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Some Solutions to a Slow Running PC

The situation is all too common. You spend your hard earned money on a new computer system.  Maybe you bought a slick new desktop or perhaps a thin portable laptop with all the bells and whistles.  In the beginning, your new computer ran great. It booted up fast, loaded programs very quickly and made working on your PC a joy. Then things changed.  And not for the better. Programs that used to load quite fast are now taking forever to load up. Booting up your system is now a painful, time–consuming chore and a cause of major frustration. Simple tasks such as switching between programs are now time consuming tasks.  In addition, error messages are starting to appear.  What can be done to speed up your lethargic machine and return it to its former glory?

Definitely one of the first things one should do is install a quality registry cleaning application, such as RegCure. A quality registry cleaning program will be able to perform a multitude of beneficial tasks that will allow your system to run smoother and regain some lost speed. In the case of RegCure, it can scan your system for errors in a matter of minutes and automatically fix system errors that exist.  In the past, people would sometimes edit their Windows registry manually. This is certainly a very tedious endeavor and can also cause major problems if done incorrectly.

 Another thing that can be done to speed up your computer system is to investigate your email program. Let’s say you are using a popular email program such as MS Outlook. A lot of people, myself included, have thousands of messages in the sent and deleted items folders. In the case  of the deleted items folder, many of these messages are often spam. The solution is obvious – delete unneeded messages. This will free up more space on your hard drive and allow the email program to load faster. The bottom line with emails – if its junk, or no longer has any more purpose to be in your inbox – get rid of it. Your computer system will thank you.

 Back when you bought your fancy new computer, it had what you thought at the time was a good amount of RAM, or random access memory. There was no need to add any more when you first bought it. As time went on, more software programs were added to your system, not to mention some of these programs use a lot of your system’s resources in order to run properly.  Easy solution here – get more RAM, it is relatively inexpensive compared to the big increase it can have in terms of increasing your system’s performance.  The vast majority of computers have expansion slots where RAM can be added quite easily – by yourself or a computer technician. Once the RAM is installed you should notice an increase in speed of your PC.

 Viruses can also have a very detrimental effect on the speed of your computer system. One can get viruses from a multitude of sources, including but limited to, surfing the internet, downloading music, movies, freeware, etc. They can also be transmitted via instant messaging programs and emails. If you don’t use an antivirus program, get one immediately!  There are numerous good antivirus products out there – some are free and others one must pay for.  And make sure that you update your antivirus programs regularly and schedule regular scans of your entire system to ensure you’re not infected by any nasty viruses.

 Along the lines of viruses, spyware and adware can cause a computer system to slow down immensely. Once on your system, spyware and adware often use system resources that should be dedicated to running software programs that you actually want to run. In addition, they can often cause other annoyances such as constant pop-up ads. Spyware and adware can enter ones system in similar ways as viruses enter a computer. It is a great idea to install a quality spyware removal application, such as Xoftspy. Xoftspy can scan your PC for spyware in literally minutes and also offers real-time protection against spware attacks.

 Another reason why your computer is running slow could have to do with hard disk space, or lack thereof.  Take a look at the list of software programs you have on your computer. Maybe they came installed on your PC when you bought it and you’ve never used them or possibly you installed programs that were never used. If they’re not used, why not delete them?Freeing up some space on your hard drive could be the ticket to causing your system to run a little faster and/or smoother.  On the same vein, another option to look at would be to upgrade to a larger hard drive.  Prices have come down in the past few years while the storage capabilities have increased. Talk to your local computer repairman about getting data from your old hard drive put onto your new one – then you’ve got the best of both worlds – more storage space and access to all your old data and not to mention a smoother running system.