Speed Up Computer Performance With Regular Maintenance

When needing to speed up computer operations and performance you should first look at “maintenance” just as you would with any piece of equipment. But unlike many machines your computer can be come “cluttered” and filled from the inside with lots of bad contaminates. Maybe you can think of it like the motor in your car.. if you never added or changed the oil would you expect it to run forever? Probably not! The inner workings of a computer gets clogged up and they begin to overload and break down.

Speed Up Computer Tips You Can Do Yourself

Let’s look at the basics – these are some things for you to check first:

• Is Your Virus Protection Up To Date?	• Have You Been Attacked By Malware?
• Do You Have Registry Errors / Clutter?	• Is Your Working Memory Adequate?
• Are Too Many Startup Programs Running?	• Are All Your Programs Up To Date?
• Do You Need To Remove Some Old Files?	• Does Your PC Need A Disk Cleanup?

For those of you that don’t have the time (or desire) to do this maintenance… let this quick, safe software program test your computer for free. It will eliminate many of the steps listed above. The scan to find out your PC’s condition will not cost anything.. just click button –

Viruses Can Slow Up A Computer

Viruses are certainly one of our more common causes of slow computer issues. Removing them will be a good step toward being able to speed up computer functions. Unfortunately they have become a part of our world and something we must attend to even if we don’t understand the persons who do this type of slothful things. The good news is that they can easily be controlled.

One of the things that you need to do is to run a complete or whole PC virus scan. Most of the virus protection systems will not do this until it is set up and scheduled.

To check your virus protection find the icon on your desktop or lower tool bar and double click it. Then check the last time your complete PC was scanned. If not in the last couple of weeks then either schedule one or start it now. Also check if your virus program has a boot scan that is run before Windows opens. These seem to catch problems that other virus software don’t.

Malicious Software or Malware That Slow Down Our Computers

Malware is software that is attached to you computer by several different methods. Hackers are a very big part of our society today and they can do tremendous damage to our computers and to our personal lives if they are able to steal our identity or financial information. It is a constant battle that we must all work at. Personally I have not only protection when I am online but also pay a company to monitor my personal data and watch for anything that might indicate that some has misused my identity, credit cards, etc.

What I recommend is being aggressive with these low-life thefts. First, pay a reliable company, such as your credit card processing company, to monitor and protect you from Identity Theft, one of our countries major problems today. They will not only help protect you but they will also take a major part in doing damage control if your identity is stolen.

And next, if you are on a computer on the Internet much you should be sure to have adequate protection online. Good malware and spyware software programs are available as part of your anti-virus software (probably premium upgrade) or as a part of registry cleaning type programs. One reason we recommend our sponsor here, PC Cleaner, is that it is not only a great way to speed up computer performance but is a complete suite of protection a long with the registry optimization. Whatever your choice be sure you are covered.

The Computer Registry Is A Very Common Cause of A Slow Computer

Registry problems are probably the most common of our issues with computer’s not performing as they should. Even though the “registry” of a PC is somewhat misunderstood it is still a vital part to the workings of our computer and has a large affect on its speed and operation.

The computer’s registry is compared to the brain and is the main storage area for the vital configuration information that is needed almost continually to operate the PC. When this information is able to be accessed quickly it will slow down the computer. Please check out our recommended registry cleaners as mentioned above.

Additional RAM Can Speed Up Computer Performance Quickly

RAM is the acromim for Random Access Memory. This is your PC’s working or short-term memory and has a tremendous affect on the speed your computer is able to operate. Simply put if you don’t have enough RAM your computer’s CPU will have to hunt through the hard drive for information and that will just take a lot longer.

We do not have the space here to go into all the areas that we would like to about RAM and its affect on PC speed. Our page on RAM Performance Issues will cover how much RAM you should have on your PC and how to add more RAM if you need to.

For information please go to: Increase PC Performance

Slow Computer Startup Is A Sign of Too Many Programs Running

When you purchased your computer the manufacturer placed a lot of applications on it before it was shipped out to you or sent to the retail store. Some of this programs are needed to run the operating system and to start up the PC, but some are not and yet are running in the background. Also when you install new programs such as printer drivers they will load onto your PC with default instructions to begin running when the computer is started up. These use up your computer’s capacity and bog it down.

A print driver will still be running in the background and doing automatic updates off the web even after you have quit using that printer and installed another printers driver. Now you have two running all the time. See? After a while you will have way too much running that you don’t even know is there.. and causing your PC to be slow.

For information on how to check what is running and how to cut some of the off go to: Computer Startup Slow.

