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Start Your Year By Speeding Up Your Computer

Posted by paul on January 13th, 2010

Start Your Year By Speeding Up Your Computer

Start Your Year By Speeding Up Your Computer

If you still haven’t settled on a New Year’s resolution, I have one in mind: keeping your computer clean. Now “clean” can mean a lot of different things, so I’ll clarify what I mean. A clean computer has several benefits, not the least of which is improved speed. Yes, you can speed up your computer by observing a few housekeeping rules.

A Clean Computer Is A Fast Computer


“Clean” computing means making sure that your computer doesn’t have any nasty viruses, malware, root kits or other similar applications that will slow your computer down, limit the amount of control you have over it, or instruct it to do things that you have not authorized.

Don’t assume that you have a working anti-virus program simply because one is loaded on your computer. Make sure your A/V software is turned on, scanning your hard disk and updating its virus definitions. If it isn’t, there are a number of Web sites run by reputable A/V companies that will scan your computer for free. Make absolutely sure you’re dealing with a reputable company. Several free anti-virus scan sites are just scams that are trying to sell you useless software you don’t need.

Move all files off of your desktop and place them in the file system. Storing files outside the file system actually causes your computer to allocate additional memory to these files. It does this by taking away memory from your applications. A seriously messy desktop can really slow your computer down by forcing it to give away memory it would otherwise use on applications.

Get rid of programs you don’t need. Use the uninstall function rather than just throwing the files in the Recycle Bin. If you simply recycle the application, you’ll leave a lot of files and configuration information behind.

Get rid of files you don’t need or move them to some other form of storage, like a CD or DVD, or even a USB drive. You can keep these files close at hand, but out of your permanent file system. Reducing the size of your file system will also help speed up your computer.

Finally, after you’ve done your cleanup, run a registry cleaner like RegCure. RegCure will remove the abandoned code that uninstall routines are notorious for leaving behind. You’ll be surprised by what RegCure discovers and the impact a clean registry can have on the performance of your computer.

Photo Credit: Nate Bolt, via Flickr

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Speed Up Your Computer: A New Year’s Resolution You Can Keep

Posted by paul on January 7th, 2010

Speed Up Your Computer: A New Year's Resolution You Can Keep

Speed Up Your Computer: A New Year's Resolution You Can Keep

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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A Little Maintenance Can Speed Up Your Computer

Posted by paul on January 5th, 2010

A Little Maintenance Can Speed Up Your Computer

A Little Maintenance Can Speed Up Your Computer

There are certain computer problems that maintenance alone won’t solve, but this doesn’t apply to most of the slow computers I’ve dealt with lately. I’ve seen a growing amount of anxiety over slow computers recently. I’m not sure if it’s because we have a new version of Windows on the market, or because people simply need to make their computers last as long as possible. (I suspect it’s a mixture of both.)

Registry Maintenance Works!

If you’ve been reading along in the blog, you know that there are certain things that will definitely impact the performance of your computer. Lack of available memory, cluttered file systems and malware are chief culprits in a lot of “slow down” situations. When you’re dealing with a computer that you’ve had for a couple of years, you may become aware of a subtle slowing, or your computer may slow down all at once.

Even though you swear you’ve done nothing, added nothing and changed nothing, your use changes and adds things to your computer all the time. The registry is a centralized database that your computer uses to keep track of just about everything your computer has, uses and does. It doesn’t keep track of files – that’s the file system’s job – but it does keep track of all of the hardware that’s attached to your computer, the settings you use and the software you have installed.

The registry, over time, can grow to millions of lines of code. Your computer is designed to process these millions of lines of code but “processing” involves more than just reading. Instructions are embedded in the registry that may cause the computer to stop processing, even briefly, the millions of lines of code in the registry.

Software products, software updates and configuration changes may leave behind useless or irrelevant instructions. The computer doesn’t know that these instructions have been rendered meaningless, so it reads and follows them, or waits for a response from a device or application that is no longer installed. Worse, it may load additional software into memory that is no longer required. That’s a double theft: first, it’s a waste of time and second, the memory this useless code uses can’t be used for something else.

