Last week I talked about the importance of basic maintenance on a computer. This element can never be understated, and computers that don’t receive regular basic maintenance suffer for it. Unfortunately, computers are just like every other system. When they’re maintained, they can generate a lot of useful work and trouble-free computing. When they’re not maintained, the result is a slow computer and a lot of aggravation on the part of the user.

Basic Maintenance Only Goes So Far

Basic maintenance only goes so far when it comes to speeding up a slow computer. Don’t get me wrong – basic maintenance is absolutely necessary. In a way, it’s very much like housekeeping – when it is done, it’s never noticed but left undone, it’s very apparent. You can’t get by (and expect a good computing experience) if you’re not prepared to do this basic maintenance.

But there’s a step that goes beyond basic maintenance, and that’s optimization. With basic maintenance, you’re doing the housekeeping. You’re doing the minimum you need to do to keep your computer functioning at an appropriate level. With optimization, you’re fine-tuning the computer’s performance to suit your needs. Optimization is more like decorating. It’s something you don’t do until after the housekeeping is done, but it makes the space uniquely yours.

Optimization is a key component of computer performance. When your computer is optimized, everything works together carefully and in a coordinated way. You eliminate wasted effort when you optimize your computer performance. Your computer isn’t wasting time on unnecessary registry entries, running unneeded programs, or storing unused data. When your computer is optimized, you’re also making the most out of your network and Internet connections, so using these resources is a pleasure and not a chore.

Ideally, your toolkit contains the tools you need to perform both basic maintenance on your computer and optimize it as well. You can collect a number of different tools, and Microsoft has some built in tools that will help you perform basic maintenance, but generally, they don’t contribute much to optimization beyond what maintenance has to offer.

SpeedUpMyPC 2011 is a toolkit that offers both basic maintenance functions and optimization tools that work together to ensure that your computer gets both its regular maintenance needs and its optimization needs met. This approach means that you always employ the strategy you need to make your computer run as optimally as possible, based on your unique needs.

Download your copy of SpeedUpMyPC 2011 today and see what this toolkit can do.

Photo Credit: Alyssa & Colin, via Flickr

Getting a new computer is an exciting prospect, but it leaves open the question of what to do with the old one. For some reason, people don’t like to get rid of an old computer, even if the slow computer is too outmoded to work properly. (And its speed is probably directly related to why the computer was replaced!)

Speeding Up A Slow Computer

People pass along their old computers to relatives, friends, and schools, passing along all of the problems that go along with it. So how do you speed up a slow computer? Even older computers can run tolerably fast if you clean them up and get to the source of the problems.

To clean up an old computer, you might start by taking an inventory of what the computer has in terms of processor, memory and graphics. Knowing what you’re starting out with is half of the battle. Make sure that the old computer can run OS you intend to install. If it can’t, back down to an older version of the OS. Make sure you have enough memory installed to run both the operating systems and the programs you plan to use. If you don’t have sufficient memory installed, perform an upgrade if you are able to. Finally, check the graphics adapter that’s installed in the computer. If you’re working with an under-powered adapter, upgrading this card can produce significant improvements. (Remember – whatever the graphics adapter isn’t doing, the CPU must do, so the less you ask the CPU to do, the faster it will run.)

Scan the computer for viruses and malware. Get rid of whatever you find. Run a registry cleaner like RegCure to tidy up the registry. Once your computer is clean and the registry is cleaned, if you’ve still got a slow computer, consider doing a clean OS installation on the computer.

If you go this route, patch everything to bring the OS up to the most current revision level and make sure you have the correct drivers for whatever hardware you’re running. Keep your startup items minimal. Each startup item takes a little bit of memory away from your other applications. If your computer is underprovisioned when it comes to memory, adding a lot of auto-run items at startup won’t help you out.

Next, load only the applications you really need. If you plan to use the computer only for browsing the Web (a plum assignment for an old computer, by the way), you don’t need much in the Applications department. Just install your favorite Web browser(s), along with the utility programs and plug-ins and leave it at that. In the case of a speed-challenged computer, less really is more.

Photo Credit: NetDiva, via Flickr