Help Speed Up PC?

[Garrison Marsh]

My mom's PC is a few years old but it is getting pretty slow. There is noticable lag when just moving the mouse around on the home screen. It was a very cheap PC when she got it a few years ago (I think she said about 300 including the monitor and mouse and keyboard). The processor is an AMD Athlon II X2 220 2.8 GHz. I've watched the CPU usage in task manager to see how hard it's working and its all over the place. At idle it can go from 10% to 90%. I haven't checked the temps to see if it is getting too hot I was thinking that could help. Also it is not the ram bc it's usage isn't a lot. I think it's the processor that's why I'm focusing on it. It is also still running Windows 7 so would updating it to 10 help it or make it worse? I've already done some dusting inside the PC but haven't done a whole lot so if it's getting too hot maybe doing some cleaning on the CPU cooler could help? There's a lot to read here so thanks for your help in advance.

[Blackhole890]

ye, try cleaning and if you can, upgrade your pc if it continues

[Garrison Marsh]

Just now, Blackhole890 said:

ye, try cleaning and if you can, upgrade your pc if it continues

Yes I probably should have said she doesn't really use this PC for more than web browsing and some word editing but as a PC guy it just makes me cringe. I feel like I heard somewhere that you got a free upgrade to Windows 10. Is/was that a thing and if so how do I download it if upgrading the os would be worth it.

[Fake Dragonite]

While a cpu upgrade is definitely in order, at the same time, let's look at free solutions first. First thing I'd do is get CCleaner. Make sure not to delete cookies or saved passwords from your mom's most used browser, and run the main cleaner. Next, go to Tools>startup and disable any non-essential programs. If she still needs them, they can be opened up faster than they would open as a startup program anyways since you don't have 20 other programs opening at the same time. Finally, if she is willing to start from scratch, an SSD would also be a worthwhile upgrade. For a basic day to day office level computer (web browsing and document writing), an SSD will be one of your most noticeable upgrades. 

EDIT: Also, while upgrading to Windows 10 on newer hardware would reap some performance gains, with an Athlon, your best bet is probably going to be sticking with windows 7

[Blackhole890]

Just now, Garrison Marsh said:

Yes I probably should have said she doesn't really use this PC for more than web browsing and some word editing but as a PC guy it just makes me cringe. I feel like I heard somewhere that you got a free upgrade to Windows 10. Is/was that a thing and if so how do I download it if upgrading the os would be worth it.

well, i would try downgrading to xp because is cleaner without any windows update thingy and it wont lag your computer but the problem is that you wont going to have any updates from applications but its usable