Buy new or upgrade?

[mediabob]

Hi,

I have an HP P6-2133w desktop PC that has:

AMD A6 3620 Quad core @ 2.5Ghz
8GB Ram
1 TB HDD
Integrated Radeon HD 6530D graphics

I think its 5ish years old? Maybe a bit more?

It's an overall decent PC, but it has become a bit sluggish. It hesitates here and there and sometimes will hang for a second. VERY slow to boot and shut down. Sometimes it lags while typing. This started with Windows 10, with 7 it was very good.

The upgrade to 10 was of course over 7 so I did a complete wipe and reformat and installed a fresh copy of 10, but it does not seem to change much.

This PC is basically just for internet browsing, doing some office work, watching some YouTube now and then, that sort of thing. Its not for gaming obviously or anything super intensive. The most intensive thing this machine needs to do is open more than 2 excel documents, which incidentally causes it to hang up sometimes.

So my question is, would a RAM upgrade and an SSD help much? The MB can support up to 16GB of RAM, and I considered swapping the mechanical HDD for and SDD. The motherboard will also support an upgrade to an A8 processor but I don't really feel there is much bang for the buck in that...

Would the upgrades be worth it or should I just get a new PC? Again, not looking for a powerhouse, just something that reliably works for basic tasks.

Thanks for the input!

 

[imsqam]

Hi,

8 GB of RAM is more than enough for the usage you have described so adding RAM is likely not worth it. But to make sure open Windows Task Manager and see how much of your RAM is being used. The A6 while being old and being weak should still support your usage. And you are right, upgrading to a 65W A8 3820 will not improve performance much. The fact that this issue arose when you installed Win10 makes me believe that you have a software related issue. Were the boot times slow when you had Win7 installed? It is possible that your HDD needs to be looked at, it could be failing or maybe it just needs to be defragmented. Does the HDD LED constantly seem to be lit?

An SSD will dramatically improve boot times over an HDD, I cannot live without them but I have no patience for boot times.

I would advise against an upgrade on this platform (FM1), it not valued added.

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

I agree if you don't do much on this pc, don't bother with anything else. Just grab an SSD. I would probably get either a 250 or 500gb depending on your needs. You won't have the fastest computer around, but I'm guessing that computer will run better than it did new with just upgrading to an ssd.