As a general rule, if you are hovering over a balcony, second story or above, contemplating the health risks of free flight, it may be time to let go. Viruses, spyware, and unwanted installs that came with your latest automatic software upgrade can slow your computer to a H A L T . But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s time to give it the boot (pun intended). Here are five signs that it’s actually time to get rid of the old, and bring on the new.

  1. It’s really freakin OLD. You are still running Windows 95, 98 or ME and the software you need to run your business won’t work on those operating systems. It may do just fine at getting on the internets, but, little do you realize, they stopped making software, including virus protection updates, years ago. Those old PC’s may still have a heartbeat, but it’s too slow to keep up with today’s internet speeds and software requirements.  Have a ceremony, light a candle, and let it go.
  2. You’ve never heard that before!  All computers make noise, fans running, hard drives spinning, and general power noises.  But when it starts to creak, moan, and hesitate… heat up, shut itself down, common sense says we may be looking at the end of its life span. Scrapping, scrapping noises are BAD. This could mean your hard drive is near failure, and if it’s an older computer, it may be difficult to replace
  3. That’s just not pretty.   It was ok when you were in college or just starting out in your business to keep that “I heart hamsters” sticker on the side of your computer chassis, but it’s just not professional looking. A client coming into your office wants to see you have everything under control; your office should be clean and neat, and updated.  And no, spray paint is NOT the answer.
  4. Is that ALL?  Your music library now has exceeded that of the National Hall of Records, and your computer is completely full. If you have already upgraded your hard drive, and it’s maxed out, you are trumped. You can start connecting a bunch of external drives with cables, but wouldn’t it just be easier to start fresh?  Let me help, yeah, it would…….and probably cheaper too, in the long run.
  5. Is there an elephant in the room?  Storage is cheap now, many laptops have the capacity to store about 10 times more information than a 4 to 5 year old cumbersome, gigantic, space swallowing desktop computer.  And if your business is at all on the go, that same laptop acts as a portable office, a hipster hub, if you will.  Desktops are still king for screen sizes, but for speed and flexibility, laptops are the way to go. And you can always connect it to a larger monitor in the office.

Finally, ALWAYS back up your stuff. This sounds like third grade info, but if you are running a computer super old, you may not have kept up with technology that allows you to back up data into the pretty cloud. Do it and don’t wait. All hard drives have a 100% failure rate eventually! (true fact).

The Computer Admin Helps You Plan, Connect and Protect your computer systems all throughout Southern California.