5 proven ways to speed up an aging desktop (and 1 scam to avoid)

Published Aug 18, 2026, 12:15 PM EDT Monica J. White is a journalist with over a decade of experience in covering technology. She built her first PC nearly 20 years ago, and she has since built and tested dozens of PCs. PC hardware is her main beat, and graphics cards and the GPU market at large are her main area of interest, but she has written thousands of articles covering everything related to PCs, laptops, handhelds, and peripherals. From GPUs and CPUs to headsets and software, Monica's always willing to geek out over all things related to computing. Outside of her work with How-To Geek, Monica contributes to TechRadar, PC Gamer, Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, SlashGear, Whop, and Digital Trends, among others. Her ultimate goal is to make PC gaming and computing approachable and fun to any audience. Monica spends a lot of time elbow-deep in her PC case, as she's always making upgrades, testing something, or plotting out her next build. She's the go-to tech support person in her immediate circle, so she's never out of things to do. Whenever she has spare time, you'll find her gaming until the early hours and hanging out with her dog. An obvious way to speed up an old PC is to upgrade it or buy a new PC. But what if you can't or don't want to? (And who can blame you, with consumer GPUs pushing beyond $1,600.) The internet will try to sell you on many different fixes, as well as software, that'll make your PC as good as new. I'm not going to promise you that -- the only way for your PC to be new again is for it to be made up of all new parts. However, I tested all the most common PC speed hacks. The following are the ones that actually made an aging desktop PC better. Getting an SSD The single biggest upgrade for any old PC I'll be quick here, as I know most of you already have this, but if some of your relatives have truly ancient PCs, this is the single best upgrade you can gift them: just get an SSD. As long as the computer supports it, it'll be like night and day in terms of performance. If the old PC has an HDD as a boot drive, it likely crawls along, with OS boot times reaching 10+ minutes. I've been there, although it feels like forever ago now. (Now that I think of it, an old job had PCs with no SSDs, and it was an absolute nightmare.) It's not just boot times this will speed up, but also Windows Updates, searches, installs ... basically everything that involves the drive. Just make sure to avoid some of the most expensive SSDs. They'll be wasted on an aging PC (and likely unsupported at their maximum PCIe speed, anyway). Patriot P320 512GB PCIe Gen 3x4 M.2 2280 SSD When all you need is any SSD, period, you don't need much. Patriot's 512GB PCIe 3 SSD offers sequential speeds of up to 3,000MB/s, and it'll blow your HDD away. Cutting down startup apps You may not even realize how much bloatware your PC is dealing with Credit: Nick Lewis / How-To Geek This is a common suggestion, and it's a sound one. I notice this myself on pretty much every PC I use -- you just accumulate startup apps over time. Game launchers are notorious for this, as is various software for peripherals, among other things. Each extra app = slower loading times, even on an SSD. Besides, you don't use most of those things every day, so why even have them? If you're on Windows, this is an easy fix. Open Task Manager, select Startup apps, and go through the list and disable programs you don't need to open up the second you boot up your PC. This won't uninstall these apps, it'll just prevent them from launching immediately. The effect on your PC will depend on how old it is and how many of these apps you've accumulated. Older PCs definitely feel a difference. Getting rid of background apps, too It's not just when you boot your PC Credit: Dibakar Ghosh | How-To Geek Startup apps are only one part of the "my PC is super slow" dilemma. One of the other pieces of that puzzle is the existence of many background apps. Plenty of software keeps running in the background, even though you're not using it at the time. Some of it can be notorious for slowing your PC down, such as updates to various software (or Windows). A lot of it is unnecessary. Spend some time looking at the Processes in your Task Manager, and see which apps are hogging some serious resources. If there are some that consume a lot, a good ol' fashioned Google search will tell you what they're for and whether they're safe to disable. One myth buster, though -- obsessing over getting your RAM usage as low as possible isn't needed. In fact, it's futile. Windows uses a certain portion of your RAM, and it'll use more if it's available to it, then free it up when it's needed elsewhere. Cleaning up your SSD Assuming you have one (see step 1) Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek An SSD that's close to full is an SSD that's underperforming, period. Anyone with an SSD can benefit greatly from getting rid of some files (or moving stuff to an external drive, for instance). Does this actually improve your PC's performance? Yes, provided your SSD is already in the "too full" zone. If your SSD is half empty, deleting files isn't going to help, but if it's in the 80 to 100% area, then yeah, you should see a tangible improvement. I always do, especially when the SSD creeps up to close to 100% capacity. Windows needs space for temporary files, updates, caches, the page file, etc., and a full SSD can't provide that. SSDs themselves also benefit from having unused NAND for various housekeeping tasks. So, get deleting, and enjoy the performance boost. Cleaning your PC Grab that compressed air Credit: Ismar Hrnjicevic / How-To Geek I said it before and I'll say it again: the one PC upgrade that costs exactly $0 is simply giving your desktop a clean. Software isn't the only reason why a PC slows down, and if yours has been sitting there, gathering dust for years, it's probably being suffocated from within by a layer of, you guessed it, dust. Dust can clog intake filters, heatsink fins, and reduce airflow to the CPU and the GPU to the extent that your entire PC throttles. This is especially noticeable when you play games or run other software that uses up a lot of resources. Simply getting rid of dust should be able to drop the temps by a few degrees, and that alone can make a difference in a PC that's actually thermal throttling. Avoid like the plague: PC cleaners As much as it takes time to optimize your PC, please don't take the easy route and fall for various "PC cleaner" type apps. A lot of them are actually malware or are actively trying to scam you. Meanwhile, others may mean well, but could still damage your PC or delete all the wrong stuff. Set aside an hour and go through everything manually -- you'll be glad you did later. Compressed Air Duster $20 $24 Save $4 This compact electric duster is the gift that keeps on giving. An older PC covered in a layer of dust may get a second lease at life thanks to this nifty little gadget. Battery 240 minutes on lowest settings