Four Signs You Need a New PC

Do you ever feel like a frog getting boiled to death in slowly heated water, but instead of a pot of water it’s your computer, and instead of a frog it’s you, and instead of death by slow heat it’s a slow death by waiting for your computer to do stuff that used to seem to not take so long? Wait, you mean you noticed it was slower? Oh good, because the frog noticed it was getting warmer and for damn sure didn’t get boiled. Do your own research on the frog, in the meantime, I’ll give you 4 signs that you need a new computer.

It’s 5 Years Old

Is your computer 5 years or older? Stop reading this blog and start reading this one: How to Chose a New Computer, No Really. If you don’t know how old your computer is, find it’s serial number or service tag and do a Google search for ” [your computer brand] serial number lookup”. Plug in your serial number into the form, and you should get an idea of how old it is.

You Aren’t Running Windows 10

On the off chance you still have Windows 7 or Windows 8, your computer is at least 5 years old, and not worth upgrading. See my blog suggestion above.

You Still Have a Hard Drive in your Computer

Modern computer storage is now on Solid State Drives (SDD) vs Hard Disk Drives (HDD). A hard drive is a mechanically spinning magnetic disk, and it very slow compared to solid state storage. If your computer has an HDD, instead of an SDD, your should either upgrade your storage or just go buy a new computer.

An easy way to see what kind of storage you have is by opening the Task Manager. On your keyboard, type press the Ctrl-Shift-Esc keys all at once. Now click “More details” and then click the Performance tab. You’ll see something like the image below. If your Disk 0 (circled in red) is HDD and not SSD, then you probably need a new computer.

Your CPU Isn’t Powerful Enough

If your CPU can’t keep up to you, it is time to get a new computer. This one is a little harder to tell, but I’ll give you a couple tips.

First close all the programs open on your computer and open Task Manager as in the previous section. Look at your CPU percentage, underlined in red in the pic above. With no programs running, your computer should be at 25% or lower.

Now look at the name of your CPU, boxed in red above, and search it at CPU Benchmark. If your CPU score is less than 5000, your work is probably feeling bogged down. If your CPU score is less than 4000, do I need to repeat myself?

Any one of these four signs would be enough for me to recommend a new computer, after all, you are spending a good portion of your day putting bread on the table via that computer. Stop wasting your time. If you have two or more of the four signs, say no more and go speed up your life.