Have you ever noticed that just doing some of the most basic tasks on your computer takes a long, long time? When you load a website or when you open a spreadsheet it takes you twice the amount of time that it used to. Maybe you decided to go online and learnt tips on how to perform a system restore or reset your computer to factory defaults and it still runs very slow? Well, it might be time to upgrade your computer, if you have had the same computer for more than 3 years I highly recommend that you upgrade it and buy a new computer.

Now, you may ask yourself how can I save money when buying a new computer?

Well, let’s take a look why you need a new computer and why no matter what you do, your computer is very slow.

First of all, there is a good change that you have a spinning hard drive, which no matter what will cause your computer to slow down.

Also, if you have huge amounts of data, your computer will take time to load and run no matter how many times you perform a system restore.

Hardware with time also will become slow, your CPU fan and the thermal paste on your processor will be affected by heat, dust and vibrations, all of this will affect your computer performance, also websites and other software becomes more and more demanding as it gets updated, all of these factors will make your computer slow even if you try to perform factory resets, your computer will need to be upgraded.

Now, here is the fun part, you are ready to buy a new computer right? But how do you save money? Here are some useful tips to accomplish that.

1. No matter how cheap they are, do not buy used computers online. The main reason for this is because most of these computers will be outdated and slow like yours, in most cases buying any new computer no matter how low spec it is will perform better than any older computer.

2. Buy refurbished computers online, these are the computers that someone opened and used once and decided to return them, most retailers will factory certify these computers and offer warranties that are at the same level than new computers, I can usually find great deals on refurbished desktops and laptops on Tigerdirect.

3. Install your own upgrades, in most cases when you buy a new computer it will only come with a limited amount of hardware like RAM or Hard Drive. It is very easy to upgrade your computer RAM for a little amount of money or even replace its current hard drive with a faster Solid State hard drive, you can buy a low spec computer for very little and upgrade it’s components for a very low amount of money.

4. Do not pay for any extended warranties, no matter how much they pressure you to do that, usually the warranty offered by the retailer will be enough to see if the computer is in good shape or not, components now a days are very affordable and computers are very easy to fix, do not pay an extra amount no matter how much they scare you into buying it.

5. Build your own and install Linux on it, doing this not only will save you money but it will be an amazing learning experience, plus installing your very own operating system like Ubuntu will save you literally hundreds of dollars since Windows can be very, very expensive. Plus you will save yourself the headache of having to uninstall all of that bloatware and having to run antivirus software, you can build yourself a solid computer for a few hundred dollars that will perform better than most computers out there, plus you’ll learn about Linux and you’ll find out just how easy it is to use and how many applications work just as well as Windows and Office.

As you can see, buying a new computer can be a great experience, specially when you are saving yourself some money, there are a lot of options out there and it is a great way to learn more about technology as well, final word on what to do with your old computer, I would say do not get rid of it, use it as a backup computer or storage place where you can run it when you want to use it for tasks that do not require faster speeds, you can use it as a file server or a backup stations, if you feel like you need to get rid of it consider donating it to a school or church.