How to Upgrade Your Old PC
By Leo Notenboom
When trying to squeeze a few more years out of that old PC…start by combining these great tips with regular computer maintenance.–PC Pitstop
Unfortunately, there’s no blanket answer that I can give to you. It depends on what you’re trying to do with this machine and specifically how it isn’t meeting your needs today.
If you’re considering an upgrade, it’s obvious then that there is something about this machine that you don’t like. You either want to improve it or do something with it now that you can’t do currently.
Let me throw out a few ideas.
Start with RAM
When I have an old machine and I want to extend its life, I start by maximizing the amount of RAM that’s installed on that machine. How much RAM you can actually put in a machine will depend on the specific machine. More specifically, it depends on the motherboard in that machine; each has a limit as to how much RAM that can be installed.
When machines are purchased or sold new, they’re frequently not fully populated. Your machine may have a capacity of 4 GB of RAM, but you may only come with 512 MB. That’s very common particularly in older machines that were built when RAM was fairly expensive.
Examine the machine or look up what the machine’s capacity for RAM really is and then max it out. Put as much RAM in there as you possibly can. That’s perhaps the single more important thing that you can do to almost any machine to speed it up and give it a longer life.
This post is excerpted with permission from Leo Notenboom.
