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10 cheap and easy upgrades for your old PC

techradar.com — Economical upgrades that will extend the useful life of your PC

Who dugg this? Made popular Jan 30, 2009

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  • gaqua, on 01/30/2009, -3/+152Here's a better list.

    1 - Clean up your *****, dad. I'm tired of coming over and finding a new toolbar on IE or Firefox every time. I'm tired of thirty icons in the systray, half of which have some bizarre relevance to programs that are no longer installed. Go to add/remove programs, and remove anything you don't use.

    2 - Defrag that *****. 74% fragmented. SERIOUSLY? How is that even possible? I'm scheduling this for every Wednesday night at 10pm dad. I know it's going to freak you out when it starts doing this all on its own but just leave it alone and let it do its magic.

    3 - 512MB of RAM? Do you know how cheap RAM is? PC2700 DDR1? Oh my God...I think I might throw up. For $50 I can get you to 2GB of RAM. $50.

    4 - I'm installing Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy - your system has over 200 known spyware problems. I'm fixing them. I'm making this machine bulletproof. Don't ***** with it anymore. I'm installing AVG anti-virus. It's going to ask you to update it - UPDATE IT WHEN IT ASKS.

    5 - Holy ***** I can't believe this - you're running XP without even SP1 installed. I'm installing SP3, Dad. It's a lot more secure. Jesus christ this is like the dark ages of computing.

    6 - Oh ***** ***** - 3 hours to download? What the ***** - you're still on that 512k DSL? Mom is paying for Cable! She's paying for Cable internet, Dad. I'm going to unplug this wire from the DSL modem and plug it into the cable modem. Yeah. No it's very easy. And I'm calling AT&T and canceling DSL. There, I just saved you $50 a month. And yeah, the internet is faster.

    7 - Oh look, you have a cutesy animated desktop background. Yeah, your celeron 1.6 GHz probably doesn't like that, especially with the 16MB integrated graphics. I'm going to turn that off. I know, I know. But it's best for everyone.



    HOLY ***** YOUR COMPUTER IS FASTER NOW DAD. Please, tell everyone in the family that you "don't know what he did but the computer is so much better, you should call him and have him come take a look, I'm sure he'd be happy to!"

    There's nothing I love more than that, dad. I love fixing Uncle Butch's disgusting laptop with the inexplicably stained keys and I love playing around with the disgusting beige eMachine that Aunt Patsy uses to send all those cool inspirational email forwards with pictures of kittens or penguins or koalas or pandas.

    No, I understand. As the oldest and most computer knowledgeable, it's my responsibility. Just like Uncle Mason would help us all out if we got into legal trouble right? Well, if he weren't disbarred for fraud, I mean.


  • Ommatidia, on 01/30/2009, -0/+105What are you talking about? I read this article and ran out and bought a new monitor based off of its recommendation.

    Now my computer is super-fast.

    Thanks TechRadar!
  • inactive, on 01/30/2009, -1/+93Half of these aren't cheap and most of them aren't useful.

    ReadyBoost? Totally useless.
  • andarnold, on 01/30/2009, -7/+66Linux will speed up any system, regardless of the specs, you jsut have to learn have to use it.
    Solid State Drives, cheap?? Well thats laughable.
  • BobMysterioso, on 01/30/2009, -0/+59This is a pretty crappy list.
  • snowplow527, on 01/30/2009, -0/+57Solid State and cheap shouldn't be in the same sentence.

  • greenbarbi, on 01/30/2009, -5/+37I got a old desktop in my garage. Upgrade your RAM and install linux!!
  • Aurabolt, on 01/30/2009, -0/+31Someone will be reading that comment on "the old days of digg" on some archive site in 20 years and laugh.
  • fuckingusername, on 01/30/2009, -0/+27and after you did all that you're going to say dam I just could have bought a new computer! for all of that crap I just bought.....
  • slicecom, on 01/30/2009, -0/+2710 cheap and easy upgrades for your old PC

