Thread: new computer
View Single Post
 
Old 12-24-2019, 09:22 PM
JerryLBell JerryLBell is offline
Veteran member
Join Date: Jan 2015
Posts: 736
Thanks: 0
Thanked 388 Times in 137 Posts
Default

If you are comfortable backing up your data and reinstalling Windows and your applications from scratch, doing so often makes your computer seem to be as snappy quick as it was when you bought it. That's usually because most folks end up installing a whole lot of junk apps simply by visiting various web pages that can add a lot of stuff running in the background that slow down your foreground application. There are some utility programs that you can buy and run that also try to "clean up" your computer from junk like that without having to do a complete re-install.

If you find you are trying to do tasks that are CPU-intensive, memory-intensive or disk-intensive that you didn't used to do when the computer was new, then it can help to add a faster CPU, more (and faster) RAM and/or a faster and/or larger hard drive. However, that can be challenging to do with a laptop as they are often not designed to be easily upgraded. If that's the case, then a new laptop can be the best fix.

Before buying a new PC, think about what you are doing with your computer. For most folks, that is just firing up a browser and doing email, online banking or surfing from the browser. They are not generating large amounts of data and so don't need a monster hard drive. They aren't doing photo or video editing or playing high-end video games and so don't need super-fast video cards. They aren't working with huge amounts of data and so don't need huge amounts (like 32 or 64 Gb) of RAM. They aren't running tons of applications simultaneously and so don't need a CPU with a lot of cores (some of the new CPUs have 10 or more cores and effectively double that number with virtual operations). As Windows continues to evolve, it is generally using more and more RAM, but 8 or 16 Gb is probably more than enough for most people. It's like buying a new car. On the one hand, you don't need a Ferrari to go get groceries but if you're a professional racer and this is your race car, you probably don't want to buy a mini-van. If you're mostly watching cute kitten videos on YouTube and checking family pictures on Facebook, you don't exactly need a state-of-the-art, expensive PC.