Keep All Programs and Your System Updated Regularly

To help speed up computer operation you should keep your computer’s Windows operating system updated regularly. It is not only important for keeping your computer working fast but also as safety issue for your PC and your personal protection. The world wide web is a very fast changing place with malware and compatibility problems popping up almost daily. Windows works hard to stay a head of anything that will hurt you or your computer, but it will do no good if you are not getting the updates on a timely basis.

Check to see if your computer needs updating by going to the Start button and find “Windows Update”. When you click on it you should see a screen showing you if any updates need to be done. Also on the left side is a link for “Change Settings” that you can go into and change your computer’s settings to do automatic, daily updates. Most computer are already set to this but I’ve seen a few that were not for some reason.

Individual programs on your PC will have to be updated separately. Most are either set to an automatic update or it will send you a notification when an update is needed. Always update programs when they need to be. If it is a program that you no longer use then remove it from your computer (see below).

Remove Old Programs and Free Up Computer Storage Space

Like many things with computers there is a right way and a wrong way to remove an old program. Now files such as pictures, videos, documents, etc. are different from applications and programs. You can simply delete them from the document file and then clean out the Trash Bin and you have removed them (at least as best you can) and opened up some data storage space.

Programs should be removed through Windows uninstall procedure. Go to “Control Panel” and find “Programs” or “Programs and Features”. There you will find a listing of all your programs. You can select one and it will give you the option of uninstalling it (see picture above). But BE CAREFUL and don’t uninstall something you want to keep.. this process cannot be reversed. Only uninstall programs when you know what they are and that you don’t use them any more.

Organize The Hard Drive With A Disk Cleanup and Defrag

Our final maintenance tip to speed up computer performance is to use the Disk Cleanup tool and the Disk Defragmenter tool. Both of these are provided by Windows the cleanup and organize your hard drive storage area. They do not optimize your registry (see our recommendation here) or your RAM which will clean out and start over when your computer is turned off anyway.

Find the Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter tools by going to Programs –> Accessories –> System Tools –> Disk Cleanup and then just below it –> Disk Defragmenter. Run each of these separately and follow the instructions. Cleanup and defragging may take a few minutes so don’t start them until you can let your computer sit idle for a while.

What Next To Repair and Speed Up Computer?

More On Adding RAM To Speed Up Computer Performance

A computer is supposed to help you achieve a number of tasks in the shortest time possible. It is therefore essential that your computer run at peak performance levels at all times. There are times that you may need to use different software at the same time and open many windows. If you notice a marker slowing in the speed of the computer, you need to check how much Random Access Memory (RAM) you have. Adding more RAM to your computer is the best way of improving computer speed.

The RAM is where temporary information is stored for the use of your computer programs. This information is taken from the hard drive and placed in the RAM so that programs can run faster without having to go back to the hard drive for information. If you do not have enough RAM, you will be taxing your computer since it will have to keep shifting data from your hard drive to the little RAM available. This is what slows down the computer. More memory will almost always speed up computer performance. By adding more RAM you ensure that the computer has enough memory to stores vast amounts of temporary data for use by any open programs without returning it to the hard drive and hence increasing its efficiency of performing various tasks.

It is important that you check on the speed and type of RAM that you have before you decide on which one to add. When adding RAM to your computer it is advisable that you buy that which will be compatible to your existing RAM. Alternatively you can change all the memory cards on your computer if you cannot find that is compatible with the existing one. You should also look at the system configuration of your computer. There are some RAM cards that will not run on certain motherboards. Replacing parts like the CPU is another way of improving computer speeds but this is an expensive option. The best option that you have when it comes to increasing the performance of your computer is adding more RAM.

For those who are game enthusiasts, you need a high end computer with a CPU of high processing speeds. However, you may have a very fast CPU but not enough RAM to run some graphic-intensive games. If you are playing these games online with other players, you may end up losing most of the time since your computer is slow to respond to your commands. Adding more RAM is your answer to this problem. You will be able to compete fairly against other gamers.

For those who are in the computer graphic design industry, you know that you need a lot of memory to load some of the high resolution work that you have to design. At times you may need to keep tow or three graphics open and this will slow down your work if you do not have enough RAM. Meeting client deadlines will be difficult and this may affect the success of your business. If you are a 3D animator, you know that rendering an animation requires a lot of memory too. For you to be effective in this industry you should consider adding more RAM to your computer to make it faster and more efficient so that you may complete and submit jobs to your clients on time.

If these easy maintenance ideas did not help your PC or didn’t help enough, check out our recommended software that can check your computer from top to bottom for you.

Hope this information on Speed Up Computer has helped. We look forward to your comments.