So for some reason, your PC, once that wonder of inhuman speed, the fastest and latest model of its brother PCs, has started to become too slow. Booting up makes you understand the actual length of an ice age, and opening programs take half an hour. I wish I could say I was exaggerating, but some of the PCs for friends and relatives that I’ve tried to fix have had this kind of working time—and that’s without it actually running more than one program.
The problem here is that everyone needs speed. Whether you need it for fast working through a virtual office or your kids are doing research for school, speed is always the key. We’ve become so accustomed to speed that lagging computers have can drive us crazy. So what do you do when your PC is the slowest it’s been in months?
Tips and Tricks to Speeding Up Your PC
– Empty the cache of everything. This is one of the very first things I tell family and friends to do. Empty the temporary internet files folder, the cache, and restart the computer. If you’ve got an Adobe editing program in there, clear that cache as well, and make sure that its cache is located at a disk drive with way more space than any other. This will unload the burden on the RAM in the main C drive.
– Start deleting programs you don’t need. More often than not, I find countless programs that users have once installed but really don’t use. Clear the browser of those pesky toolbars (if you’re using IE, stop. Use Chrome or Firefox). Clean up all the files in your desktop (there’s no need to put everything there) sorting them into the appropriate folders, and removing the icons of the programs you don’t need. Uninstall the unnecessary and extra programs, and restart the computer again.
– Defrag away. Surprisingly, no matter how many times computer experts have said this tip, not a lot of people actually know what defragging is. Simply put, when you save a file, delete a file, or move it around, there could be pieces of it left behind. Old programs could be leaving old fragmented pieces of it that lead to nowhere all over your PC. Defragging finds these errors and orphaned files and cleans them out of computer, optimizing the way your PC processes and handles data.
– Upgrade everything. This doesn’t necessarily mean hardware. Upgrade the graphics drivers and sound card drivers on the computer. Make sure the programs are also up-to-date in the upgrades. Often, programmers have new updates that will make things work faster. Upgraded drivers also make it easier for computers to process data more efficiently in more compatible ways.
– Invest in hardware. If you still need speed and power, this is well worth the investment. Getting an extra stick of RAM (more gigs, more speed) will improve overall computer processing speed. An upgraded graphics card will also make it infinitely easier for computers to process and access graphics data, making everything move faster.
