There are certain things you can’t change about your computer without spending some of your hard-earned cash. The processor speed is fixed; the graphics processing capabilities are fixed; the amount of memory you have installed is also fixed. You can modify all of these things, but that will require an investment. If you’re hoping to speed up your computer without having to lay out a lot of money, consider these tips.

Little Things Can Make A Difference

What You’re Doing: Keeping unneeded files and data. Over time, your file system can become overloaded with materials you no longer need. Keeping track of where these unneeded items are takes up resources and space that you could be using for other stuff.

What You Should Be Doing: Pare down your file system and archive the materials you want to keep but don’t need to keep on your hard disk. Consider transferring this kind of data to a CD or DVD.

What You’re Doing: Keeping programs you don’t use. New computers often come loaded with “demo” software that either expires after a particular period of time, or is a locked version of the full package. Software publishers have agreements with PC manufacturers that permit the manufacturers to load these programs on the computer before it ships to the end user.

What You Should Be Doing: Eliminating unnecessary programs. When you go through your computer, remove all applications that you no longer need, or have never used. Demo programs take up space and resources. Remove whatever you don’t use, or no longer use. If you like to download shareware or freeware, but decide that what you’ve downloaded doesn’t suit your needs, uninstall it right away.

What You’re Doing: Letting regular disk maintenance slip. When you delete a lot of files, your hard disk becomes fragmented, making it harder for the computer to find the necessary storage space for new files and applications.

What You Should Be Doing: Defragmenting your hard disk. After deleting so many files, defragment your hard disk using the built in Defragment tool. This tool will enable your hard disk to optimize the placement of the data that remain on your hard disk and speed up access and write times. Even after you defragment, you’re still not done!

What You Should Be Doing: Cleaning your registry. After doing some wholesale deleting and defragging, you’ll also want to clean your computer’s registry. Each time you add programs, new entries get written to your registry. Not all uninstallers are created equal, however, and useless bits of program code are often left behind. A good registry cleaner like RegCure will help clear this information out and restore performance to your computer.

Photo Credit: Andrew Griffith, via Flickr

There are many ways you can slow down a computer, and conversely, many ways to speed up your computer. If you’re a professional computer technician, you have a lot of time on your hands, or you’re just exceptionally motivated to find out why your computer isn’t working as fast as it did at one time, you’re likely to find many things that rob you of computer performance.

What Do Other Users Do To Speed Up Their Computers?

Assuming that you’re none of the above, you may want to know what other users do to speed up their computers. Believe it or not, the first line of attack for some folks is simply to replace the computer. In today’s economy, few people have the money to spend on “forklift” upgrades of their computer systems.

Replacing the computer is also unnecessary. There are several remedies that work wonders when it comes to speeding up the performance of your computer. If you observe these practices, you’re likely to notice a performance boost on your computer.

First, make sure you’re not running malware or viruses on your computer. Run a virus scan and make sure your computer is up-to-date. If your virus definitions aren’t up-to-date, or you find some viruses or malware, remove them immediately.

Make sure you’re not loading a number of programs you don’t need to run at startup. This is a favorite trick of application publishers. The more “auto-starting” applications you allow, the worse your computer performance is going to be.

At the same time, make sure your computer has enough memory loaded to run the programs you use. Keep in mind that minimum memory recommendations made by Microsoft apply ONLY to the operating system. If you plan to run some heavy-duty applications, consider upgrading the memory installed on your computer. Before you load up, find out the maximum amount of memory your computer will address. Don’t install more memory than your computer can handle. If your computer boots at all, the excess memory won’t do a bit of good.

Finally, do some regular maintenance on your computer. Regular maintenance includes keeping the file system pruned back, defragmenting the hard disk periodically and running a high-quality registry cleaner like RegCure. RegCure will remove orphaned code that is written into the registry. This “zombie” code can slow your computer down significantly. RegCure is trusted by millions of users around the globe to keep their PC computers running efficiently, and works in the background to make sure your computer performs the way it was designed to.

Photo Credit: Josep Mª Rosell, via Flickr

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