One of the most common reasons for replacing a computer (especially a home computer) is that it "runs too slow". The funny thing about that is that most of the time the problem isn't a hardware problem, but a software problem, curable through a variety of methods that are almost all available to the home computer user.

First, the performance of many computers is hampered by having way too many programs installed and running when the machine starts. Take a look at your startup folder and see if you have ten million programs running when you start the machine. Remove ones that you never use, and if you've used your machine for any real amount of time there should be quite a few there.

Second, you may just be out of hard drive space. In addition to data storage, the hard drive is used to store data that is used in the current session of the computer running, but won't fit in memory. You should always have at least ten percent of your C drive available for windows to use. Any less and you're looking at a severe performance hit.

Third, you should defragment your computer. Defragmenting the computer will allow windows to find things much faster which will result in a quicker computer. With a highly fragmented drive, your machine will slow down severely as it will have to search all over the place to find data.

Finally, one of the biggest causes for computer slowdowns is the presence of adware. Adware, in addition to showing a bunch of useless advertisements, will slow the machine down by requiring resources to download new ads and all kinds of other things that don't benefit you. You absolutely need an anti-adware program to keep your machine running smoothly.

Check over these four things on your home computer and you'll be sure to squeeze out quite a bit of extra performance that you may have thought it never had. It's amazing how many old machines can be made to run like they're new just by cleaning them up.