    4. Solid state drive
    Solid state drives are faster and run cooler than their hard drive cousins, but cost more.

    DOES NOT COMPUTE.
  • twiztidsinz, on 01/30/2009, -5/+29"Linux will speed up any system, regardless of the specs"....Until you want to run games
  • nightsweat, on 01/30/2009, -1/+24Oh, barf. Come on, I like Linux as well as anyone, but it doesn't speed up your system. It does less extraneous work so basic tasks work faster, but you're not running the same applications.
  • CalcProgrammer1, on 01/30/2009, -1/+22Old = Pentium/Pentium 2 era. Old is marked by unusefulness. Even a Pentium 3 is good enough to do most tasks that people use their Core 2 Duo's for. I have a Pentium 3 Thinkpad (850MHz/512MB RAM) running XP and it's fast enough to browse almost any site. I use it to browse Digg a lot and Flash works fine.

    I think someone needs to straighten their idea of old out before writing another article. I'm using a Sempron64 1.8GHz now and it's running Windows 7, not exactly an old PC in my opinion. It isn't a high end rig, but it isn't "old".
  • SkeetTron5000, on 01/30/2009, -0/+21"Graphics card"
    Sweet, now I can play all the newest games with my friends!

    "Install Linux"
    Wait a minute...
  • artfiend77, on 01/30/2009, -0/+19*golf clap*

    That was classic and also more informative than the article.
  • colasrtney, on 01/30/2009, -5/+24Stop cursing at your father!
  • slayernine, on 01/30/2009, -0/+19Terrible list, a solid state drive is a BAD idea for an upgrade. Maybe if your building a new system but I suggest against placing expensive components in old systems.
  • Mankind121, on 01/30/2009, -0/+19This list is *****.
  • paulieman, on 01/30/2009, -0/+18Buried for a ***** list!
  • camg188, on 01/30/2009, -0/+18Here's a better way upgrade cheaply:
    AMD Athlon X2 BE-2300 Brisbane 1.9GHz 45W Dual-Core $40
    Foxconn M61PMV GeForce 6100 Motherboard - Retail $40
    1 GB memory $10
    WD Caviar SE WD800AAJS 80GB SATA 3.0Gb/s HD $34

    Total $124

    These cheap components would probably still outperform my old XP2600 system with all the article's suggested upgrades. If you can reuse your old memory and HD your only talking about $80.

  • rsdigi, on 01/30/2009, -0/+18How retarded is this list? So retarded that it lists ready boost as an option to speed up your OLD pc. Uh readyboost started with Vista. If you're gonna say "old" you should mention maybe XP or even better Windows 2000, but even they are a stretch for "old". Old would be ME, or 98. Fire this guy.
  • sndream, on 01/30/2009, -0/+17ReadyBoost? Intel Turbo Memory?

    Seriously, you can go out and buy those low end CPU-motherboard combo for around $100 which will much faster than the "upgraded" computer.
  • inactive, on 01/30/2009, -0/+15readyboost. lol
    about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
  • lsocoee, on 01/30/2009, -0/+13There is nothing cheap about "upgrading" to solid state hard drives.
  • tgc1, on 01/30/2009, -0/+12Why is RAM last on the list!? What the *****? That's one of the only things that will noticeably improve the response from an older system and RAM right now is insanely cheap. Otherwise you can try and hunt down a better processor for the board in there. Get a bigger hard drive would be another.

    In the end it really depends on what you're using this thing for. I usually turn older machines in to servers for miscellaneous projects. Yes, I know they consume more power. But I use them only periodically. Otherwise you'd have to consider a full replacement of the mobo, memory and CPU as a package. Which would noticeably improve the performance, and essentially become a new machine but at what cost? Sometimes it's better to just build a new system.

    FYI - the last machine I built cost a little over $300 to build with separate PSU and a nice Antec 300 Case. I'd have spent more than 300 upgrading my old machine.
  • orvtech, on 01/30/2009, -1/+12Still ... that 'old' computer could gain new life with linux, you could put it to good use as a guest PC, download machine (have bittornado, clamav, nfs, ftp, appletalk with some scripting) so that you don't infect your windows machine or many other projects.
  • okitasan, on 01/30/2009, -0/+11I'm sorry, but as soon as I saw that readyboost was the first thing listed, the article lost all credibility for me.

