When your PC slows down, you’re going to notice it, and it can make the most simple tasks take forever! The truth is that your computer slowing down should never be considered normal or something that you have to live with. Take some time and look over these four tips on how to keep your computer running as smoothly and as swiftly as when you took it out of the box. It really can be as simple as following a few steps when you want to get your computer up to a place when you can perform all those tasks quickly.
Defragment
When you are considering how to speed up a slow PC, remember that defragmenting or “defragging” your computer should always be your first choice. Whenever you download programs or media, they get stored in your computer, but the storage is not always optimal in terms of where they go. When you defrag you computer’s hard drive, you are essentially picking everything up and putting it someplace where it will be easier to reach. This metaphor works surprisingly well, and you’ll soon realize how much easier your programs are to access and how fast things are running along.
Remove Your Fonts
When you want to learn how to sped up a slow PC, you may be surprised to find out that your fonts may play an important part of the process. The issue here is that Windows machines will load up every font every time, and this eats up system resources like you wouldn’t believe! What you need to do in this case is to remove all fonts except the ones that you use on a regular basis and those that are necessary for websites to render. This is pretty easy to do. Go to Start, and select Control Panel, and find the Fonts folder. From there, move the fonts you don’t need to a temporary directory, because you may want them back someday. This can help you free up some significant system resources.
Clean Up Your Startup Folder
Your Startup folder is is what controls the tasks that will automatically start when you turn on your computer. While some of these tasks are fine, others just hog up memory that you could be using for other things. Go to Start, select My Computer and open up the Documents and Settings folder. Choose your user name, choose the Start Menu, then open up Programs and go to Start Up. Delete the shortcuts for any programs that you don’t want running when your computer boots.
Overclocking
When you are looking to get the most bang out of your buck for your computer, consider overclocking, which is essentially the process of instructing your computer to run at more clock cycles per second than was specified by your manufacturer. You should only try this if you are fairly confident in your ability to deal with your computer’s hardware and software, but you’ll find that this can greatly improve your computer’s performance speed. Some common items of hardware that get overclocked include video cards, processors, and of course, RAM.