoard. This one is not for the feint of heart, as upgrading this can lead to upgrades of ALL the other parts to ensure compatibility., but can lead to a major increase in performance.
Although this is a short, brief list of what you can do to help your old machine out in times of slow down. These are only hardware solutions. There are many software problems that can, and need to be solved in order to get the most out of your machine. Our next article will be addressing these areas. I hope this quick list has helped you a bit. If you ever have questions on how we can help you get the machine of your dreams or just need advice on how to increase the performance of your current one Contact us for a free consultation.
