Ayooooo......Slow Computer? Dont worry..
Slow Computer? Try
the below tips..
1) Uninstall unused
programs
New PCs come with a whole load of
programs you will never use, and you probably don’t even know they exist.
Some programs even run background
processes when you load your computer, even though you are not using them.
To remove all these pointless
programs, open the Control Panel’s Programs and Features page, and have a trawl
through the list of installed software. Uninstall those that you do not need,
while being careful to leave programs your computer’s hardware needs (typically
their publisher will be listed as the PC maker’s name or as Microsoft).
2) Delete temporary files
Temporary files amass on your
computer through everyday tasks and can remain on your hard disk, slowing the
computer down. Getting rid of these files, including your internet history and
cookies, should give you a larger amount of hard disk space, speeding up your
PC.
To do this, open “My Computer”,
and select your local drive (usually C:\). Select the “Windows” folder and then
open the folder titled “Temp”.
3) Install a solid
state drive
Hard drives are the biggest cause
of slow speeds and especially slow startup speeds on your PC.
While they are not cheap, installing a solid state drive,
which have extremely fast read times, can speed up your startup considerably.
4) More hard drive
storage
Even if you make sure to
regularly clean out all your temporarily files, if your hard drive becomes 85
per cent full, it’s going to affect your computer’s speed.
If you regularly film videos or
use your PC for recording television, then you will want as big a hard drive as
you can get, upwards of 1TB in size.
5) Prevent
unnecessary start ups
This method will primarily affect
how long it takes for your laptop or PC to startup, but often many of the
programs which are launched on startup continue to run and use up your
computer’s memory.
To do this, click “Start” and
“Run”. In “Run”, type “msconfig” and then press enter. You should then see the
“Startup” tab, with all the programs ticked the ones which will load upon your
computer starting up. There is a good chance the list will contain a number of
programs you might not have realized were running on your computer during
startup, or even at all.
You can either manually deselect
those which you do not want to load, or click “Disable All” and then select
those you want to run, such as particularly important programs like anti-virus
software.
Another trick can be removing all
the unnecessary fonts Windows loads. Windows 7 loads more than 200 fonts on
startup which can slow down the speed at which it boots up. Go to the Start
Menu’s search box, search for the Fonts folder and check off all the fonts you
don’t need, and click the “Hide” button in the toolbar.
6) More RAM
RAM, which stands for Random
Access Memory, is the temporary storage memory used by your computer and is in
use when tasks are being executed by different programs. Therefore, the more
programs you use, the more RAM you need, and the slower your computer will be
if you don’t have enough.
A clear indicator of not having
enough RAM is if your computer slows down every time you try and process large
files, or it freezes will carrying out several different actions at once.
You can either add more RAM with
an extra memory stick or two, or buy getting completely new memory if all the
slots are taken. There is theoretically no upper limit on the amount of RAM
that you can have with a 64-bit operating system, but in practical terms 4GB is
more than enough for most people.
7) Run a disk
defragment
Sounds complicated, but this is
basically a way of reconfiguring how your hard drive stores information for
maximum efficiency.
Go to “My Computer”, right-click
on the hard drive and select “Properties”. Under the “Tools” tab there should
be an option to “Defragment Now”.
8) Run disk clean up
Windows also includes a built-in
disk de-cluttering tool called “Disk Cleanup”.
It searches through the system
for unnecessary large files such as temporary Internet files, program
installers, and so on.
Open Disk Cleanup by clicking
“Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup”.
9) Give your computer
a static IP
Another trick for speeding up
your computer loading time is to give your computer a static IP address that
never changes.
When you startup your computer,
it spends a decent amount of time asking the network for an IP address. Not
only does having a static IP address make the network easier to manage
(particularly if you have several devices using the same network), but it also
cuts time off your startup.
To do this, visit the “Network
and Sharing Center”, and select “Change adapter settings”. Right click on your
local adapter and select “Properties”. You then need to highlight what should
be titled “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4), and click the properties
button.
In “Use the following IP address”
enter in the correct IP, Subnet mask, and Default gateway which correspond with your network setup.
Make sure to check “Validate
settings upon exit” so Windows can find any problems with the addresses you
entered.
10) Hoovering out the
dust
Again, this sounds a tad radical,
but dust is your computer’s enemy. It can impede airflow, which is vital to
keeping your computer’s temperature down, and if your computer is overheating,
it is likely it will slow down its performance to cope.
(Incidentally, overheating will
also make it impossible to use programs such as Skype, because for the person
on the other end of the conversation it constantly sounds like an aeroplane is
taking off).
If you have a desktop or a
laptop, you can take off the computer’s exterior and use a hoover on a low
power setting to try and remove some of the dust. Make sure your computer has
been switched off for at least 30 minutes and that all cables are disconnected
before starting your clean.
Use your hoover with a small
attachment, and try either the reverse setting to blow air into the vents and
push the dust out, or use its standard suction to try and extract some of the
dust.
