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How to Improve Your PC’s Speed for Free in Seven Easy Steps

Does your computer start up slowly? Do applications run slowly and hang all the time? Do you want to get rid of these problems for free? These steps here will probably help you resolve your problems.1. When you turn on your computer, ensure that there are no media (discs) in the ROM drive or any attached USB devices. Having any of these causes the computer to start slowly as it tries to read them for possible boot options.2. Disable startup programs such as Windows Sidebar and any programs which are installed that run at startup. These programs cause your computer to boot slowly as it has to load them before you can begin to use your computer. To do this, run Windows Defender. Click on Tools and select Software Explorer. Click on the category button to display Startup Programs. Click once on the displayed programs to see which are available for disabling and disable them. You can also disable programs that run at startup by running them, and ensuring that the “Run At Startup” option is not checked or allowed.

3. Click on the battery icon on the taskbar in the lower right-hand corner of your screen. This displays the power options menu. If “High Performance” is not selected as the power plan, select it. This power plan maximizes system performance.

4. End application processes which are not in use at a particular time. These processes compete with the programs you are running for available computer memory and speed. Such processes include Bluetooth, dictionaries, search bars etc (you can always restart them when you need them by running the applications again). To end processes, open the Task Manager. There are several ways to do this:

a. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc. This is the quickest way.

b. Right-click on the taskbar and choose Task Manager from the menu.

c. Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete and choose Start Task Manager from the options that appear.
In the Task Manager, click on the Processes tab to display currently running processes and right-click on the process you want to end. Select End Process or End Process Tree to end that particular process. If you are not sure what process it is, read the descriptions that accompany each process.

5. Disable the Windows Aero color scheme (this is the functionality that gives your computer interface a transparent, glassy look). Windows Aero consumes computer memory and it is advisable to switch to another color scheme which uses less computer memory if your computer is running slow. To do this, right- click on an empty position on your desktop window and select Personalization from the menu that appears. You can also open Personalization by clicking on the Start button and selecting Control Panel and then clicking on Personalization. Under Personalization, select Windows Color and Appearance and choose another option such as Windows Vista Basic or Windows Classic.

6. Defragment your hard disk regularly. As data is added, changed and deleted from your hard disk, it creates non-contiguous portions of data (spaces usually occur where data has been deleted and changes made to data are saved in locations different from the original files). This is known as fragmentation and causes your computer to work harder to find a particular piece of data. This tends to slow a computer down. Defragmenting your hard disk rearranges the data so that it works more efficiently. Defragmentation usually runs on a schedule but you can run the disk defragmenter manually. To do this, click on the Start button and select Computer. Right-click on your primary hard disk (or any other hard disk partitions you would like to defragment) and choose Properties. Click on the Tools tab and select Defragment Now. When the application opens, click on Defragment now.

7. Run Disk Clean Up. This option deletes unnecessary files from your hard disk and frees up space which enables your computer to run faster. To do this, click on the Start button and select Computer. Right-click on your primary hard disk (or any other hard disk partitions you would like to clean) and choose Properties. Click on the General tab and select Disk Cleanup. Select the files you would like to delete, click OK and then click Delete Files to confirm.

Follow these steps and there will be a noticeable improvement in your computer’s speed and performance.

Easy Steps to Improve Your PC’s Performance

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Unless your computer is fresh out of the box, it’s probably not running as fast as it used to. Our PCs fill up with all sorts of good stuff — documents, music, videos, programs, games, downloads — and bad stuff like viruses and spyware, too. Over time they can get bogged down.

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Much like oil changes for your car, a little periodic maintenance can help extend your computer’s lifespan. And in a tight economy, it’s smart to take a few simple steps to help keep your PC running like new, instead of buying a new one.

We’ve collected a series of tips and tricks to help your computer run more smoothly and broaden its useful life. They are easy enough that anyone, even a novice, can run them — but they can all help bring that “new car smell” back to your computer.

Computers with Windows XP and newer operating systems come with several simple utilities to check, clean and de-clutter your hard drive. Doing so will free it up to access your programs and files more quickly.  Disk Check identifies and removes hard disk errors caused by crashes or power failures. It’s a good idea to run it every few months to make sure the drive itself is functioning properly.

    • Click on

My Computer

    • Right click on

C drive

    • Choose “

Properties

 

    • Select the

Tools

    Tab

 

    • Click the “

Check Now

    ” button under “Error Checking”

 

    • Check

all

    the boxes

 

    • Click

Start

Disk Cleanup removes temporary files and unnecessary detritus from your hard drive, freeing up space. For example, when browsing the Internet your computer collects thousands of temporary files to help Web sites load more quickly. But over time these files create clutter, so it’s a good idea to clean them out. We recommend running this around once a month.

