My PC is old and slow. Can you set up a new one for me?

Yes, and it’s a job we do constantly — often the week after Christmas, and often for people who’ve been putting it off for a year because they dread losing everything.

Two things worth saying before you buy anything.

First: is it definitely past it?

A fair number of “old and slow” machines aren’t finished at all. If yours still has a mechanical hard drive, fitting an SSD will do more for it than most new computers would, for a fraction of the price. Add memory alongside and a five-year-old machine can feel new.

We’d always rather tell you that than sell you a migration you didn’t need. Bring it in and let us look — it costs nothing, and if it genuinely is past it, we’ll say so.

Choosing a replacement

If it is time, a few things that matter more than the number on the price tag:

An SSD, not a hard drive. Non-negotiable. Some budget machines still ship with mechanical drives and they will feel slow on day one.

16GB of memory if you can. 8GB works but leaves little headroom, and on many modern machines it can’t be upgraded later.

Check whether it can be upgraded at all. Many thin laptops have memory and storage soldered on. What you buy is what you keep.

Don’t over-buy. If you browse, email and do documents, you don’t need a machine built for video editing. Spend it on an SSD and memory instead of a processor you’ll never stretch.

Screen and keyboard. The parts you actually touch. A cheap dim screen is a daily annoyance no specification sheet warns you about.

Ring us before you buy if you want a second opinion on something you’ve seen. We don’t sell machines on commission, so the advice costs you nothing and isn’t pointed anywhere.

What “setting it up” actually involves

This is the part people underestimate, and the reason it’s worth having done properly.

• Moving your files — documents, photos, music, downloads. Everything, not just the obvious folders.
• Email — set up and working, with your history intact.
• Browser — bookmarks, saved passwords, the things you’d miss immediately.
• Programs — reinstalled, including the awkward ones with licence keys buried in an email from 2019.
• Printers and devices — connected and tested.
• The clean-up — removing the trial software manufacturers preload, which is a meaningful part of why new computers feel slower than they should.
• Updates and protection — fully patched before you start using it.

Setup and data transfer starts from £216. Doing it yourself is perfectly possible; it’s the “where have my emails gone” part at eleven at night that people find less possible.

Don’t throw the old one away yet

Two reasons.

First, keep it until you’re certain everything came across. There is always one thing — a scanner driver, a saved password, an old file — that surfaces a fortnight later.

Second, and more important: an old computer holds everything you’ve ever done on it. Deleting files and emptying the bin does not remove them. If it’s going to a charity shop, a family member, or the tip, the drive needs wiping properly or removing. We do that as part of the job, and we’d rather you didn’t hand your bank details to a stranger with the keyboard.

Bring both machines in if you can. Workshop on Station Road, or ring 01753 884700.