Even if you are building a brand new computer, odds are you have some old gear around the house you'd like to get as much life out of as possible. From phones to old laptops to old TVs, here are some tips to speed up and clean up your older tech.

Dear Lifehacker, To what extent does a "slow" internet connection affect operating system and application response times? My work connection is much faster than my home connection, and it often feels like the same machine is slower at home.

New research from the University of Sydney suggests the differing biorhythms of team members should be considered when putting together an optimal team. We all know some of us are “morning people” while others are "night owls”. But how many of us consider that when putting together a team?

Nobody likes to visualise their own demise, but thinking about your own death could help you do better in performance-based tasks, according to new research.

Depending on the type of bosses you've had over the years, you might assume that performance review appraisal scores tend to have a more positive bias. The Harvard Business Review did some research and found they're more negative than you probably think.

Positive thinking and striving for happiness are common goals associated with self-improvement. It seems that they're becoming more pervasive within company cultures, too, as employee happiness, customer happiness and a focus on productivity pop up in more company culture documents and mission statements.

At first glance, it seems like a step forward for company leaders to be focusing on the emotional health of employees and customers. But there's more to positive thinking than might appear on the surface.

Pre-workout supplements make big promises to boost your performance, and with those promises come high price tags. You supposedly get a burst of energy, fatigue less easily and increase blood flow, all to help you get more out of your workout. The thing is, these supplements are really just powerful stimulants.

Mac: Macs with a Retina display look great, but most of them do not have the power to run games at that incredibly high resolution. While you can usually change the resolution in-game or on a system level, OS X Daily points to a hidden little option that makes all that easier.

When you're putting together your Raspberry Pi projects, you likely just grab whatever microSD card is on sale without thinking much about it. However, over on Midwestern Mac, they did speed comparison between cards, and found a big difference in performance.

Some of the apps you use on a regular basis are worse for your phone than others. AVG has done some analysis and identified the worst offenders. Unsurprisingly, things like Facebook, Spotify, Netflix, and Amazon top the charts.

Feel like your Chromebook is performing a little sluggishly? These tweaks can speed it up.

Android: Chrome is one of our favourite Android browsers, but it can be a little sluggish sometimes. This settings tweak, thanks to Redditor erythrocytes64, may give you a tidy speed boost, depending on your device.

Even if you live in Windows, you may be surprised to find that it includes some rather powerful built-in tools to help you monitor your system and troubleshoot when things go wrong. We've taken a look at Windows' dark corners before and at some awesome features you may have forgotten about. Here are a few more of our favourite overlooked Windows tools.

For everyday computer use, processing power is rarely a consideration anymore, but when you're looking at a workstation system for more advanced technical tasks, all those specifications become vital. These are the features you should look for.

Management invariably wants IT to be faster and cheaper and more reliable. Delivering that trifecta is almost impossible, but it's worth bearing in mind that improving raw performance doesn't always have to be the goal. You may need speed, but you probably don't need speed everywhere.

In an era where wireless networking is dominant, the role of the network switch is often an afterthought. However, switch selection and configuration can make a big difference to overall performance. Here are five ways switching up your switch can help.

Windows: We've previously looked at reasons why you might want to create a RAM disk to boost your PCs performance. ImDisk can accomplish this same task without using up more RAM than necessary.

The Windows Experience Index is a very basic benchmarking tool that measures your system's performance. Microsoft removed the Windows Experience Index in Windows 8.1, but WEI Tool brings it back, just like you remembered it.

Hey Lifehacker, Every time I'm playing a Flash video in chrome, it seems to cause lag in my other applications. I have a pretty powerful computer so it can handle multitasking, IE doesn't cause this problem and it only started happening a couple of months ago. Any thoughts? Thanks, Rolling Chrome