I sit here typing this as I have been asked this question about 10 times in the past week having not been asked it in months. On the face of it this seems like a logical question, after all it is not as if the computer has 'aged' like my dodgy knee or it is able to go grey like my distinguished hair. So, the big question, why is your computer slowing down?
We can blame Gordon Moore for your computer slowing down, as he stated way back in 1965 what has become known as Moore's Law. This basically states computer hardware will become twice as fast/powerful every 18 months and this law has remained more or less correct since.
And within this law lies the problem. Software engineers who write the code that runs on your computer know the hardware will become faster and faster. They therefore write code that is designed to run on faster machines. So, Internet Explorer 10 uses more horse power to run than Internet Explorer 9, 8, 7, 6 and so on. However, as you install more updates and upgrades on your PC you are asking the hardware to run code for which it was not designed to operate.
Basically you are asking your brand new combine harvester chassis to run using the engine from your 1986 model.
As more and more code is pushed through the computer's memory/processor as programs become bigger, the World Wide Web becomes more flashy and if you want to watch the latest triple/super/wonderful HD films the result is you need faster hardware to manage the task.
This is why your computing experience hits rock bottom and your computing frustration sky rockets when your computer reaches the ripe old age of five years, or less if you want to do anything other than email or holiday shopping.
Although there is no solution to this, what you can do to help yourself is plan ahead. The two main parts of any computer that hold the horse power are the processor and the amount of RAM/memory. Replacing the processor can be an expensive and complicated process, so buy the fastest you can afford, as this will obviously lengthen the life of the computer.
Memory on the other hand is different and can be added to easily. Again buy as much as you can, but there is no need to go overboard. Six to eight GB of memory should be enough for most usage around any office or home environment. Be sure to investigate your potential new purchase to ensure memory can be added at a later date. In three years you may want to increase this to 10 GB or more as the software you install becomes more horse power hungry.
One thing I will say here is this; do not ever go below 4 GB of memory as this is the bare minimum to run a modern computer effectively. If you go below this you will soon find yourself once more wanting to throw the computer out of the window.
