A few days ago we had a new customer who called and wanted help because his computer was running sluggish. When we arrived on-site our computer technician confirmed that the computer was not acting normal. Many times customers can accidentally install unwanted software by clicking some fake advertisement. Once this starts it can create a snowball effect and attracts more and more fake advertisements, and unwanted programs. Other times, the computer may require better hardware to run your daily activities on the computer.
10 Tips on how to speed up your computer:
1. Remove any unwanted programs by uninstalling them
Remove any unknown applications, or application that sound like they may be harmful to your computer. Many times computers are loaded with extra software which you may not use, we call this “bloatware”. These programs could possibly start-up each time your computer starts and you might not know it. Open up the Control Panel and select “Programs and Features” page. There you will find a list of programs which you can look through and remove any unwanted programs. This will be a nice start to speeding up your computer
2. Remove Malware and Viruses from your computer to speed it up
Once you have removed all of your unwanted programs your computer might still have some more work to do until it is properly cleaned if it is infected with Malware. Trojan Horses, Rootkit Viruses, and other malware may require a 3rd party anti-virus program and more advanced removal techniques than only uninstalling them from the Control panel. Using a paid anti-virus is an effective way to remove malware and viruses, or call one of our onsite computer technicians and ask us about malware removal services to speed up your computer
3. Clear Unwanted Browser Extensions
Another sneaky place that malicious files commonly hide is in your browser extensions. Browser extensions are software applications which add-on to your internet browser for custom features in your web browser, such as toolbars and website development tools. Many times advertisement companies who develop these kind of software extensions will serve you ads, and store more information about your activity online. Making sure your browser extensions are clear of any malicious or unknown online tools is a great way to speed up your computer.
4. Clean up your Desktop
I know it may sound silly that something so small could help to speed up your computer, but imagine that each time your computer loads, it must load each of those items. The more files that you can put into a folder or keep them in an appropriate place in your computer, the better your computer will run. Keeping this in mind can help to keep your files organized when you need to find them quickly.
5. Disable Unnecessary Startup Items
When you start your computer you may have programs loading that you do not need. These programs can sit in the background and take up valuable computer memory and can easily be disabled to speed up your computer. Go to your start menu and type “msconfig” and hit enter on a Windows 7 or older PC, select “Startup” and disable the unnecessary programs. On a Windows 8 or new PC, just press CTRL + SHIFT + ESC key to enter the Task Manager, select the “Startup” tab and deselect the items you want to remove.
6. Remove all Temporary Internet files and cached system files
When you use your computer on a daily basis, your computer stores temporary files when you’re browsing online to load pages quicker, and extra files get left behind when system updates are loaded. These files can be cleaned to clear up extra space and speed up your computer. Imagine this as an “oil-change” for your car. This task simply cleans out any left-over files in your computer. We recommend using CCleaner to remove these files, and Microsoft offers a great article on how to remove these Internet files.
7. Disk Clean up and Defragmenting the Hard-drive
Microsoft Windows offers tools to keep your hard-drive maintained on your own. These tools will perform repairs on your system drive, and optimize your file structure. Take a look at how Microsoft recommends to improve performance by defragmenting your hard disk, and how to delete files using disk clean up. If these do not work for you feel free to contact our computer technicians and we can help you better.
8. Upgrade your hardware
Computers require much more memory to run applications as time moves on. This makes it more difficult for older computers to keep up, and it seems like things can be running slow. Rather than replacing your entire computer, it could be much more cost-effective to add new hardware. Solid State Drives (SSD) offer extremely quick access to your files, and they are one of the largest improvements you can make on most PCs. Increasing your RAM allows your system to run multiple applications at one time much smoother and is an easy way to speed up your computer. If you’re having troubles upgrading your hardware visit our Upgrades page.
9. Keep your Operating System and other software updated!
Keeping your software updated is one of best ways to speed up your computer and keep it maintained. Many times software updates included system patches to vulnerabilities which could lead to malware infections. Make sure to run Windows Update often, and keep other third-party programs such as Java, Adobe Flash, and Quicktime updated. But, watch out when you install updates for any third party programs, especially Java, they could contain unwanted program installations.
10. Clean out the dust to help speed up your computer
Sometimes it can be easy to over-look how clean the physical inside of your computer is. The truth is that dust could be clogging system fans, and causing things to run much harder. This will drain your batter life quicker, and make it more difficult for you CPU to process your requests. This could be an easy way for you to speed up your computer. You can easily clean your computer with compressed air purchased online or from your local store.
There are many more tips on how to speed up your computer and we hope this helps. For more information feel free to contact one of our Computer Technicians at 619-400-7581, we are happy to answer any questions you might have.
