ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (WHAT THE TECH?) — When was the last time you upgraded your computer? It’s likely been a long time and you may be wondering when to get a new one.

Viewer Vanessa Hatfield sent a question inspiring this. She wrote, “My laptop is about 15 years old. It was able to upgrade to Windows 10 but not Windows 11. When I turned it on today, it was very slow. How much longer can I keep my laptop?”

The life expectancy of a PC is generally 5-7 years. Vanessa’s computer came with Windows XP. You can’t update that computer to Windows 11 or get security updates.

At five years old, PCs will generally become slower to start up and operate software and programs.

Let’s face it: we’re all slower than we were 15 years ago. If you just can’t part with an old computer, you may be able to speed it up to some degree.

If your computer or laptop has one of the older spinning hard drives, known as a SATA drive, here’s what will happen at some point:

A dead hard drive means you’ll lose everything on it unless it’s backed up on another drive. Have a qualified computer technician install an SSD or solid-state drive.

You can also try using the free software “CCleaner”. This software deletes trackers, and unnecessary files, and removes apps and programs that load at startup.

It is probably time to upgrade a computer after 7 years. Now is a good time to do it because new PCs will come pre-loaded with Windows 11.

If you only use a computer for browsing the web, social media, and checking email, provided you keep it free of malware, it isn’t out of the question that a PC lasts 10 to 15 years. Although, it will have limitations and it’ll be slow.

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