Speed Up Computer

Microsoft has announced that it will remove the Windows 7 Release Candidate from its download servers on August 15. After that date, users will no longer be able to download the OS trial version, but users who have already downloaded it will still be able to install it and get a key to make the system operational.

The release candidate will only remain operational until June 1, 2010. On March 1, 2010, three months prior to its expiration, Microsoft will attempt to speed up Windows adoption when the Release Candidate begins to shut itself down every two hours, a behavior Microsoft also built into the Windows 7 beta. According to some trade publications, Microsoft will release the actual Windows 7 product to manufacturers starting July 13.

The fact that the release candidate requires a clean installation isn’t all-bad. Clean installations come with the side benefit of improving computer performance, at least for awhile. You may also run the risk of losing working drivers and creating conflicts where none existed before, but the release candidate is still part of Microsoft’s test environment. While they believe they have the major performance degraders corrected, there may still be a few lurking time bombs that will reveal themselves only through thorough testing and use.

Windows 7 will be generally available on October 22, according to Microsoft. Even if you don’t plan to upgrade until that time (or you plan to wait for awhile) now may be a good time to assess your computer to see if it can run the new operating system. If not, you may want to consider whether you’ll upgrade the computer or continue to use your older operating system.

If your computer is more than five years old, purchasing a new computer is likely to be the most cost-effective way to upgrade your system. You’re likely to be able to re-use your monitor, keyboard and mouse. If your monitor is old, you may want to consider the purchase of a new LCD monitor. They take up much less room on the desk and use less electricity. The displays are fast, bright and much lighter than the old CRT monitors.

If your computer is two or three years old, your processor is likely up to the task, but your installed memory and available disk space may not be. Consider a hardware upgrade that includes additional RAM. You may also want to add disk space. An external drive will get you a lot of storage space, but external drives are much slower. You’ll notice a performance hit when you attach one.

If your computer already runs Vista, you’re likely to be ready for the new operating system when it comes out. You may want to test your hardware drivers with the Release Candidate to make sure your hardware will perform as expected.

Photo Credit: DocGroove, via Flickr

If you normally use a laptop computer, you may not think much about its performance, but if you switch between a laptop and a desktop computer, you may find that the laptop seems like a very slow computer, indeed. I’m often asked about the performance of laptops and why they seem so slow in comparison to desktop computers.

Why Laptops Can Seem So Slow

Although laptops perform the same functions and for the most part run the same software that desktop computers do, they’re actually very different machines. The laptop computer probably has a processor that is one or perhaps two revisions behind its beefier desktop cousin. In addition, the processor is “underpowered” in terms of its clock speed.

This is largely due to design compromises that laptops require to maintain a decent battery life. Fast processors take a great deal of power and battery technology – while it has improved tremendously in the last decade – isn’t good enough to allow laptops to use the latest (fastest) processors and huge amounts of memory, two things that directly govern the performance of a computer.

Many modern processors need additional cooling to ensure the performance of the CPU. Laptop case designs are very small and don’t afford the kind of ventilation the latest processors need to operate as designed. In addition, the power requirements for external cooling devices (like processor fans) would eat up the battery life of a laptop in short order.

Computer memory requires power to operate, and the more memory you have, the more power you need. Consequently, laptops don’t carry a large complement of RAM. The limit on RAM for laptops means that information must be paged in and out of disk-based memory, a comparatively slow process. This can make applications and other ordinary operations seem deadly slow.

To improve the performance of your laptop, pare down your operating system and ask it to do as little as absolutely necessary to get your work done. Keep in mind that convenience features like wireless connectivity will slow the performance of the laptop. If you connect primarily to wireless networks, try to upgrade your installed memory as much as possible.

Skip the fancy themes and desktop backgrounds. Turn off any services that you don’t absolutely require, and limit the application on your computer to the bare essentials. Consider your startup items very carefully. Anti-virus and anti-malware protection should be on all the time, but forget about the extras if you don’t expressly need them to get your work done.

Photo Credit: Declan Jewell

With focus now shifting to Windows 7 and its anticipated release in October, users who are considering a switch – there’s no upgrade path – you’ll need to do a complete fresh install – are wondering whether they’re going to get better performance from Windows or a slow, painful transition to a half-baked operating system.

Windows 7 Will Give You A Faster Computer Experience

If you’re a Windows Vista user, the experience of switching from Vista to Windows 7 will probably be a lot less painless than you might imagine. You’ll spend less time installing Windows 7 than you may have spent installing Windows Vista, and your bootup time will be faster too.

Shutdowns have been one area in which Windows Vista and users of earlier versions have complained of slow performance. This is primarily because Windows Vista does a bunch of housekeeping prior to shutdown. This housekeeping isn’t exactly lightweight stuff – it downloads and installs patches, drivers and other important components prior to calling it a day, much to the anguish of Vista users who simply want to know that their computer has shut down.

Windows 7 is also more efficient when moving large files around its own file system and across a network. This is another area in which Vista users experienced noticeable performance lags when compared to similar actions on computers running Windows XP. Compression engines also run faster on Windows 7 than on Windows Vista or Windows XP.

Most applications will get a performance boost under Windows 7, which is good news for users who are considering a switch. In most cases, Windows XP users will come out on the short end of the performance stick by choosing not to upgrade to Windows 7. While Windows 7 is built on Vista, many of the performance issues that XP users rightly used to defend their decision not to switch have been fixed, and Windows 7 is clearly the best performer under most circumstances.

