Many of you might be wondering why your Personal computer(PC) , be it a laptop, a desktop or a notebook running slowly as days pass by. Your computer needs regular maintenance to keep it in good condition. If you don’t do it, then the PC becomes sluggish in its performance. Here are the few steps which could make your old computer run like a new one, fast and smooth.
1. Don’t keep many start-up programs:
Large number of start-up programs increases your PC booting time. So its very important that you keep only those programs which are absolutely necessary, as the startup programs.
2. Defragment your Hard Drive Regularly:
Over a period of time as you start filling your HDD, the filesystem arranges your data in a random fashion resulting in slow access of stored data due to fragmentation. This fragmentation causes applications to run slowly and reading and writing time of files becomes longer. So to avoid this sluggishness you have to regularly defragment your HDD (say once in a week). There is built in app in windows to defragment ( under accessories>system tools) but you can find many freewares for defragmentation. Personally I’d recommend Auslogics Disk Defrag as it can optimize the file arrangement in disks after defragmenting. It is FREE for personal use. It also has a portable version.
3. Don’t store files on Desktop:
Storing too many files on Desktop is very bad idea because everytime windows logs you in, it has to load them into memory. Instead store them in Hard Drive and create a short cut on Desktop.
4. Keep Antivirus up to date and Perform Regular scans:
If your PC is too slow and takes too much time to start, then there maybe viruses/malware present in your system. To avoid this have a antivirus. There are many free antiviruses available so need not have to pay to get one! But it is equally important to keep updating it and to do full system scans regularly.
5. Remove Junk and temporary files:
Unnecessary files starts accumulating over a period of time in your PC and it is important that you clean them from hard disk to gain space. One freeware which does this job is ccleaner, which cleans unnecessary files also cleans up the registry. Download it here. You can use it to disable unnecessary start ups too!
6. Clean up and Defragment Registry:
When you install and uninstall programs, there may lot of empty settings left behind in your registry so it is important to clean them up and defrag so that they an be read faster. A must have system utility software is IObit’s toolbox, which has many tools which will improve your PC. Download this free software here. Use advanced systemcare to further speedup your PC , it has a free and PRO version.
7. Don’t install and Don’ keep too many programs:
Install only the programs you need! and uninstall the programs you don’t use. For example if you always use google chrome browser it is unnecessary to install or have safari browser in your system. They just eat your hard drive space.
8. Upgrade Hardware:
If your Hard Drive is full , your PC will become slow. So get a portable hard drive and keep only important files in your PC and transfer the rest to portable HDD. Also if you don’t have sufficient RAM, upgrading it. 64 bit operating system can handle more RAM whereas if your PC is 32 bit maximum RAM you can use is 3GB.
9. Upgrade Operating System:
A 64-bit operating system can noticeably increase the performance of your computer if it has sufficient hardware to run it. (for example: a PC with >2GHz multi-core processor, >3GB RAM, Graphics card). So if your computer is running on 32 bit operating system, consider loading a 64 bit operating system.
10. Keep Drivers and Programs up to date:
Keep programs updated. Regularly check for updates or set the programs to update automatically. Also keep drivers up to date so that you will get the best performance from your device and peripherals.
