Tips to Speed Up a Slow Computer

Is your computer running slow? Does it seem like it takes forever to start up, or even just to open your Internet browser? Do you wonder if there is anything at all you can do to speed up a slow computer?

The fact of the matter is that computers today are much faster than they were just a few short years ago. Even so, there are times when your computer can just chug along, going at a snail's pace.

The good news is that you definitely can do some things to speed up a slow computer. Here are some tips to try in order to speed up your slow computer:

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE SUFFICIENT HARDWARE

One of the most common reasons for a slow computer is a shortage of computing power. If you have Windows Vista, for example, you should make certain that you're running on a dual-core processor or above, and more than 2 GB RAM. Why does this help with a slow computer? When you don't have sufficient hardware, your computer has to do more page filing, which considerably slows down performance.

CLEAN YOUR WINDOWS DESKTOP

Every time you start your computer, it has to load up your entire desktop. To clean your Windows desktop, you can run the desktop cleaning wizard. You can also choose to manually remove unneeded items from your desktop.

CHECK FOR ERRORS

You should regularly use the System File Checking utility in Windows to try to find corrupted files. Corruputed files can cause all sorts of problems, in addition to causing your computer to run slow.

KEEP UP ON SECURITY

Some of the most common causes of a slow PC are viruses and spyware. These rogue programs can cause a serious degradation of performance. Keep your antivirus and anti-spyware applications up to date, and run them frequently.

UNINSTALL UNNEEDED PROGRAMS

Getting rid of programs that you don't use and don't need can not only help to speed up your computer, it can also help to free up space on your hard drive.

TURN OFF VISUAL EFFECTS

In Windows Vista, there are a variety of special visual effects that you can use. While these are nice to have, they also demand a great deal of Windows resources. Turn off things like transparency in order to speed up your slow computer.

RUN A REGISTRY CLEANER

After a while, your Windows registry can get pretty bogged down. You should consider running a Windows Registry cleaning program in order to get rid of orphaned or corrupted entries in your Windows registry.