How to Speed Up a Slow Running PC

Hey, you with the slow running PC! If your computer is running like a turtle, and you don't know what to do, following my suggestions once a month. If you don't have the money for a new computer, or don't want to buy a new one, then following them will give your computer the speed it once had when you took the tower out of the box. You remember when you first turn the PC on, it booted up faster and apps loaded faster? I'm sure you do. As two months passed, you started noticing your PC running slower. You thought, "It's time to buy a new computer." Well, you don't need to buy a new one, you need to find out what's wrong with your old one, and why it's running the way it is. A new computer costs $500-$1,000+. You don't need to spend the $500 to $1,000+ when there's nothing wrong with your old one. What slows down your computer? I'm going to break it on down what slows down your computer.

Viruses, worms, trojans, adware, spyware, and malware:

These nasties will slow down your computer, causes pop ups, take up resources and RAM, etc. These nasties will use up your computer and bandwidth. To remove them, you need a free spyware and anti virus software. The two best freebie spyware and virus apps I use are Spybot from www.safer-networking.org and AVG from www.grisoft.com. Download them, update the definitions, and scan for nasties once a month. You have to update the definitions on both apps every day because new nasties are out in the wild.

Cookies, Temp, %Temp%, and Prefetch folders:

Clean your Temp, %Temp%, and Prefetch folders. Then clean your cookies. To do this, click Start, Run, then type in Cookies. Click Edit, click Select All, go to File, then click Delete to delete them to remove them. Make sure your browser is closed. Then, click on %Temp% , click Edit, click Select All, go to File, click Delete to remove them. Go to Temp, click Edit, click Select All, click Delete. Then go to Prefetch, click Select All, click File, then click Delete to remove them. You only have to clean out your prefetch folder once a month.

Too much files and apps on your hard drive:

If you have too much files and apps on your hard drive, you will run out of space and your PC will run slower. If your hard drive is halfway full or full, your PC will run slow. To combat this problem of removing programs you don't use, click on Start, Control Panel, then click on Add or Remove Programs. Remove programs you haven't used like games, IM, IRC, P2P, etc.To remove files, use Disk Cleanup by clicking Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, then click Disk Cleanup. When Disk Cleanup is running, it will analyze how much space you can have. Put a checkmark to all the numbers but Compressed Old Files, click OK, then click Yes when it asks if you want to remove the files. Make sure your browser is closed.

Check Disk:

Check Disk will scan your hard drive for bad sectors and system file errors. To run Check Disk, double click your My Computer icon, right click on your hard drive, click Properties, click Tools tab, click Check Now. After you click Check Now, a pop up will come up. You can put a check mark to have Check Disk scan for system file errors or scan for bad sectors while Windows XP is running. Put a check mark next to both, click Start, then reboot. Both options will take over an hour. You have to run Check Disk to make sure there's nothing wrong with your hard drive. Running Check Disk will make sure your hard drive is running very good and healthy. If you hear clicking noises, it means your hard drive is going bad, you need to back up your data, then buy a new hard drive right away.

Fragmented hard drive:

If files gets spread across the hard drive, your computer has a harder time looking for files. Everytime you add a program, it use free gaps which put pieces of the program here and there on the hard drive. Everytime you delete a program, it leaves empty gaps on the hard drive which are called fragments. Windows has a wonderful utility called Disk Defragmenter which organize files and put them back together. Thus, this speeds up your hard drive and computer's performance. To run Disk Defragmenter, you click Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, then click Disk Defragmenter. Click Analyze. You will get two popups, one that says you need to defrag this volume, or one that says you don't need to defrag this volume. No matter what the popup says, go ahead and click Defragment. After you are done, you can click View Report or Close. Click Close. Then exit out of Disk Defragmenter. This depends on computer usage. The average PC user can run Disk Defragmenter once a month. I use my PC a lot so I run Disk Defragmenter every two weeks or so.

Apps at boot time:

If you have apps running at boot time, this will take up precious computer cycle and RAM. Go to Start, Run, type Msconfig, click the Startup tab. Uncheck programs you don't want starting up like Quicktime, Realplayer, AIM, etc. Do not uncheck your anti virus, spyware, or firewall software. Click Ok, Apply, then click Reboot when a pop up comes up.

Pagefile:

The pagefile can slow down your computer. Right click on My Computer, click Properties, click Advanced tab, click Settings under Performance, click Advanced tab, click Change under Virtual Memory. Set Initial and Maxmium Sizes to 200, click Set, OK, then reboot. Go back and reset your Virtual Memory to the original numbers, click Set, click OK, then reboot your machine again. Your PC will be running a little faster. After using your PC for three or six months, the page file will become fragmented. What helps you is more RAM. Try upgrading to 1 or 2GB if your wallet and your motherboard allows it. Go to www.crucial.com and find out how much RAM your PC can hold.

Registry:

Your registry can get full of junk and fragmented. To clean up your registry, download ccleaner from www.ccleaner.com and use the "Issues" tab. To defrag your registry, use www.winaso.com and download WinAso Regdefrag. Reboot when it asks you. Defragging and cleaning your registry will speed up your PC a little bit.

Conclusion:

Don't buy one of those fly-by-night software that promise to speed up your PC because it won't work and it will just take money right out of your wallet. There are freebie apps that's better and free. Well, except buying 1 or 2GB of RAM should cost you $40-$90+. But after following my suggestions, your PC will be running a little better and faster than before. Thank you for
reading this and happy computing:)