Need a new computer? Delay the expense, and the cost to the planet, by following these five tips to pep up your current PC
Need a new computer? These five tips might be all you need to squeeze another year or two from your desktop or laptop—and just think of the green-tech that’ll be available by 2011
Nasties like mercury and polyvinyl chloride make PCs hard to recycle. And their manufacturing process, usually involving lead, can also be harsh on the environment. The greenest solution: eke more life from your current computer.
Before embarking on your PC makeover, remember to back up; don’t mount an upgrade just before that big deadline; and keep a trained geek on hand if you’re not computer-confident.
1. Add more memory
Memory (random access memory or RAM) is your PC’s thinking space. The more memory inside your PC, the more programmes it can have open at once, and the faster they will run. In terms of hardware upgrades, nothing delivers more bang-for-buck than adding more memory. It’s especially important in an age when even a simple web browser is a major memory hog. Applications such as photo editors, video editors and games will all perform better with more RAM.
Your computer should have a message on-screen at startup telling you how much memory it has (in megabytes or MB; there are 1,024MB to 1 gigabyte or GB). Alternatively, visit the Windows Control Panel and check out Hardware under System.
An older computer may have just 512MB of RAM; many are still sold with 1GB. Your aim should be to upgrade to 2GB (if you use Windows XP) or 3GB (if you use Vista). Beyond that, you’ll see diminishing returns; other components inside your PC that are uneconomic to upgrade (such as its CPU and graphics card) will simply be unable to keep up.
Expect to pay from around $32 per GB. Memory upgrade modules can be bought at electronics retailers like Dick Smith, or from online retailers like computerstore.co.nz.
There are a couple of complications. First, make sure you have free slots inside your PC to accommodate your new RAM. If you’re not confident about popping up the bonnet, consult your PC’s manual or a friendly geek.
Second, ascertain what type of memory your PC needs. If you don’t know your DDR from your USB, again you’ll need some help. One simple short cut is to take the make and model number of your PC with you when you go shopping. A clued-up shop assistant will be able to match you with the right type of RAM.
For desktop PCs, installation is an easy, DIY affair. If you’re confident, check out the how-to article and video tutorial at good.net.nz/2/ram. Kingston, one of the leading memory makers, also has good tutorials and guides on its website (www.kingston.com).
With a notebook PC, it’s usually best to take it back to a retailer to get an upgrade (the likes of Toshiba and HP have their own drop-off upgrade operations in some centres). Expect to pay more for laptop memory, which usually starts around $90 per GB.
2. Upgrade your hard drive
The hard drive is your computer’s filing cabinet, and upgrading it will give you more room to store documents, music and videos. Almost all desktop PCs will be able to accommodate either a second hard drive (it can be useful to keep your old one for storage) or a large-capacity new one.
Expect to pay around $150 for a 250GB hard drive, or around $200 for a 320GB hard drive. Unless you’re into high-definition video, that should provide all the storage space you need for the next couple of years.
Upgrading a notebook’s hard drive isn’t usually economical, but plugging in an external hard drive can be a great way to add extra storage, plus backup.
There are a number of different hard drive interfaces. Unless you’re a video editing pro, you probably won’t notice much difference in speed if you choose a less expensive option, but you do need to match the right flavour of hard drive to your PC. For a good tutorial, head to good.net.nz/2/harddrive.
3. Downsize your software
If you don’t have the budget for a hardware upgrade, or your PC’s just too creaky to take it, try the reverse approach: install less demanding software.
OpenOffice (www.openoffice.org) requires less horsepower than Microsoft Office, but offers all the word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software that most people need. Better still, this open source software suite is free.
If you miss Outlook then move to Google’s Gmail (www.gmail.com), which can now sync your inbox with your PC’s hard drive. That means you don’t have to be online to review or write messages, thanks to the search giant’s new Gears technology.
With Gears’ offline smarts now available for Google Docs and Google Spreadsheets, albeit only in a beta test version, Google’s free office suite (www.google.com/apps) is also shaping up to be a great free alternative to Microsoft Office.
Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox are surprisingly big memory hogs, and tend to consume more and more of your PC’s resources the longer your surf.
Try Google’s leaner Chrome web browser instead (www.google.com/chrome). Google Chrome was engineered from the ground up to run faster using less memory (and with a minimalist interface designed by Kiwi ex-pat Ben Goodger).
If your photo editing requirements only run to resizing, cropping, red-eye reduction and sorting, check out Google’s Picasa (www.picasa.google.com) or the open source Gimp photo editor (www.gimp.org). Don’t be put off by Gimp’s Pulp Fiction title: it has mainstream features and it’s user-friendly. Both Picasa and Gimp run much leaner than commercial programmes like Adobe’s Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.
4. Clean the house
Use Windows’ Disk Cleanup utility (found under Control Panel) to automatically erase unused junk files that gradually accumulate, and Disk Defragmenter (also under Control Panel) to reverse the glugging-up that inevitably happens over time, and make your hard drive run faster.
A third Control Panel utility, Add/Remove Software, is useful for freeing up space by deleting programmes you no longer use. It’s an especially useful trick in an age when downloads and plug-ins rain down on your hard drive every time you hit the web.
5. Scorch the earth
For best results, do an ultimate delete all. It seems radical to a newbie, but many gamers do it every fortnight to maintain a perpetual ‘new PC’ feeling.
Take care to back up first, and ensure you have a copy, on disk, of Windows and all your other programmes (plus modern day annoyances like serial numbers and product activation codes). Then, reformat your hard drive (if you don’t know what that means, ask your friendly geek). Next, re-install everything from scratch.
Yes, it will take most of an afternoon. But nothing crisps up performance like scorching the earth.
