Is your computer running as fast as a lame turtle. Think it’s time to trade it in, or even send it to the trash heap? Wait and check this out first. There may be a solution for your slow computer and Internet connection. I found this great video with some good tips on how to Tune-Up or speed up a slow computer.
As stated, you should remove any and all outdated or unused programs. Windows is very system heavy anyway. The more programs on your hard drive, taking up space in RAM, and clogging up your registry, the slower your computer runs, which directly effects your browser or Internet speed.
The second tip for fixing a slow computer is to limit how many programs are running at start-up. You probably don’t need all programs running at all times. There are a few different ways to prevent programs from automatically starting up every time you boot your PC.
One way is to run msconfig.exe from your command prompt. Once msconfig starts up, click on the startup tab. From there you can un-check any programs that you know you don’t need all the time. This does not prevent the programs from starting when you do want them. It simply prevents them from running in the background and taking up valuable resources every time you boot up your PC.
Another way you can prevent certain programs from starting is through the Spybot Search & Destroy anti-spyware program. S&D has an option for controlling start-up programs. Windows Vista (at least my copy) comes with Windows Defender – an anti-malware program that easily lets you control which programs run at start up. Limiting the number of programs running can make even an older computer run much faster.
Ah, that’s an important one and it’s a great way to free up space on your hard drive. Did you know that the speed at which your computer can run is partially limited by the physical reader that does the actual work of reading the hard drive? The more files you have, the longer it takes for Windows to find what it’s looking for. Luckily, PC World reviewed a great software program (which is free) that checks your hard drive and removable devices for duplicate files and lets you know how much disk space you can save by removing. Ironically enough, the program is called Duplicate File Finder. You can check the PC World review and
If you done all the above and are still very low on disk space (10% or less), it may be time to add an additional removable storage or hard drive. This is a cost effective way to free up space on your main hard drive.
Running out of memory (RAM) can slow your computer down drastically. Check to see if your PC or laptop has extra slots for additional memory chips. Memory chips have fallen quite a bit in price and adding memory can really speed your computer up.
As I mentioned earlier, there’s a physical reader that has to find the necessary files on your hard drive. When these files become fragmented, and they will, it takes all that much more time for your PC to find them. Get used to running windows defragment tools which located under your control panel. By using this tool regularly, you will become familiar with how often defragmenting is necessary for your system and level of use.
The video above fails to mention the registry – cleaning the registry to be exact. A lot of people do not want to take the risk of making changes to the Windows registry and I don’t blame them. However and despite what you might have heard, a registry full of unused entries and errors can severely slow down your computer and Internet speed. Now I don’t advocate manually cleaning the registry unless you are a true computer geek, in which case you wouldn’t be reading this anyway.
After untold hours of searching for a safe and cheap way to clean my system registry, I ended up buying a highly rated software program that was fairly cheap. Unfortunately, it’s been so long that I don’t remember the name of the program. I have since purchased a laptop running Windows Vista and gave away the XP desktop I was using at the time. But that’s ok because I found a free program that works just as well called Eusing Free Registry Cleaner. You an do a search for that in Google or Yahoo. I can tell these registry cleaners made a huge improvement in my old computer’s speed.
I will not take any liability for using the program mentioned above. All I can tell you is I have run it Windows XP without any problems. My computer was slow and after the cleaning, it was fast. I now run the same program on Windows Vista, again without any problems.
Now get those fingers moving and see what you can do with that slow machine.
