Six Ways to Refresh Old Laptops

Anyone seems to still own an old laptop that has deteriorated in performance, after more than five years of use. Maybe you have it now and are thinking of replacing the old laptop with a newer series. Is there another way to refresh an old laptop without having to buy a new one?

#1: Three hardware upgrade options

• The first small thing to do is to update the Wi-Fi and switch to the Wireless-N option (82.11n protocol). That way, your laptop can get faster network connectivity than when using 802.11b or 802.11g. Most Wireless-N products are found to be much faster than, for example, Wireless 802.11g. You can replace it by buying an 802.11n adapter that can be plugged directly into the USB port.
• The second thing is to do a hard drive update. This method not only provides more internal storage space, but also improves the overall performance of the laptop. A new HDD with a speed of 5400-rpm or 7200-rpm will increase the speed of storage performance in terms of booting, data transfer, and other common uses. But before replacing the old hard drive with a new one, make sure that the data on the old hard drive has been moved.
• Add a new memory chip to increase the performance base of the laptop. If your laptop has 512MB of memory, for example, you can increase the RAM capacity to 1GB. Most standard RAM today is cheap, around 200 thousand for a 1GB RAM chip.

#2: Three operating system refresh options

• Taste Linux whenever possible. It is a lightweight and free type of operating system. For an older laptop with a resource capacity that is not too large, Puppy Linux is an attractive choice. In addition, Puppy Linux can also be run via USB Flash Disk or CD. Its booting capability also proves to be very fast.
• Operating system update to Windows 7. Maybe your laptop is currently running Windows Vista or XP operating system. It would be better if you consider the option to use Windows 7, especially if your laptop hardware is adequate for this. It is said that Windows 7 has been proven to work very well on older laptops and notebooks.
• Reinstall Windows. The longer you use an operating system, the slower its performance. But in principle you don’t need to worry, because this is normal. That’s why it takes effort to reinstall Windows. After reinstallation, the system will gain freshness and in turn will work faster. Unfortunately, reinstalling Windows using the restore disc provided by the laptop vendor will also reinstall it bloatware. This program is actually not very useful. You can use Revo Uninstaller Portable to get rid of it.

Why old laptops need to be refreshed

Efforts to refresh an old laptop, as mentioned above, will make your laptop more useful. An old laptop that has been refreshed becomes a sweet device that can be a backup for the main computer, if at any time something goes wrong with it. In addition, you can also use the old laptop to browse important information about home arrangement, for example. Then you can also give the laptop for the children to use.

In short, there’s a lot that can be done after trying to refresh an old laptop. Instead of throwing it away or storing it because it is old, it would be better if it was reused to do light work.

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