Speeding up your computer may or may not be high on your priority list. As your computer ages, however, you’ll begin to wonder whether you can get more out of your existing computer without needing to replace it. Computers slow down for a lot of reasons. Some of these issues are temporary; a process is using most of the computer’s memory or CPU resources, or an application has gone “rogue.” In this case, the quick fix is a simple restart. Each time you restart the computer, you will reinitialize the computer’s memory. This will remove any processes that have gone off on their own.

Fixing Computer Speed and Performance Issues

In other cases, an external problem that isn’t “temporary” may be causing the computer to work harder or less efficiently. These external actors include hardware malfunctions, viruses, malware, and inappropriate hardware configurations for the tasks you’re trying to accomplish. These problems are resolvable, provided that you know what they are. Make absolutely sure that you’re working with a clean, capable computer.

In yet other cases, the culprit is infrequent or incomplete maintenance. For the most part, when it comes to computers “deferred maintenance” doesn’t have the same permanent long-term impact that deferred maintenance would have on a house or an automobile. “Deferred maintenance” can be addressed with techniques like disk defragmentation, regular viral scans, regular malware scans, and registry cleaning.

Registry cleaning turns out to be an important component of regular maintenance because leftover bits of abandoned code can accumulate the registry. These useless bits of code will slow down the computer’s performance because, even though they’re no longer needed, the computer will read them and follow these instructions to the extent that it is able.

Sometimes, these abandoned code bits cause the computer to wait for a response, or search for something that is no longer available on the computer. A registry cleaner will clear out all of this useless code and eliminate the computer’s need to read and follow these instructions. If you read regularly, you know that I recommend RegCure. Millions of users have downloaded it and trust it to keep their registries clean.

Performing regular maintenance on your computer, including defragmenting the hard disk, scanning for viruses and malware, making regular system and driver updates, applying patches, and keeping your registry clean will take care of many issues that would otherwise eventually slow your computer down.

Photo Credit: Ethan Prater, via Flickr