Computer Optimization, Part V – Upgrading
In the previous section, we identified the part(s) of your system that need to be upgraded. Now that you’ve identified the problem, you need to decide how to deal with it. Some issues can be overcome by minor upgrades, but others aren’t worth the cost or trouble, and are an ideal opportunity to replace the PC.
If you’ve decided that you don’t have enough RAM, that’s usually the cheapest and easiest upgrade you can make to your PC. Depending on how much you have and how many slots your motherboard has, you may be able to install additional DIMMs or you may need to replace existing lower-capacity DIMMs with larger-capacity ones. There are dozens of incompatible varieties of memory, so if you’re not sure what you need, the best thing to do is to check the owner’s manual that came with your PC when you bought it. You still have it, right? If not, either take a DIMM out and bring it with you to the store or if you’re buying online, search by the make and model of your PC, rather than for the type of memory.
If you’ve decided that your network card is too slow, you can probably install a faster one into a cardslot or even a USB port – this, too, is a relatively inexpensive and easy upgrade to perform. Most PCs built in the last 10 years have PCI slots, so you can probably look for a PCI-technology network interface card (NIC) at your local computer store or online. They come in wired or wireless varieties, depending on how you’ll be connecting your PC to your network. If you’d rather not open your PC, both wired and wireless NICs come in USB varieties nowadays, too. If your Internet connection is too slow, you won’t have to do a thing to your computer – just contact your ISP and discuss your options for upgrading your service to a higher bandwidth – or shop around to see what the other ISPs are charging.
Most of the time, if you decide that your processor is insufficient, it’s usually best to just replace your PC. Motherboards are designed to work with a small range of different model processors, and even if yours was the low-end model, the cost and trouble to upgrade to the high-end processor wouldn’t produce a noticeably-worthwhile improvement; trade up for a PC with more processor cores, instead. The only exception to this rule might be if your motherboard allowed you to upgrade from a processor without L1 cache (such as a Celeron) to a processor with L1 cache – that could produce a noticeable-enough improvement to warrant the cost and difficulty. If so, check your owner’s manual (or specs online) to see which processors your motherboard will accomodate, and if you decide to do it, once you factor in the cost of your time and effort, it’s probably best to just upgrade to the best and fastest one available – you don’t want to have to do this again in a year when you outgrow a tiny incremental improvement.
Historically, when a computer’s hard drive became the bottleneck, that was also usually a point at which I recommended replacing the entire system. In some cases, however, the rules have changed today. Replacing a hard drive involves reinstalling the operating system and all the applications, as well as transferring all the personal files and data, so it’s usually such a labor-intensive process as to make it the ideal time to upgrade the rest of the PC along with it. Today, however, with the popularity of digital photography, mp3 music files, videos, and other space-hogging multimedia data, it’s frequently possible to optimize an existing hard drive by offloaded all such personal files and data to external storage. USB flash drives are now available in 64 GB or more, and external USB hard drives exceed 1 TB (which is 1,024 GB). It’s a pain in the butt to have to change the installed location of most applications and Windows components, but to move data files is significantly less trouble. In fact, to further improve performance, you could even offload your PC’s virtual memory file to a second (internal) hard drive without too much trouble. As we discussed in earlier articles in this series, the more stuff you have on your hard drive, the less efficiently it operates, so by moving all this type of non-system-critical data off of the hard drive that contains the operating system and the applications, you may be able to restore most of the PC’s youthful performance without too much trouble.
Ultimately, all of these upgrades are only stop-gap measures. Software patches and updates will continue to require increasingly more space on your main hard drive, and you’ll probably add more features and applications over time. Even if you’re terribly miserly about using up space on your main hard drive, there are still increasing demands. It’s also one of the few mechanical components in your PC, so its lifespan can already be expected to be shorter than any of the solid state components. At some point you’re going to need a new main hard drive, and at that point, I’d still stick with my position that it’s a good opportunity to replace the whole PC.
If these minor upgrades get you by for another year or two, you’re ahead of the game. Many people are perfectly comfortable with upgrading their own RAM modules, but if you need help with that or with any more technical upgrades, just email our support techs. When you’re finally ready to replace your whole PC, be sure to check out our refurbished PCs to get the most bang for your buck.
