As laptops grow older they become slower, this isn’t news to anyone. However, most people don’t know it is always cheaper to upgrade your old laptop instead of buying a new one.
Upgrading your five-year-old laptop can be easy and a lot more cost efficient than buying a brand new $1000 laptop.
Add more RAM
RAM, or Random Access Memory, is a type of computer memory that powers operating systems and other software. It helps add more memory for a smoother, more powerful computer. Every RAM is different and how much you’re willing to pay depends on how much RAM you can get. Most computers come stock with 4 GB, but you can get 8 GB for less than $70. Replacing RAM is easy, all you need to do is unscrew the bottom of your laptop, pop out the RAM sticks and replace them. Most laptops have tutorial guides online. Most laptops allow up to 16 GB RAM so research and buy whatever RAM fits your laptop.
Get a new Hard Drive
Adding more storage to your laptop can give it more space to save files. Changing the hard drive is similar to RAM; all you need to do is unscrew the bottom of the laptop, unscrew the hard drive case and pop in the new one after you transfer backups through a flash drive. Most laptops come stock with a hard drive disk and adding a new hard drive between 750 gigabytes and one terabyte can cost less than 70 dollars. However, if you’re really looking to crank up the power on your laptop you can buy a Solid State Drive. These are a bit more expensive but are definitely worth it. A 256-gigabyte can cost up to $120. SSD’s are incredibly fast and can even make your computer boot up 20 seconds faster.
Do some Spring Cleaning
This may be the easiest way to speed up your laptop. Look through all of your programs and files, trash and delete anything you don’t need or aren’t using anymore. Movie files and software programs can take up massive amounts of space in storage. Another viable option is to purchase an external hard drive and place all of your files in there and erase them off your main hard drive to save space. External hard drives are cheap and have plenty of space
