Your system settings, viruses or
bloatware are the reasons to blame for system slowdown. Read this article to
know and learn how to make your computer run faster.
This is seriously most frustrating
thing that you want to do some important day to day work on your computer and
it is responding slower than usual. Waiting for minutes to load a simple web
page or an Application software by your laptop or all-in-one PC can make even a
sane person want to throw their device in the bin. But don't get frustrated by
these problems as these can be solved by following some simple steps. Viruses,
malware, bloatware removal and tweaking some windows settings are a good place
to start. Following are some must-do activities to keep your PC running at full
potential.
Keep Software’s Up to Date
Keep Software’s Up to Date
First of all, make sure all of your
installed software is up to date. Most important ones to keep updated are web
browsers, antivirus or internet security applications, device drivers and
Windows itself, as Microsoft issues regular updates to fix security glitches or
holes in the operating system.
Scan for Viruses & Malwares
Viruses can slow down your computer
and can corrupt your important data, while the spyware's can compromise your
systems security by monitoring your activity and collecting information about
you and then sending them back to the hacker. Keep the live protection of your
antivirus always on and make sure it's up to date. Manually run a full scan of
your hard disk from time to time, you can also schedule scans to run at a
particular interval of time. If you don't have an antivirus software and you
have a doubt on the built-in Windows protection than search online for best
antivirus software and get one.
Clear Cache & Cookies
Every time we visit a web page, the
web browser stores information known as ‘cache’ as a small file in. Similarly,
it stores small files called 'cookies', which contain information about what
you have browsed and if you login into certain sites then this information is
also stored in cookies so that whenever you visit that page again then you
don’t have to enter details to log in. Over the time through continuous usage,
the volume of these files increases. Regularly clearing browser’s cache can
help browser to work faster when loading pages and can also reduce the amount
of valuable disk space that these files takes. In most browsers, you can find
these settings within the Setting menus history area, there you will see
labeled something like Clear browsing data or Clear cache & cookies.
Disable Unnecessary Startup Programs
How fast your computer boots into
windows depends on several things like the hardware & software
configurations. But the number of programs that are scheduled to start up with
Windows have a major impact on windows startup up time. Many of the programs,
when installed, make an entry in windows startup and start running in the
background when you turn on the computer causing slow system startup. You can
easily disable these programs that you don’t need from automatic starting. To
do so press Windows Key+R to open the run dialog box, type MSConfig and press
Enter. The System Configuration window will open, now in this window click the
Startup tab. From the list of programs, uncheck the box next to those you don’t
want to launch automatically at windows startup. Click Apply and then click OK
(if you are using windows version 8 or above you can disable these programs
through task manager). Restart your system to see the changes.
Remove Unused Programs
Only windows startup speed is not
enough it is also desired that computer should also run fast when we are using
it. You can consider freeing some storage space and memory by uninstalling
programs that you don’t use. These can include the trial versions of software
that are now expired and require a purchased license to run, antivirus
software’s which are now out-of-date or games that you no longer play. To do so
Click Start > Control Panel > Program & Feature, from the list of
programs, double-click the program you want to uninstall and continue the
onscreen instruction to complete the Uninstallation.
Remove Bloatware
Bloatware’s are the preloaded
unnecessary programs in any branded PC, usually, companies put these bloatwares
for the promotion of third party apps. The pre-installed bloatware programs can
be easily uninstalled, but the trick to remove these is in knowing what can be
removed without affecting other applications performance and what you should
keep. If you find programs installed that you have never used and you have no
intention of using these in future, these are bloatware that you can easily
uninstall. Follow the same instructions given above to uninstall programs to
remove them and if you are not sure what program to remove please seek the
advice of some PC Expert.
Removing toolbars
The extra toolbars on your web
browser are an example of bloatware. These sometimes come pre-installed on your
PC or added by downloadable applications. Toolbars are the ones which appear at
the top of your browser window usually below the address bar, and often provide
their own search box. Toolbars can also be uninstalled by the same way as other
software. Look out for toolbars when installing other programs and make sure
you opt out by unchecking the tick box.
Delete Temporary Files
Windows has a built-in tool Disk
Clean-up utility that can help in boost computer’s performance by removing
unnecessary system files or temporary files. To run the program Click Start
Menu and in the search box type disk cleanup, click Disk Cleanup from the list
of results. In the Disk Cleanup’s dialog box select the drive that you want to
clean (mostly C:) from the list of Drives and click Ok. It will now calculate
how much of disk space can be cleaned. Now in the Disk Cleanup box, select the
type of files that you want to delete and then click OK to Delete files (if you
want to delete protected unnecessary system files too then click ‘Clean up
System files’ button).
Install a solid-state drive (SSD)
Solid State Drives are best if you
want to increase your system speed because unlike the traditional hard drives,
solid-state drives (SSD) have no moving parts, this makes them more efficient
and, ultimately, faster. You can get one to and keep it as a primary Drive for
installing windows and programs for faster access. You should expect to spend
from £50 to £250, depending on the SSD’s capacity (usually ranging between 32GB
and 512GB). To replacing your hard drive with a SSD requires opening your CPU
cabinet and fiddling with its power and data cables. If you're not confident of
what you're doing, then we suggest getting a professional to install it.
Defragment Your Hard Disk Regularly
Whenever PC saves a large file or
files to the hard drive, it breaks it into smaller pieces and stores them
across several locations. As the number of files increases, it takes longer for
the hard drive to seek and read the data which is written on pieces on
different locations. The Disk defragmenter tools, such as the one which is
included in Windows, reorganize this data by picking the same file pieces and
putting them by combining into single file so that whenever the file is
required it will be accessed faster, as a result, the applications load faster
and you feel that computer is performing quicker than before. But if you have a
solid-state drive (SSD) installed rather than the common Magnetic hard disk
this process won't be necessary
, as Windows automatically do it for you from time
to time in the background. It is recommended that you don't manually defrag an
SSD.
, as Windows automatically do it for you from time
to time in the background. It is recommended that you don't manually defrag an
SSD.
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