How To Speed Up Your Computer

After using your computer for awhile you may find that it has begun to slow down and does not run as quickly as it used to. There are a few different things that you can do to speed up your computer in order to get it back to how it ran when you first bought it. Depending upon how often you use your computer and what you use it for can have a big impact on when you will start to notice it slowing down.

  1. Defragmentation – After using your computer for awhile things start to become unorganized. Installing and uninstalling programs can leave files scattered throughout your hard drive decreasing it’s efficiency. Defragmenting your computer organizes the files spread throughout the hard drive decreasing the time that your computer has to search for them.
  2. Check for viruses – Viruses, worms, trojans, malware, spyware….they are all bad. While each are meant for a specific task they can have a big influence on how your computer runs. Viruses, worms and trojans can affect files and settings which in turn can cause your computer to slow down or even crash. The more you run your computer the more often you should perform a virus scan.
  3. Clear the prefetch folder – Windows takes a snapshot of a program when it first starts and saves the settings so that next time it doesn’t have to figure out the settings. It can just take a quick peek at the file and figure out what needs to be done. If you have uninstalled programs before the files can still exist which can slow down your computer because it has to search through them.

    The prefetch folder can usually be found inside of the Windows directory.

  4. Trimming down auto-start programs – The more programs you install on your computer the more chances you have of that program trying to load itself when Windows starts. When Windows starts it not only has to load it’s own programs but also the programs that you have installed. Most programs have an option to load on startup which you can turn off under a settings/configuration menu.
  5. Delete temporary internet files/folders – When browsing the internet, your web browser may create a temporary file or folder and they don’t always get deleted. These files can start to add up and cause excess storage requirements and slow down your computer when it has to search through the hard drive. Read more on how to delete temporary internet files.

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