If you approach a computer company about an issue with a slow computer, its first response might be to urge you to purchase a new computer or to upgrade your hardware because the company wants to sell products. However, if your computer was once fast and now performs poorly, the problem is unlikely to be related to the hardware. In many cases, you can significantly increase the speed of your computer by making software changes that cost nothing.
Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Instructions
1
Examine your Windows Add/Remove Programs list for items that you do not use. A Windows program might install a background service to make the program open more quickly when you use it, or to check for updates periodically. These background services reduce the available system resources for programs that you actually use. Removing programs also creates more free space on the hard drive.
2
Run a full anti-virus and anti-spyware scan of your computer to check for and remove malicious programs that run in the background. Malicious software can cause your computer to suddenly drop in performance.
3
Run the Windows Disk Cleanup utility to search for and remove old files that Windows no longer needs. Some of the files that Disk Cleanup typically removes are software installation logs, the contents of the Recycle Bin, memory dumps from past operating system crashes and Internet Explorer temporary files. If you have never deleted these files manually, Disk Cleanup may recover a large portion of your computer's hard drive space.
4
Defragment the hard drive after removing programs and unneeded files. Defragmenting moves the remaining data to the fastest part of the hard drive and eliminates split files and small blocks of empty space, allowing your computer to read data from the hard drive more quickly. Do not defragment if your computer has a Solid-State Drive.
5
Revert to an older software version if you experience slowness with only one program. Complicated programs -- such as video and picture editing software -- tend to consume large amounts of system resources. Your computer may barely meet the hardware requirements for a new version of a program, while the previous version might run at an acceptable speed.
6
Connect a flash memory drive to your computer to enable ReadyBoost if you have a machine running Windows Vista or Windows 7. If you have a high-speed flash drive that you are not using for anything else, Windows can utilize it for temporary storage to make some programs open and close more quickly.
7
Disable Windows Aero. Aero uses your computer's video card to enable enhanced graphics in the Windows desktop environment. Although Aero may look pretty, it may also slow down a computer that has marginal hardware.