    • Click on

My Computer

    • Right click on your

C drive

    • Choose “

Properties”

    • Select

Disk Cleanup

The Disk Defragmenter improves hard drive performance and speed by piecing together parts of files that have been broken apart. As you use your computer, files are constantly added, changed and removed. Over time, these files and folders are broken into chunks of data, so when you want to access the file your hard disk has to work harder and look in more places to find all of its contents. This is known as fragmentation. The more full your hard drive becomes, the more likely it is your files will be fragmented. The Defragmenter pieces those chunks of data back together, so your hard drive can load them more quickly.

We recommend using this utility at least once a month — and it’s best to run when you’re finished using the computer for the day, as it can often take over an hour to complete.

    • Click on

My Computer

    • Right click on your

C drive

    • Select

Properties

    • Choose the

Tools

    tab

 

    • Click “

Defragment Now

    ” button under “Defragmentation”

 

Windows XP and higher can automatically check to see if it needs to be updated. Microsoft often supplies patches, updates and security fixes for Windows (as well as Office and other Microsoft programs) that should always be installed to keep your PC up-to-date. The beauty of Automatic Updates is that it checks with Microsoft on its own and lets you know when you need to do something. So just make sure that Automatic Updates are on:

    • Click

Start

    , and then click

Control Panel

    • Click

Automatic Updates

    • Choose

Automatic (recommended)Though it sounds counterintuitive, dropping an unwanted file in the Recycle Bin doesn’t actually remove it from your hard drive. To prevent accidental deletion, a file can remain in the Recycle Bin and continue to take up space. Periodically emptying the Recycle Bin helps free space for the files you want to keep.

By the way, if running all these individual fixes doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, there is software available that can optimize your computer in a few simple steps — cleaning our your hard drive, speeding startup and shutdown, and repairing errors. AOL offers two that are worth checking out: PerfectSpeed and System Mechanic.

Finally, perhaps the most common causes of computer sluggishness are viruses and spyware. You may already have computer security software installed on your computer, but with so many new threats created every day, it must have updated definition files to be of any use.

If you don’t already have security software on your PC, make sure you install it and keep it updated. Paid AOL members can download security software from McAfee for free, as part of their membership, at safety.aol.com. If you’re not a paid AOL member, you can still find special deals on McAfee software at this site.

Computer Slow Down Issues And Solutions

If you find yourself getting frustrated and annoyed at your slow computer, you are not alone. Most PC owners are likely to face problems sooner or later. Often within a few months of buying a PC, you may notice that it is not performing like new. Unfortunately, most of the time no action is taken until your PC becomes frustratingly slow and leads to a major loss in productivity.

While some of the slowing down of your computer can be attributed to the burden on its resources, most of the time, computer slowdowns are just symptoms of some other underlying issue. When faced with this problem, your first instinct may be to call up a computer expert to help you resolve it, however, there is no need to escalate the issue and you can take care of most PC problems if you cover a few things on your end.

  • Clean and Defrag your Hard Drive: Your hard disk starts getting cluttered from the day you start working on a new computer as all kinds of data gets continuously added and deleted from it. After a while, it may be difficult to find anything on your hard disk. This situation can be avoided by using the Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter tools. While the former will help you get rid of unnecessary clutter, the latter will help you reorganize the files in your hard disk to make them faster to access. These are system tools provided by your operating system and they go a long way in making your system fast.
  • Select Programs Carefully: It is easy to get carried away and install many new and exciting applications on your computer. The flip side of this is that every time you do that you put an additional burden on your computer. Also, each of these applications bring along their own specific bugs and errors. For example, installing Norton security suite makes you vulnerable to ccsvchst.exe high CPU usage problems—especially if you fail to update the software on a regular basis. So, you must be judicious in installing applications on your PC and must get rid of unwanted ones immediately. You can use the Add/Remove Programs utility available in your Control Panel to achieve this. If the software is large or if there are some problems with the un-installation process, you may use a good, third-party program uninstaller tool to do the job.
  • Maintain a Healthy Registry: It has been observed that slow computers tend to have bloated and cluttered windows registries. In addition to the bad performance of your PC, an unhealthy registry is known to cause numerous registry errors and disrupt your work. Therefore, you must maintain a healthy windows registry. This can be achieved either by manually editing your registry or by simply downloading a popular registry cleaner from the Internet. You must opt for manual editing of the registry only if you are sure of what you are looking for, otherwise, you should delegate this task to a registry cleaner that will clean your registry in just a few minutes.

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