How to Speed Up a Slow Computer
Question: My computer is slow. My computer has 1 GB of RAM, 80 GB HD and a P4 processor.
Answer:
There are some maintenance procedures you can perform on your computer
to try and speed it up again. I would begin by doing some cleanup of
your hard drive and remove any temporary files stored on your computer.
You can use the Windows built in Disk Cleanup tool to do this. A better option is to use the free Ccleaner
program which will find and clean things that Disk Cleanup wont. It
also has a registry cleaner which will help cleanup unnecessary
registry items.
Next I would check your startup items using msconfig
and uncheck anything that you don't want starting with your computer.
Many programs configure themselves to start with your computer each time
it boots and most of them are not needed and use system resources and
slow your computer down. Just be sure only to uncheck items that you
know are not needed. You can look up items online if you don't know
what they are used for. The changes wont take affect until you reboot
your computer. Then you can check the box that says don't show this
message again for the system configuration utility that will appear
after the reboot.
After that you can defragment
your hard drive. When a drive becomes fragmented it can slow your
computer down because it takes longer for the drive to find the
information it needs. Its a good idea to do this every month or so.
Finally I would check for spyware infections since they are notorious for slowing computers down. You can use free software such as Spybot, Malwarebytes and AdAware or there are effective programs you can buy such as Spyware Doctor.
