CPU Upgrade Worth it for shared computer? (Web Browsing champ)

[Leao]

Hey everyone. I have a community computer that some older members use for web browsing and light work in Word and Excel. I've noticed it's been unbearably slow when opening any browser (Chrome/Firefox) or even trying to navigate internal files. It has 8gb ram and an i3 8th gen. I'm wondering if it's worth upgrading the CPU to an i5 or simply upgrading RAM to have it run smoother?

[strange13930]

8 minutes ago, Leao said:

Hey everyone. I have a community computer that some older members use for web browsing and light work in Word and Excel. I've noticed it's been unbearably slow when opening any browser (Chrome/Firefox) or even trying to navigate internal files. It has 8gb ram and an i3 8th gen. I'm wondering if it's worth upgrading the CPU to an i5 or simply upgrading RAM to have it run smoother?

upgrade your cpu, more ram will only help if your maxing out the 8gbs

[emosun]

6 minutes ago, Leao said:

Hey everyone. I have a community computer that some older members use for web browsing and light work in Word and Excel. I've noticed it's been unbearably slow when opening any browser (Chrome/Firefox) or even trying to navigate internal files. It has 8gb ram and an i3 8th gen. I'm wondering if it's worth upgrading the CPU to an i5 or simply upgrading RAM to have it run smoother?

has the computer had any form of maintenance done to it , has anyone checked the temps or looked at the components usage or anything. is the system using an ssd or a hard drive?

[OddOod]

17 minutes ago, Leao said:

Hey everyone. I have a community computer that some older members use for web browsing and light work in Word and Excel. I've noticed it's been unbearably slow when opening any browser (Chrome/Firefox) or even trying to navigate internal files. It has 8gb ram and an i3 8th gen. I'm wondering if it's worth upgrading the CPU to an i5 or simply upgrading RAM to have it run smoother?

Welcome to the forums!
What's the budget? For a hundred bucks you could make that thing sing. Grab a used i5-8600 and a used kit of 2x8GB (or even 2x16GB) ram. 
Also, nuke it and reinstall windows. Always a good idea

[Tetras]

26 minutes ago, Leao said:

I'm wondering if it's worth upgrading the CPU to an i5 or simply upgrading RAM to have it run smoother?

Can you monitor the PC in task manager, to see where the hold up is?

 

With these old systems, it can be anything, you can still find hard drives in 8th gen PCs.

 

If everything is working correctly, then I very much doubt that the i3 is struggling with those tasks, but it might be running low on RAM or have an SSD/HDD in poor condition.

 

Also, these kind of shared PCs are prone to getting viruses and installing all kinds of garbage.

[CatTNT]

Given the fact that it's a community computer, I think checking for viruses or any BS that wastes computer resources should be your first step before investing any money.