Afternoon all,

 

Just after some advice please – we’ve ‘inherited’ a 17” HP Pavilion Core i5 2.6Ghz laptop that runs Windows 8.1 and, apart from driving us mad with it’s user interface it’s also just gone out of support and is deadly clunky.

 

So – any suggestions to breathe new life into it at absolute minimal cost…

 

According to the website below I should be able to upgrade to Windows 10 for free using the 8.1 product key.

 

How to upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 8.1 - Pureinfotech

 

Is this correct…  ???

 

Any other thoughts??

 

Also whilst I’m on has anyone any experience of Chrome OS flex for breathing life back into a couple of old Asus Eee PC’s?

 

Cheers

You can probably do an in-place upgrade to Windows 10, but not one I have done in a long time.  Worth a bash, worse case scenario it tells you to Foxtrot Oscar during installation.

What @varooom said.

As for the EEE pcs, It's worth a try but I suspect you'll have more joy with a Linux flavour such as Ubuntu or Linux Mint. 

 

For the Core i5, has it already got an SSD?

 

Re: the EEE PCs, my vote backs @@Lee and I want to put forward the case for 'Lubuntu', it was great on my Latitude D400 (Pentium M 1.8GHz).

 

Hope this helps

Professional opinion I wouldn't touch anything made by Google if I can avoid it.
It tracks and stores everything.
TBH the apps they supply aren't very good either. My Mrs has awful problems getting GMail to behave itself.

Might be a good time to explore the wonderful world of Linux.
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-laptop-and-netbook-25/best-linux-version-for-asus-eee-pc-r105-4175698521/

Linux needs a little bit of learning to start with but it's not as difficult as it used to be plus the best thing about Linux is - it does as it's bloody told.
No wandering off to share your data or demanding you download an app or pushing ads on you.

As AnnoyingPentium has mentioned, if it doesn't already have an SSD then that would be my first improvement.  Budget about £25 for an Amazon cheapie or £30 - £50 for an established brand.  I find a SSD can transform the performance of a computer.  Also, if the laptop only has 4 GB of memory (RAM) consider adding an extra 4 GB (if the laptop will support 8 GB in total), cost around £30.

 

Glen, aka TheITGuy

As above if  it doesn't have an SSD then putting one in can make quite a remarkable difference especially on a laptop.
Laptops often came with 5400RPM drives which were a real bottleneck in the system. The SSD is hugely faster.
You could see a laptop that took maybe a minute to boot with the spinning disk coming down to sub 10sec (have seen them boot less than 5sec) with an SSD.

If the laptop will run W8 it will also run W10 although W10 is on its way out as well. Would still suggest a lightweight linux setup if you've time to do the learning.