How to speed up my PC?

geek84

Good Morning Folks

I have a desktop which is nearly 7 years old and works quite slow.

How can I improve this? There is a lot of 'rubbish' that I have managed to accumulate over the years and stored on the desktop. How can I get rid of that?

I have heard of a product called ccleaner? Has anybody used it before? Is it any good?

Thanks

getmore4less

General cleanup of software and reinstall will do a lot.

Then next two are
Memory, max that.
SSD.

I just swapped a dying hard drive to SSD on an 8y old dell vista machine cloned the drive.

Running fine.


Definitely worth running hardware diagnostics I suspect most of my slowdown problems were the drive on the way out.

googler

Do you have the original install disc(s) for your Operating System?

Is it something like a Dell or HP, where the maker will have a support section on their website, with drivers and the like?

If so, buy a small SSD. Disconnect the current HDD, install the SSD, install OS and drivers. Then install the current HDD as a secondary drive.

grumpycrab

geek84 wrote: »

I have a desktop which is nearly 7 years old

4GB memory is sufficient; chkdsk your disk to ensure its in good nick then...
OPTION1. assuming Windows7 just backup data and reinstall; SSD not needed at this stage.
OPTION2. if you like playing then install windows10 (from ISO) WITHOUT A LICENSE; if it works buy a cheap OEM license max £20; if it doesn't work then goto OPTION1.

System

Take the lid off, look at the CPU heatsink. Chances are its clogged up with fluff/dust. That will mean the CPU overheats and throttles its speed. Sometimes, especially on laptops, it can result in it shutting down.

It can be cleaned with a soft brush, a 1" paintbrush is deal, and a vacuum cleaner but unplug the CPU fan and try to stop it rotating when you use the vacuum. You may need to remove the CPU fan from the heatsink and its usually just held in place by four screws.

[Deleted User]

Get him a new bicycle perhaps?

austonic

What do you use it for? If it is email/websurfing/photos editing/writing documents/spreadsheets, then a clean install of the free Linux Mint distribution (for example) will provide you with a speedier experiece. (If you play Windows games, there is a good chance, as the games are probably not that new, that they will work under WINE as well - check at winehq.org

A clean reinstall of Windows will help a lot. SSDs are a lot faster than HDDs as well. Others have said this already.

bluesnake

Have a look in the bios and look for AHCI or Raid, as older computers need these to maximize ssd, otherwise you need special drivers for ssd which may not exist.

I put an SSD in a 6 year Compaq and it made no difference. Also added usb3 board which also did not work... all due to the bios. and there was no bios upgrade for it either.

Around this age is early windows 7 time which is pre SSD and trim

Think it was a M2N68-LA (Narra5) motherboard

bigfreddiel

geek84 wrote: »

Good Morning Folks

I have a desktop which is nearly 7 years old and works quite slow.

How can I improve this? There is a lot of 'rubbish' that I have managed to accumulate over the years and stored on the desktop. How can I get rid of that?

I have heard of a product called ccleaner? Has anybody used it before? Is it any good?

Thanks

Install a Linux distro, like Mint cheers fj

boliston

Linux is an idea as I was getting fed up with how laggy w10 seemed on my 3 year old pc (4th gen i5) - i used to like ubuntu but did not like the way it seemed to be a bit commercial now so went with debian 8 in the end which works really fast and only updates when i decide to update it!

bigfreddiel

boliston wrote: »

Linux is an idea as I was getting fed up with how laggy w10 seemed on my 3 year old pc (4th gen i5) - i used to like ubuntu but did not like the way it seemed to be a bit commercial now so went with debian 8 in the end which works really fast and only updates when i decide to update it!

Nice one, cheers fj