That’s why I recommend the use of a registry cleaner like RegCure. A registry cleaner analyzes the information stored in your registry to determine if it’s still needed. Useless, abandoned or orphaned information gets removed and your registry becomes much more efficient. RegCure is among the most well-known and well respected registry cleaning products on the market. I wouldn’t recommend anything less!

Photo Credit: Stefano Mortellaro

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Keeping Things Tidy Eliminates Slow Computer Performance

Posted by paul on December 31st, 2009

Keeping Things Tidy Eliminates Slow Computer Performance

Keeping Things Tidy Eliminates Slow Computer Performance

If you’re looking for ways to eliminate slow computer performance, take a look at these suggestions. While these may not provide a tremendous performance boost for your computer, every little bit helps when you’re trying to squeeze the most out of your computer.

Neat Equals Speed

Sometimes computer users have problems finding files, so they like to load up their desktops with files, aliases, shortcuts and folders. This is a performance killer. You can find your files just as easily by creating a default folder in the file system for saving new files and file downloads. Windows automatically saves files to your Downloads folder if the file’s coming off the Internet, or to your Documents file if you’re creating something locally on your computer.

You can always use these files for your default arrangement and move them to specific locations within the file system. Your desktop doesn’t operate the same way that other file spaces do, so saving or storing files to the desktop long-term requires your computer to use additional memory on top of what it’s already devoted to the file system. When you save files to the desktop you are, in essence, creating two separate file systems and the Desktop happens to be a very expensive file system in terms of memory. In short, put your files where they belong. The file system is perfectly adapted to handle files. If you insist upon using your desktop to save files to, move the files to a proper space within the file structure before you shut down. At least that way, your next computer session won’t be hampered by files scattered across your desktop!

Along with keeping things neat, try defragmenting your hard disk periodically. When you write and delete files, your hard disk gets fragmented. That is, parts of files get scattered around the disk and your computer has to keep track of where all the parts are. Reassembling the file so it can be read and used takes time and slows down computer performance. By periodically defragmenting your hard disk, you bring the parts of scattered files together and make it easier for your computer to find the files you want. In making things easier to find, you also speed up your computer. If you write a lot of files to the hard disk, you’ll want to defragment more often. If you only write a limited number of files to the disk or write mostly temporary files (as you might if you’re mostly surfing the Internet), you can defragment a little less often.

Photo Credit: Jesus Corrius, via Flickr

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Speed Up Your Computer For 2010

Posted by paul on December 22nd, 2009

Speed Up Your Computer For 2010

Speed Up Your Computer For 2010

If you’re looking for ways to speed up your computer in the hope of avoiding either a replacement or an expensive upgrade, read on. In this post, I’ll cover a few ways to clean up your existing computer and get you ready for a faster New Year!

Out With The Old

Before you throw out your computer or trade it in for a faster model, try a few of these tips to see if you can speed up your computer. Keep in mind that computer slowness can be caused by many things and there is no one “sure cure” for all computer speed issues.

The first thing you should verify is that your computer isn’t slow because it’s infected with a virus or other malware that’s robbing your processor of valuable productive work. If you don’t have anti-virus software loaded on your computer, load a program and scan your computer immediately. Clean up any viruses or malware you find. Be aware that many “utility” programs that masquerade as one thing are actually malware or spyware that will slow your computer down. In addition, these nasty programs can forward information about your browsing habits to third-parties, or install software on your computer that will allow someone else to access your computer.

Also, don’t assume that because your computer came with anti-virus software that it’s working. Verify that your computer software is up-to-date and functional, and configured to run an anti-virus scan periodically. The more time you spend on the Internet, the more often you should scan your computer.

If your checks out as clean, start removing auto-loading programs. Often, when you install a new software package, it will ask you if you want to start the program when the computer boots. If you want to preserve your computer performance, the best answer to this question is “No.” Each program that “auto-starts” will take a bit of your computer memory away. After several auto-loading programs are started, your computer may not have enough memory to run the operating system efficiently.

In addition to clearing out the auto-loading programs, take a good hard look at what’s installed on your taskbar. Each taskbar icon also requires a little bit of memory. If you don’t need programs on the task bar, eliminate them. You can still start your programs manually when you need them.

In my next post, I’ll have a few more tips for keeping your computer running smoothly.

Photo Credit: Jurvetson, via Flickr

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