How do you speed up computer performance without breaking the bank? There are a few things you can do to get a little more life out of your old computer.

Remove Startup Items You Don’t Need

One of the biggest thieves of computer performance is the startup items that (un)helpfully configure themselves to start automatically when the computer is booted. Some applications will ask about this during the installation routine; others bury this setting in the “Easy Install” or “Standard Install” routine. Each application you allow to start up at boot time will take a little memory and a little processor time away from your computer. After loading several applications, your system may not have enough available RAM to run the OS properly or to run applications smoothly.

The end result is that the computer spends a lot of time “borrowing” memory space from the hard disk… a slow operation. The simple solution is to evaluate each of the start up items on your computer carefully and determine whether they really need to be on when you first boot your computer. If the answer is no, or you don’t mind the five seconds it takes to start an application when you do need to use it, forget about the app as a startup item. Your overall computer performance will improve and that can be worth a lot.

How do you get rid of startup items? Run msconfig by typing “msconfig” (no quotes) in the Run box. Choose Selective Startup and then uncheck everything that doesn’t need to run on startup. Don’t assume that because you don’t recognize something that it’s unnecessary. Know what you’re shutting off before you uncheck that box!

Once you’ve gone through the startup items and pared them back to a manageable level, restart your computer and see if you notice a performance difference. You can repeat this step a few times to make sure you have your startup items configured exactly the way you want them. If you find that you miss a particular startup item, you can always go back into msconfig and set the item to start up automatically.

Again, don’t arbitrarily turn things off in msconfig. Some items are necessary for the proper operation of the OS, and turning them off will have some unexpected results!

Photo credit: Vivek Patankar, via Flickr