How to make your slow computer run a lot faster
? Have you noticed that, of late it is running a lot slower than it did when you first started using it? Computers tend to slow down over time due to clutter on the hard drive and other software-related issues. This is especially true with Windows-based machines.
And of course older computers that you bought a few years ago, simply don’t have the state-of-the-art faster hardware components that newer models are blessed with.
So how to make your sluggish computer run a lot faster? There are three possibilities:
- You will have to exchange it at a lower price than you would have wished it or
- Tweaked a few software settings and made it more efficient.
- Added a few hardware components to suit the latest OS.
The second one is possible and that too without spending too much.
The third one only if your OS demands it.
Here are the software tweaks:
- Install a good AV (Anti-Virus) software that will not slow down your computer at the same time.
- Next, use a cute little free utility called 'Autoruns'* to remove any non-essential programs and utilities from the Windows Startup process.
- Use the amazing and free Windows tuning utility CCleaner to clean up your system’s obsolete and temp files and eliminate errors in the Windows Registry.
- Finally update your windows OS and install the latest updates without fail. In Windows 7 and Windows Vista you’ll find the Windows Update utility on the Start Menu. In Windows 8 or 8.1, simply search for Windows Update in your start menu search box.
In case you do not have the search box you can use this trick to install one, in Windows 8 (or 8.1)
Coming to adding some necessary hardware components -
The first most important tip is to add up more RAM.
If your computer has good RAM volume then it will be more efficient than a lesser RAM configuration PC. So to find out if your RAM is lesser or not head over to Crucial Website and download their free Crucial System Scanner diagnostic tool.
The Crucial System Scanner utility will take stock of your PC’s RAM configuration and will give insights on how much RAM is already installed, what type of RAM it uses, and exactly which RAM modules you need to buy (and how many to say increase the total system RAM to either 4 GB or 8 GB).
Write down the information and buy your new RAM elsewhere.
The second important tip is to use a SSD. Now, lets talk about a steroid shot that will truly press the nitro on your PC! Simply replace your computer’s existing hard drive with a relatively inexpensive solid state drive (SSD).
It will make a huge difference in how quickly your computer boots up, shuts down, and runs programs. While it performs the same function as a regular hard drive, an SSD stores your OS programs and files on super-fast memory chips instead of the much slower spinning platters of a regular hard disk.
And trust me, the difference in speed and performance is amazing sometimes by a margin of almost 50% !!!
But a word of caution - this will require you to hire a professional help as it may be a bit technical. However I will post the steps in a later article and try to make this easy for you.
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* Here are the steps for downloading and running Autoruns:
1 – Visit the CNET download page for Autoruns and click the “Download Now” button. Click “Save As” in the box that pops up at the bottom of the screen and save the folder Autoruns.zip onto the Desktop.
2 – Open the Autoruns.zip folder and click “Extract all files”.
3 – To run Autoruns simply click on autoruns.exe.
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