    Not only does it not work (well), but I doubt most people's old PCs even have vista... o_O
  • Leviathan433, on 01/30/2009, -0/+11You could chop out a kidney and make 30k
  • blackfrancis789, on 01/30/2009, -0/+11how did this end up on digg?
  • CasinoJack, on 01/30/2009, -0/+10Mate, I feel your pain - come here and have a hug!
    Though I would add CCleaner, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and Defraggler to the list.
  • artfiend77, on 01/30/2009, -0/+10I have an Aunt Butch.
  • gaqua, on 01/30/2009, -0/+10Yeah, then I could take all the time in the world to re-train my 54 year old father on a completely new operating system when he's been using Windows for the past 20 years.

    That's the easier solution. Because the guy who can't seem to grasp the usefulness of the universal remote control I bought him for christmas is the same guy who would thrive in a Linux environment.

  • FXNGLAS, on 01/30/2009, -4/+14Installing Ubuntu is the only option on that list that's even worth considering, and it's free for ***** sake.
  • pika2000, on 01/30/2009, -0/+10The only cheap ones are the last three. Burried asn inaccurate.
  • TheSpook, on 01/30/2009, -0/+10Furthermore, adding memory may not be cheap on an old system. Legacy memory can be expensive and hard to find.

    Then again, the author thinks solid state drives are cheap, so whatever.
  • edzynda, on 01/30/2009, -3/+12poop
  • cesar33, on 01/30/2009, -1/+10Dugg for #4. AVG Anti-virus, Lavasoft Ad-Aware, Spybot Search & Destroy all the way buddy!
  • bacon_skoda, on 01/30/2009, -0/+9I just downloaded a new computer..woohoo!
  • 3tcp, on 01/30/2009, -0/+83. Second hard drive
    6. New monitor
    7. NAS drive
    9. Extra USB ports

    ROFL. Buried, hard.
  • rblancarte, on 01/30/2009, -0/+8ReadyBoost and Linux in the same list buried.
    Doesn't even make sense.
  • inactive, on 01/30/2009, -0/+8i agree in that most people who think Core2Duos are "old" and Pentium 4s are "ancient" are too caught up in money and jackassery to realize the value that some of these not-brand-new pieces of hardware have. I would consider Pentium 4s a little dated, highly inefficient, and not particularly powerful anymore (no single cores are anymore), my P4's still rocking pretty well considering it's 4 years old; for standard work and even some power work (video editing actually ISNT outta the question; though rendering times are annoying), and is running Windows Vista and 7 quite well.

    and Core2Duos, well, they're still new! and are still VERY powerful, no matter which you have.
  • retral, on 01/30/2009, -1/+9Not sure why this is on digg since I'm pretty sure this is common sense/knowledge to at least 90% of diggers.

    Bury me if you feel otherwise.
  • CrazySpaniard, on 01/30/2009, -0/+7partition that ho
  • funkytaco, on 01/30/2009, -1/+811. Cleaning out the dustbunnies and roach crap.
  • CrazySpaniard, on 01/30/2009, -0/+7here this monitor will make your computer faster
  • bobdigi, on 01/30/2009, -0/+6I stopped reading after ReadyBoost. What a crock of *****.
  • crushfan, on 01/30/2009, -1/+7"only 21", eh? You're a grown man. I had 15 children when I was at your age.

    (I gave them away last month)
  • TheSpook, on 01/30/2009, -1/+7RAM drives, much like this article, are lame.

    I would have mentioned using a spare hard drive in a RAID w/ a cheap controller before using a solid state drive on an old machine.
  • llibja, on 01/30/2009, -2/+8Buried for being a terribly inaccurate.
  • Cerialthriller, on 01/30/2009, -0/+6not to mention if you had to read this article to find out ram will make your pc better you probably dont know which kind to buy or even know that there are different kinds.
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