I have one of those cool uncles who can soup up any old car using only a screwdriver and some chewed gum. He just gets underneath the hood and starts making adjustments here and there turning a rumbling clunker into a purring kitty. When asked what he did, he just shrugs and tells you he just made some minor adjustments to the timing belt or whatever ( I personally know diddly squat about old cars). It is amazing what a few minor adjustments can do.

Computers are the same way, sometimes what is needed are a few minor tweaks to the system to get a faster computer. A few clicks of the mouse, a couple strokes of the keys and you could have your computer blazing at start up and keep it from getting sluggish in its performance. Here are Three simple tweaks to increase your computers speed.

1:turn off the the windows indexing service:

If you are ever wondering what your computer is doing when you are not looking, it is usually busy indexing your files so that your CPU can supposedly find them faster when it needs to. The problem is, is that even the most insignificant little files end up being indexed, taking up valuable hard drive space and further fragmenting your drive. Most tech’s have deemed this windows feature as unnecessary and suggest disabling it.  Here is how to do it…

First: double click on My Computer, then go to the View menu (on the top) and point to the Explorer Bar and click on search.

Next: Click change preferences and then click without indexing services.

Last: When prompted, click No, do not enable indexing services, then click Ok

2: switch from FAT 32 to NTSF

If you have Windows XP, you have the option of converting your hard drive configuration from FAT to NTSF. While it takes up a bit more space, NTSF offers better compression, encryption and security than the older compression system. Switching to NTSF is easy and will enhance the performance of your hard drive. Here is how you do it:

Click on your command prompt.

Type in chkdsk to find out how your drive is configured (it should tell you on the first line)

If it not NTSF already, type in the following: X:/:FS:NTSF

The “X” represents the hard drive you want to convert (usually it is the C drive)

3:Getting rid of unnecessary start up processes and programs

Truth be told, your computer only needs a total of six programs in order to boot up and get moving. Of course if you check out your  Task Manager right after boot up (Ctrl ALT Delete) you will probably find a vast array of different programs running already. Managing your start up programs and processes is one sure way to help increase the speed of windows.

To do this, open your Start Menu, click on Run, and then type “msconfig.exe” into the command screen.

This will bring up the “system configuration utility”window.

Now, in the services and startup menu, uncheck  all of the programs and services that you do not need.

When performing this tweak, it is important to know that there is a little bit of risk involved, especially if you end up getting rid of a process your PC needs to boot up. I found a good list of unnecessary programs here.

Also,  if you do not feel like getting all uber geek with your computer, a good registry fixer will help you manage your start up programs and processes  without making you get all technical up on the joint.

Tags: fast pc tweaks, simple computer fixes