Improving Computer Performance
There are a number of things that can cause degradation of your Computer's performance. The causes are categorized to help you find a solution to your particular problem. It is assumed that you are running Windows XP although many tips work on Vista and Windows7.
- Tune-up - Do your own tune-up - a guide to the things you need to do.
- Testing Performance - See our Free Software and other Stuff page - use PCPitstop for comprehensive tests. You can also test your modem speed.
- Hardware - Memory and Hard Disk - see below.
- MalWare - Viruses, Spyware and Adware can all slow down your computer. Spyware and Adware are covered on our Spam and Spyware page. Viruses are discussed on our Security page.
- Start-up - perhaps it takes longer than it originally took to boot up your computer - see Start-up below.
- Registry - too many unused entries in your registry can slow you down. For a free tool, look here.
- Excessively slow Anti-Virus software
Hardware
Memory
Insufficient RAM Memory means that your computer will make use of temporary disk space instead. Disk space memory (called virtual memory) is much slower so your computer slows down. If you have added new programs or changed how you use your computer, you may need more memory. Computers running Windows XP need a minimum of 256MB and 512MB is recommended. If you use a photo editing program like PhotoShop or if you often have many programs open simultaneously you will need more. You can find out how much RAM you have by going to Start>Control Panel>System. It's shown on the bottom of the first page.
Adding memory requires that you buy additional memory (of the right kind) and open your computer box. Good instructions on this are usually included in the manual that came with your computer. Otherwise, you might want to get help! Note that to get more than 4GB, you need to run a 64 bit version of Windows. This is the big reason to change to 64bit! Vista and Windows 7 should have at least 2GB installed and if you do any video editing or work with large photos, then more than 4GB is recommended.
Hard Disk (C: Drive)
Disks can have problems although they are usually rare in recent years. However, it is still a good idea to make regular backups.
Check Disk
Before you do anything , you should check your disk for errors. The Microsoft utility to do this is chkdsk. Go to Start, Run and type chkdsk in the dialog box. If you prefer, Type chkdsk /F (note space) to automatically fix the errors - but this time you'll be told it can't run now but you can ask it to run the next time you turn the computer on. Note that this is a fairly long test.
De-Fragment
The most common issue talked about is the need to De-Frag(ment) the disk to improve disk access times. This is much less necessary than some people will tell you. Although heavy users should De-Frag about once a year, it is only useful more often if your disk is approx. 50% or more full. To De-Frag in XP, go to My Computer, right click the C: Drive (it probably has a name like "John's Hard Drive" but will include (C:) after the name), select Properties, then Tools then De-Fragment Now... . Also available under tools is Error Checking. This is the same as the chkdsk above. In Vista and Windows 7, Defrag is automatically done weekly at low priority. You don't see progress or know much about what it's doing. The schedule can be changed to monthly or turned off so you would then do it manually. This is accessed the same as for XP except that when you select De-Fragment Now, one of the options is to change the schedule. The big improvement in Vista and Windows 7 is that de-frag will not interfere with performance so can be a background task.
Start-Up
Every time you install a program, it will often add itself to the start-up menu. To find out which programs are starting at Start up, go to Start>Run and type msconfig in the dialog box (alongside Open). Then click OK and select the Startup Tab. You will see a list of programs that are started upon Start-up. If you don't recognise the name, you can usually find out more about it by using a Google Search. One site with a good list is sysinfo.org. Based on what you find out, you can then uncheck its associated box and click OK. When you next start your computer you will probably get a dialog that says the computer is in Selective start up mode. Check the box on the dialog box to stop this showing every start and click OK. The program(s) unchecked will no longer load and your computer will start faster next time.
A good utility to see what is running at start-up (and at other times) is AutoRuns. It does not need to be installed - just download, then run it (execute it). It works on all versions of Windows and is supplied by Microsoft.
Slow Anti-Virus Programs
Although you want an Anti-Virus program to stop all malware, you don't want it to slow things down to a crawl. Everytime an email arrives and everytime you open a file or a program your Anti-Virus program checks it for a virus or spyware etc. So it is important that the program be designed to be fast as well as effective. Although there is some degree of tradeoff (fast may be less effective and more expensive), there are some exceptions. For home use, Norton and MacAfee are known to be slow although recent versions are reported to be faster. AVG and Avast are almost as good but free. I find that the best program for speed and effectiveness is NOD32 by Eset - the 2009 and later versions are also easy to setup, unlike earlier versions. A new program called Vipre by Sunbelt may also be good but is unproven. My second choice would be Kaspersky. Last would be Norton. Of the free programs, Avast is good but seems slower than AVG.
So if your computer is slow to boot and sluggish to open files, it may well be your Anti-Virus program and not malware. More on Anti-Virus programs.
Note that Firewalls only affect Internet traffic so will only potentially slowdown surfing.