As show time approaches for Windows 7, it will become exceptionally clear to diehard Windows XP users that there is little point in hanging onto an operating system that doesn’t perform as well as the new Windows 7. Windows XP, a rock solid performer by any standard, has met its match. Common problems that plagued Windows Vista have been largely resolved, and it seems unlikely that Windows XP users will find sufficient justification to stand fast on a terminal product when a clear alternative is available.

Photo Credit: Daniel Gebhart, via Flickr

In my last post, I talked about troubleshooting a computer with a slow network connection. If you’ve verified that the speed problems you’re having aren’t related to your computer’s network configuration or firewall settings, there are other diagnostics you can use to shed some light on why your connection may be slow.

Some Simple Tests Can Measure Your Computer Speed

If your problem shows up while browsing the Web or seems to affect a particular site, try clearing your browser’s cache. This will remove any old information your browser may be using. Try to reload the site. If the site still seems slow, but other sites work fine, the site may be having trouble serving visitor requests. In this case, there’s not much you can do to improve the site’s performance.

If you can’t find any specific trouble with your computer or its configuration, you may want to measure the speed of your broadband service. Most broadband providers will offer services that promise to deliver “up to” a certain bandwidth amount. Rarely do they offer a guaranteed upload and download speed unless you pay extra for a business-class service.

Due to the nature of TCP/IP networks, the performance of the network is determined, in part, by how many other people are using the network at the same time. If many people are using the network, your performance will be degraded. This is another situation that you don’t have much control over, but you can determine how much bandwidth you’re receiving at any given time.

There are several online bandwidth-testing sites that will measure your upload and download speeds. These tests can be a little deceiving because they’re simply measuring how fast you can send and receive data to and from their site. Your results when connected to a different site may be completely different. One site you can use to test your speed is SpeedTest. The site will recommend a test server that’s relatively close to your location, and provide you with upload and download speeds. Don’t be surprised if your download speed is much faster than your upload speed. This is normal, especially for broadband connections.

If you’re like most residential users, you’ll be more interested in the download speeds than the upload speeds. Track your speeds over a period of time. If your download speed is consistently poor, your only recourse is to ask your provider to check the service they’re delivering to your home. If the service meets their internal standards, your provider isn’t likely to do much more testing on your behalf.

Photo Credit: Doc Searls

Hare become Tortoise…

Has checking your e-mail become an hour long ordeal? Do you fall asleep waiting for your computer to finish booting up?  Do you have a dozen apps that you do not even use popping up every time you touch your mouse, making even the simplest computer task a chore from hell?

Well, do not worry my friend. You are not alone. Even in this day and age of dual core processors, multi-gigabyte  ram and terabyte hard drives, a slow computer is a very common ailment. No matter how fast  you make these machines, our brave new world of information overload, spyware, malware, and registry problems are  going to slow your computer down.  Sure, it would be nice to be able to buy a brand spanking new computer every year, with all the newest upgrades to keep up with the times, but lets face it, most of us are stuck with machines that are a few years, if not a full decade behind in the times. Even those of us who have the cash to buy new machines end up getting frustrated as we watch are blazing new beauties transform into slow moving nags in a matter months.  So, short of tossing out our computer every couple of months, there must be a way to restore our computer  back to its original speed and keep us from feeling like we are stuck in the late nineties. Well, my friend, I have some good news. There is.

Upgrade your DDR RAM

If you have an older computer with less than one gigabyte of RAM (random access memory), you might want to look into upgrading your  RAM cards.  RAM is what allows you to multitask on your computer.  If you have  an inadequate amount RAM, you might find it hard to keep more than one application going at once, meaning that you might have to completely shut down your Itunes before you  can run your Word program.  Installing new RAM cards is a relatively easy task that  does not require you to have a masters degree in computer engineering. It pretty much just pops nicely into its required slot.  Soon you will be able to “Rock the Casbah” as you type up your annual report.

Invest in  AntiVirus and AntiSpyware software

Sure, shareware is fun, and those free downloads always seem like a good idea. Unfortunately, the cost of these free online goodies usually  ends up being viruses and spyware. Computer viruses are found everywhere and anywhere from e-mails to mp3 files, and once they get into your system, they can reek havoc and make the most ordinary task almost impossible. Spyware is another thing that can  foul up your computer and enable people to not only figure out your browsing habits, but also obtain crucial personal and financial information that you may have stored on your PC. Once infected, ridding your computer of this memory sapping Malware is a task of Sisyphus like proportions. Investing in a good Antivirus  program is the best step you can take.  Some good recommendations are Norton,  or AVG. For those of you who do not like to spend money on such things, I recommend  downloading the free one month trial of AVG anti viral protection  along with Spybot, which is a free antispyware download that works great.

Clean up your Hard Drive

Lets face it, the more junk your computer has on it, the longer it takes to do stuff. One of the simplest things to do is to clean out your hard drive. If you have Windows, just click on the Start menu, go to the systems tab and click on Clean Disk and rid yourself of all your temporary and unused files. Your computer likes to store all of the sites you visited in a cache for quick reference later, but this can end up slowing you down instead of making surfing faster, so get rid of them. You can also delete programs that you never use and  get rid of stuff you thought you already have gotten rid of, but really just placed in the garbage bin.  Another thing you can do is run the Defragmentation program which will organize all your files, instead of having all the bits of information scattered about on your hard drive.

Fix your Registry

Your computer’s registry is what makes your computer go, and many things out there can end up messing it up. Malware, programs that were never full deleted, spyware, viruses,  and program bugs can all foul up your registry leading to slower response from your computer and a multitude of other problems, such as applications that refuse to open and even hardware problems such as speakers that refuse to work.  Getting a good registry fixing program is one of the best ways to make your computer faster.