Improving Computer Performance
There are a number of things that can cause degradation of your Computer's performance. The causes are categorized to help you find a solution to your particular problem. It is assumed that you are running Windows XP.
- Tune-up - Do your own tune-up - a guide to the things you need to do.
- Testing Performance - See our Utilities page - use PCPitstop for comprehensive tests or Sandra for more detailed technical testing. You can also test your modem speed.
- Hardware - Memory and Hard Disk - see below.
- Mal-Ware - Now there's a new name! Viruses, Spyware and Adware can all slow down your computer. Spyware and Adware are covered on our Spam and Spyware page. Viruses are discussed on our Security page.
- Start-up - perhaps it takes longer than it originally took to boot up your computer - see Start-up below.
- Registry - too many unused entries in your registry can slow you down. For a free tool, look here.
- Excessively slow Anti-Virus software
Memory
Insufficient RAM Memory means that your computer will make use of temporary disk space instead. Disk space memory (called virtual memory) is much slower so your computer slows down. If you have added new programs or changed how you use your computer, you may need more memory. Computers running Windows XP need a minimum of 256MB and 512MB is recommended. If you use a photo editing program like PhotoShop or if you often have many programs open simultaneously you will need more. You can find out how much RAM you have by going to Start>Control Panel>System. It's shown on the bottom of the first page.
Adding memory requires that you buy additional memory (of the right kind) and open your computer box. Good instructions on this are usually included in the manual that came with your computer. Otherwise, you might want to get help!
Hard Disk (C: Drive)
Disks can have problems although they are usually rare in recent years. However, it is still a good idea to make regular backups.
Check Disk
Before you do anything , you should check your disk for errors.
The Microsoft utility to do this is chkdsk. Go to Start, Run
and type chkdsk in the dialog box. If you prefer, Type chkdsk
/F (note space) to automatically fix the errors - but this time
you'll be told it can't run now but you can ask it to run the
next time you turn the computer on. Note that this is a fairly
long test.
De-Fragment
The most common issue talked about is the need to De-Frag(ment)
the disk to improve disk access times. This is much less necessary
than some people will tell you. Although heavy users should De-Frag
about once a year, it is only useful more often if your disk
is approx. 50% or more full. To De-Frag in XP, go to My Computer, right
click the C: Drive (it probably has a name like "John's
Hard Drive" but will include (C:) after the name), select Properties,
then Tools then De-Fragment Now... . Also available
under tools is Error Checking. This is the same as the
chkdsk above. In Vista, Defrag is automatically done weekly at low priority. You don't see progress or know much about what it's doing. The schedule can be changed to monthly or turned off so you would then do it manually. This is accessed the same as for XP except that when you select De-Fragment Now, one of the options is to change the schedule. The big improvement in Vista is that de-frag will not interfere with performance so can be a background task.
Every time you install a program, it will often add itself to the start-up menu. To find out which programs are starting at Start up, go to Start>Run and type msconfig in the dialog box (alongside Open). Then click OK and select the Startup Tab. You will see a list of programs that are started upon Start-up. If you don't recognise the name, you can usually find out more about it by using a Google Search. One site with a good list is sysinfo.org. Based on what you find out, you can then uncheck its associated box and click OK. When you next start your computer you will probably get a dialog that says the computer is in Selective start up mode. Check the box on the dialog box to stop this showing every start and click OK. The program(s) unchecked will no longer load and your computer will start faster next time.
A good utility to see what is running at start-up (and at other times) is AutoRuns. It does not need to be installed - just download, then run it (execute it). It works on all versions of Windows and is supplied by Microsoft.
Although you want an Anti-Virus program to stop all malware, you don't want it to slow things down to a crawl. Everytime an email arrives and everytime you open a file or a program your Anti-Virus program checks it for a virus or spyware etc. So it is important that the program be designed to be fast as well as effective. Although there is some degree of tradeoff (fast may be less effective and more expensive), there are some exceptions. For home use, Norton and MacAfee are known to be slow. AVG and Avast are almost as good but free. The best program for speed and effectiveness is NOD32 by Eset - the 2008 version is also easy to setup, unlike earlier versions. A new program called Vipre by Sunbelt may also be good but is unproven. My second choice would be Kaspersky. Last would be Norton. Of the free programs, Avast is good but seems slower than AVG.
So if your computer is slow to boot and sluggish to open files, it may well be your Anti-Virus program and not malware. More on Anti-Virus programs.
Note that Firewalls only affect Internet traffic so will only potentially slowdown surfing.