Many of us have age old computers in our home and on a dilemma what to do with old junks? When we are purchasing the system it all top notch in the segment. As the time passes computer becomes sluggish, drives filled with a lot of files and some times hard drives starts to make some weary noise ! We are also irritated by seeing the system takes more time than normal to load an application or pages. Sometimes the OS freezes up suddenly or sometimes unexpected restart may happens, which may sometimes spoil your work. Buying a new pc is not an easy solution, as it requires time and money ! Moreover the new system gets older with a few months and shows the same symptoms. Then what to do?
As your laptop or pc gets older it collects unused files and settings which take up hard drive space making it slower and slower. Here we are going to check some solutions that can effectively transforms your old pc or laptop and your old pc will get a new life.
Optimize and Clean Up your Computer
This is the first step you want to do. Clean your old PC or laptop. Removing malwares,spywares, adware’s from your computer is essential. Then check for errors using error checking. Next clean Up unnecessary files that you don’t want. There is a lot of unwanted files, images and media files on your pc, find it and remove it. It’s time to uninstall the unused Programs on your computer. Yes we are all doing the same thing, installing tons of software’s without even thinking is it needed or not? some times some free software’s will install apps as part of their free package. Anyways remove those unwanted applications without any hesitation. Check your system is up-to-date or not, if not update the system, you ca check the Windows update, if you are using a windows computer. In your system files not arranged in a sequential manner. sometimes some files may be deleted and some new files are created on it’s place. Do a disk defragment to arrange the files. This will surely speed up ypur system, but defragmenting requires a lot of time to complete. Do it only on free time. Next things you can do is optimize the device for better performance. This changes will give some changes to the visual appearance, but surely give a boost to your system resources. You can disable visual effects, this will free up some ram. Set energy settings in power option to ‘high Performance’- it favors performance, but may use more energy. Well, how to do it one by one, don’t have any idea on doing this. Don’t worry, you can depend on third party apps to do it for you. CCleaner is a best tool for it, it cleans up these files and makes it faster instantly. CCleaner erases your browser search history and cookies, the registry cleaner clears out this clutter to make your PC more stable. You can easily disable unneeded programs. You can use Glary Utilities, it is also a free, powerful and All-in-one utility for cleaning your PC.
Reinstall or reset your OS
If you encounter frequent problems with your PC, you can refresh, reset, or restore your computer. Refreshing your computer reinstalls Windows and keeps your personal files and settings. Another advantage is it also keeps the apps that came with your PC and the apps you installed from the Windows Store. Resetting your computer will reinstalls Windows but deletes your files, settings, and apps, except for the apps that came with your PC. But before going to reinstall, keep a CD or thumb drive of the operating system with you. If Windows needs some missing files, you’ll be asked to insert recovery media, which is typically on a DVD disc or thumb drive. To save time be ready to insert the media at the time of asking for it.
Install or upgrade to a new OS
You can reinstall or upgrade to a new OS. I am having a tablet running on Windows 8, after an year of heavy usage, it becomes slow, then I decided to upgrade it to Windows 10. Thanks to Windows 10, it can efficiently run an old system better then the old OS using less resource. You can give atry, it the hardwae supports, please check the system requirements or system compatibility.
Increase RAM
You can increase RAM by purchasing additional compatible RAM or replacing the existing RAM with a compatible new one with more capacity. Increasing from 2GB ram to 4GB RAM will definitely give a boost to your system’s performance. You can experience the difference when you open multiple windows on your browser or when multitasking.
Replace your Hard disk with SSD
Replacing your computer’s hard drive with a new solid state drive (SSD) make your computer run more quickly. Changing to SSD makes your Windows loading 10X faster. I myself experienced it. I added a Kingston 120GB SSDnow to my 2 year old system and I experienced a fast boot. The heavy load applications like Photoshop and noticed it’s loading faster than HDD. A must upgrade from my experience. You need a 120GB or 128GB SSD for it, you can also looking for a more capacity version version if money permits. A 120GB SSD is enough to hold Windows 10 and applications. After installing windows 10 pro, I noticed the OS just took 20Gb and rest is ready to use for apps. For laptops you can change your old HDD to SSD, which will definitely give a speed boost in performance. It not only boost the speed but also saves battery life, as it requires less current than an HDD. You can replace your optical drive with an SSD, as nowadays no one is using optical drives. Solid state drives rules over CDs and DVDs. You can buy a hard disk drive adapter (caddy) to replace your optical drive. You can use it for your old laptops and macbooks.
Install Linux
Installing Linux is a good option, as most Linux requires less system resources than Windows. You can get different Linux distros using less system resource. You can choose your flavor to start with. There are a number of Linux distros, but we recommend to use Elementary OS. It is afast replacement for Windows and Mac and looks like a Mac. Elementary OS is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. One of it’s great feature is the AppCenter. It delivers native, open source apps to elementary OS. You can quickly discover new apps and easily update the ones you already have. Elementary OS comes with a carefully curated selection of apps that cater to every day needs so you can spend more time using your computer and less time cleaning up bloatware.
Install a cloud OS or do something new
A New startup, Neverware has created a software that can turn an old Windows or Mac computer into a fully-functioning cloud-based computer. The software turns old systems into Chromebooks. Chromebooks are computers that runs on Google’s Chrome operating system. Neverware’s CloudReady app is based on Google’s Chromium OS- that is the same open-source architecture as Chrome OS. Both CloudReady and Chrome OS are based on the open-source Chromium OS, CloudReady uses web apps and cloud storage instead of traditional software and local storage. CloudReady is designed to be installed on existing PC and Mac hardware, whereas ChromeOS can only be found on official Chrome devices. There are two editions of CloudReady, each with a different cost.
Home edition- The free edition of CloudReady is intended for individual use, and so does not integrate with Google’s Admin console. The Education or Enterprise editions of CloudReady (also available to non-profits) are fully supported by their dedicated Support team, and can be enrolled and managed in the Google Admin console alongside Chromebooks.
Whether your computers are brand new or a decade old, installing CloudReady provides unparalleled speed, simplicity, and security without hardware limitations. 
Conclusion
We have discussed several methods to speed up your old computer. Which method you are using, what’s your opinion?
