To Upgrade or Replace?
Earlier this month a friend of mine called me up and asked me she had 2 desktop which are currently sitting at home is currently starting to feel sluggish or “laggy” as the desktop was probably 11 years of age. And she was asking me should she just upgrade it (adding more rams) or get a new one instead.
I then explained to her that, chances are that the hard disk is slowing down. And quickest fix is just upgrading the old hard disk with an SSD or also known as Solid State Drive which could easily speed up the computer up to 10 times. And maybe throwing in an additional ram, followed by installing the latest Windows 10 should pretty much do the trick. So I got her to send it over and I will try to install a spare SSD I have and see how it goes.
From the video above, you will noticed that I managed to boot into Windows around 30 seconds or even less. Whereby initially, it would take close to 3 minute for it to get into Windows Desktop. Anyway, she was sold with the idea and asked me to proceed with the plan of upgrading the Desktop.
“Upgrade or Replacing a new one” would probably be on everyone’s mind especially when coming to an old device. We pretty much spend most of our time on our phones or tablets, and once it starts to get slow we tend to try and sell our previous phone (or hand it down). Hence we tend to do the same thing for our computers as well in directly, thinking that it’s old and it’s time to change. But in actual fact, we can actually do something about it to reduce e-waste.
Based on a published project report on inventory of E-waste in Malaysia funded by the Ministry of Environment Japan (MOEJ), the projection of the total amount of discarded E-waste will be increased by an average of 14% annually in Malaysia, and by the year 2020, a total of 1.17 billion units or 21.38 million tons of E-waste will be generated. Televisions and mobile phones are among the largest contributors of E-waste in terms of volume and units.
http://www.doe.gov.my/hhew/facts-and-figures/
You must be thinking when should I replace a new computer or should I get a new one instead? Again it all depends on what are you currently using your computer for. If you are currently your PC for browsing the Internet, check emails or doing documents. Best way to go is just upgrade the specs, instead of getting a new one. Because parts are so much cheaper and easier to obtained now compared to years ago when they first come out.
So when will you need to get a new one? Well, unless your work requires it as most of the latest software now requires more power and your PC can’t support despite the upgrade. Then by all means get a new one. But so far almost everyone who approached me are not power house users, and I will recommend to upgrade instead of getting a new one. Never the less, I will be posting all my upgrade projects here for all of you to follow. So stay tuned!