Speed Up Your Computer With These Simple Steps

Has your PC’s performance slowed significantly since you purchased it?  Don’t throw it out and buy a new one. Using a few simple tools you can speed up your computer by removing clutter and unwanted programs that cause it to slow down.

1. Remove Malware

We’ve all downloaded free programs from sites like download.com. According to howtogeek.com the top 10 most downloaded programs from download.com all contained malware.  These unwanted and often malicious programs cause our computers to slow significantly.

One of the best malware removal tools that I’ve used has been Malwarebytes.  This freely available program (there is a premium version as well) will scan your computer’s hard drive and memory looking for malware.  It normally does a great job; however, nothing is perfect, so you may want to run a second program such as SuperAntiSpyware to double check.

2. Clean Up Your Startup

If your computer takes forever to boot, then you need to disable the likely dozens of programs that are trying to start while your PC boots. The easiest way to accomplish this is to use the built in msconfig.exe program to selectively disable them.  Here is a great tutorial from howtogeek.com that walks you through the process of using msconfig.exe.  Doing this one thing should greatly speed up your computer’s boot time.

3. Clean Your Drive

If browsing the web is extremely slow (and your sure it isn’t your internet connection) then you may need to remove some files from your computer. Hard drives that are close to their max capacity can cause your system to run slowly.  They are usually filled with files (often from the web browser’s cache) that can be removed with no harm done to your PC.  CCleaner is a great program from Piriform.com that searches through your computer’s hard drive to find files which can be removed to free up some extra space on your drive.

So if you’ve tried the above steps to speed up your computer and you still aren’t satisfied with your PC’s performance, then it may be time to think about an upgrade.  I’m not necessarily talking about a whole new computer.  One of the biggest speed improvments you can make to your computer is to upgrade the mechanical hard drive to a solid state drive also known as an ssd.  Solid state drives are significantly faster than mechanical drives; however, they don’t offer as much capacity and they can be expensive.  If your computer has less than 2GB of RAM (Random Access Memory) it may be time to think about upgrading that as well.

If you don’t feel comfortable doing any of these steps yourself, you can always give me a call or send me a message and I will be happy to help.

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