Abstract <p>The proportional counters developed and operated by the GRAPES-3 experiment (Gamma Ray Astronomy PeV EnergieS phase-3), an India–Japan collaboration situated in Ooty at an altitude of 2200 m are gas-based detectors designed to study solar and thunderstorm phenomena using cosmic ray muons. PRCs are essential in radiation detection, nuclear research, and elemental analysis. Although the principle of operation of the PRC seems simple, over the years it has undergone significant performance improvements. In this paper, the performance of a muon telescope station consisting of 928 PRCs (arranged in the form of 4 modules having 4 layers of 58 PRCs each) before and after the upgrade of instrumentation is studied and compared. The PRCs operated at 3 kV are read out by in-house developed low-noise high- performance front-end electronics comprising of pre-amplifier and discriminator modules. The amplified analog pulses are processed for multichannel analysis, and the corresponding digital output pulses are fed to the recording electronics. Data acquisition was carried out continuously over multiple years. The present analysis focuses on data from a full year prior to the upgrade (2018) and a full year following the upgrade (2023). The results showed that performance is significantly improved as a result of the reduced noise and number of breaks in the data acquisition after the upgrade. The number of noisy channels caused by various sources is considerably minimized, thereby enabling the muon telescope to record the astrophysical events at much higher reliability and efficiency. The results and improvements are reported along with prospective scientific goals.</p>