Articles - Continued

Why is My PC Slow - Why Your PC Slows Down

It doesn’t take long before even the fastest PCs begin to bog down. Remember how lightning fast it was out of the box? But now that you’ve had it for some time, added your favorite programs, customized your system, cruised the internet and added some freebies, it’s suddenly considerably slower than you ever imagined.

What’s going on, why is your PC slow? There are a number of reasons a PC slows down over time. As you add programs to the system, some of them start up whether you are using them or not and hog valuable resources, others use up memory, even after you close them when done, your hard drive can become fragmented over time, you may have a spyware program lurking around and using up resources, or your system registry may have numerous invalid entries. Any of these problems or a combination of them can slow your PC down considerably.

First, make defragging your hard drive a regular part of your computer maintenance. It’s easy to do and Windows provides a built in tool for doing it. Go to the “Start” button, choose “all programs” and then click on “accessories”. In accessories, you’ll find the “system tools” folder. Choose “disk defragmenter.” By clicking “analyze”, Windows will analyze your hard drive and show you a graphical representation of your files. If the hard drive is fragmented, you can hit “defragment” and let Windows rearrange it and thus recover more hard drive space and make it easier for the OS to access your files.

While you’re at it, run the “disc cleanup utility” also located in the “system tools” file. This utility cleans up your hard drive of temporary internet files, cookies, downloaded program files and more. In addition, you can free up more space by removing unused Windows components, unused programs and all but the most recent restore point.

Another task that will speed up your PC is to eliminate items that automatically startup each time you reboot your system. Why load them unless you’re going to use them? To remove programs from the startup in Windows XP, click the “Start” button, choose “run” and type in “msconfig”. Next, choose the “start up” tab and view a list of all the programs that start up each time the computer is turned on. From here, deselect any program you don’t want to start up each time.

Spyware and other malware are other PC speed killers. Some even take over your computer without your knowledge and use up your resources for their evil deeds. A good anti-spyware program is a must for any internet connected PC.

Viruses certainly do their damage and oftentimes change or corrupt the system registry. In addition, programs that were uninstalled improperly or failed during installation can make registry entries that bog down the system. If your system frequently crashes, receives a bunch of illegal operation errors, and is slower than expected, chances are you may need to clean your system registry. This is not a job for the faint of heart or the non-technical types. In fact, you could do serious damage by editing the system registry. Instead, leave it to the professionals or purchase a system registry cleaning software utility.

Take these steps towards getting your PC back up to speed.

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