Upgrading Hardware
If you’re okay with spending some
money on hardware upgrades, it’s
recommended! However, before you make any changes to your hardware,
you should backup your system
First.
Memory
By adding more memory to your
machine is the easiest way to
enhance performance of an older
machine.
Upgrade graphics card
You can even choose to upgrade its
graphics card to enhance your
computer’s performance, specially
when your motherboard has
integrated graphics. In case, you are unsure of type of expansion slots you have, make use of the utility SIW,
which is available for free.
Hard Drive
By getting a larger and faster hard
drive is another way to enhance the performance of your PC. In most laptops, the hard drive is 4200RPM,
and it is possible to upgrade to a
5400 or 7200RPM drive that should enhance read/write performance.
CPU
If you’re an advanced user, it is
highly recommended that you
upgrade your Desktop CPU in order to improve its performance. You need to find out what CPUs are compatible
with your motherboard and chipset.
Reinstall Windows
After extensive use, Windows OS
starts slowing down. It is likely to
happen even when you do regular
maintenance such as using Disk
Cleanup, defragmentation of your
hard drive, and cleaning of your
system with utilities such as
CCleaner. But, before you reinstall
your OS, you need to ensure that you backup your crucial data!
Use Portable Apps
If you want to avoid installing a
bunch of new software on your old
machine, you might consider taking a look at Portable Apps. You can run these from your USB flash drive and they don’t need any installation. You
can save your data to the flash drive without clogging up your local drive.
Also, you’ll have the additional
benefit of bringing your favorite apps to any machine.
Install a Light Version of Linux
Puppy Linux
If your older laptop is running XP
and doesn’t have the power to run
Windows 7 OS adequately, check out Puppy Linux that can be used to add life to it. It is only 130MB and comfortably runs on any machine from the past 15 years. You just need a Pentium 166MMX CPU and 128MB of RAM as minimum requirement.
DSL Linux
DSL is another light Linux distro
which is small in size and just like
Puppy Linux is possible to from a Live CD, flash drive. You can even install it inside Windows. It is only 50MB in size and can run on machines with 16MB of RAM!
