Speed Up Your Computer With These Tips

Consider These For Your Computer

One of the reasons your computer may be slow is that it relies on a physical hard disk to store and retrieve data. Don’t limit your definition of data to just the files you store. When you’re working on your computer, your operating system is stored on your hard disk, so every time you call on your OS to do something, you increase the risk that your computer will need to activate its hard disk to complete your request.

Mechanical items are comparatively slow, so when the hard disk gets involved, your computer will slow down. So how can you avoid this? Well, consider switching to a solid-state drive (SSD). They’re much faster than a mechanical hard disk and the all-around speed of your computer will improve remarkably.

Solid-state drives aren’t without their faults, but if speed is what you’re going for, this is definitely one area in which you can recover some otherwise “lost” time. The use of solid-state memory isn’t new. After all, that’s essentially what a USB drive is. As a replacement for mechanical hard disks, SSDs have been around for laptops for awhile. In the laptop environment, SSDs actually make a lot of sense because they’re at a lower risk of accidental damage from being dropped or mishandled.

They’re also really lightweight – a big plus when you’re lugging around a laptop! But how do they perform? In some operations – like read and write – SSDs typically outperform mechanical hard disks. They also offer marginal improvements in power consumption on laptops, though not significant enough to write home about. Another big bonus – they don’t generate a lot of heat, which can be uncomfortable for the user and can lead to early component fatigue in some configurations.

So what are the three main disadvantages of solid state drives? Cost, cost, and cost. Solid state drives are significantly more expensive than regular hard disk drives, so right now, the only opt-ins for SSDs are for those users who need the advantages of SSDs more than they need the several hundred dollars’ difference in price. The good news is that if you do opt for a solid-state drive, Windows 7 is optimized to make the best use of the device, so you can be assured that you’ll get excellent performance for your outlay.

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Try This To Speed Up Your Computer

Your Computer Is Busy At Boot Time

When your computer first boots, there are a lot of services that must be started. Each service competes for a limited amount of CPU time and memory. The competition eventually sorts itself out, but while it’s happening, you don’t get to do much of anything, even though the computer may appear to be “ready.”

To cut down on competition for resources, you can configure some applications and services to start up after all of the boot-time festivities have concluded. This will reduce competition for resources at startup and speed up your ability to get going on the double. Use some common sense when you’re configuring these services. For example, if you’re working on a laptop and access to the network is a high priority, don’t configure your computer to boot your network services on a delayed basis.

To get into your services file, type SERVICES in the Run box. Select the Services control panel. You’ll get a list of services that are enabled at boot time, along with a brief explanation of what they do, and their startup status. Look at the services that are started automatically and determine which ones you need right away and which ones can wait. Choose the ones you want to delay, and right-click on the startup status.

Using the Properties box, switch their status to “Automatic (delayed start)” using the pull-down flag and see if that helps you get to work a bit faster. If you don’t like the results of your tinkering, pull up the Services configuration again and return your settings to their previous state. As long as you’re in Services, you may find some services that you want to disable altogether, or switch from Automatic to Manual. That can also speed things up a bit. If you’re looking at the services on the Standard tab, don’t forget to take a peek at the Extended tab for potential additional savings.

You may need to adjust your service configuration, but you may also get a pleasantly unexpected speed boost.

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Anti-Virus Programs Can Cause Slow Computer

A/V: A Diminishing Return

With anti-virus software, you can be over-protected. That’s a nice way of saying that you shouldn’t have more than one anti-virus program installed at any given time. To be sure, some AV programs have advantages over others. Some are updated more frequently; others are better at detecting obscure infections. Others provide a balance of good protection at a reasonable cost.

What you don’t want is competition on your system. Anti-virus programs, by their nature, examine the activities of other programs. More than that, they limit the activities of other programs, including other anti-virus programs you may have installed.

AV programs compete for access to the same resources and can throw up unnecessary warnings, cause conflicts and crash the system when confronted with another AV program that is scanning the computer. Some AV programs make nice with each other, so these dire results aren’t always a foregone conclusion. Some users rely on two or even three AV programs that run simultaneously to protect the system.

AV software may work pleasantly in conjunction with a firewall, but throw in an extra measure of protection and you could be in a very slow world of hurt. The rule of thumb is that you should choose one AV program and one firewall program to protect your computer from malware and possible intrusions. Test your protective software for compatibility and if you find a good match, stick with it.

If you find that your combination has produced an unacceptably slow computer, switch out the test components one at a time. You may find that certain firewall/AV combinations don’t work well together, while others produce a perfectly harmonious result. Ultimately, the combination you choose should be one that provides good detection of viruses, as well as good prevention.

Also, don’t assume that firewalls come configured for your system right out of the box. Simply installing a firewall does not always equal protection. Frequently, their default state is either “minimal” protection or “off,” so make sure your firewall is actually configured to do something useful once you have it installed.

Finding a combination of AV and firewall protection that works well together doesn’t mean you can never change your protective software suite. Just don’t expect exceptional results from combined software suites that are designed to interfere with other software on the same computer!

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Tips For Speeding Up A Slow Computer

Slow Computer? Try These…

You can try a bunch of random things when it comes to speeding up your computer, but you’re in a much better position to diagnose problems when you have some information about what your computer is (and isn’t) doing. Before you jump into solving your slow computer problems, take a moment and think about the last ten things you added to your computer. (Installation logs may help at this point.)

Sometimes slow performance can be the result of something you’ve added or changed. Your computer hard disk could be badly fragmented or even close to full. If you don’t have at least 20%-25% of your disk space free, you need to consider whether this could be the source of at least some of your computer performance issues. Remove old files or store them on CDs or DVDs. Once you’ve made some room on your hard disk, use the Defragmenter tool to tidy up your files. You may find that simply clearing out old files and defragging your hard disk has put a little pep back into your slow computer.

If making more room doesn’t help, or wasn’t the problem in the first place, you need to know what processes and programs your computer is running, and what’s occupying most of the computer’s CPU time. You can use the Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) to get to the Task Manager. Take a look at the processes that are running. You may find that you’ve left a lot of programs open. Quit all unnecessary programs and restart your computer if necessary to see if that improves your lot. Reduce the number of programs that are configured to start automatically. As a general rule, starting and stopping programs manually will best allow you to optimize the performance of your computer.

If you find that you have a lot of processes running that you don’t recognize, or recognize some “bad actors” running on your computer, do a malware/virus scan and remove whatever you find. Please invest in a reputable A/V program and keep it up-to-date. Don’t rely on demo versions of A/V software to protect your computer.

Clean up the registry once in a while! Using a program like RegCure can help you avoid a buildup of useless, orphaned or corrupted programming code within your registry. Keeping your registry clean and backed up may provide not only an invaluable burst of speed, but also a bit of extra security in the form of a registry backup.

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The Need For Speed: Speeding Up Your Computer

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.

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