Does your computer seem slow, unresponsive or out of date only a few months after your purchased it?
You need to do everything that you can to prolong the lifecycle of your computer and to fix a slow computer.
Here are 10 quick steps you can take to help fix your slow computer and make it run like new again.
1. Optimize Display Settings
By removing some of the unnecessary visual options on your computer you can help fix your slow computer and improve the performance.Go to the Control PanelClick SystemClick Advanced tabIn the Performance tab click SettingsThere are a range of options you can remove here.
I would suggest you only retain the following as ticked:
(1) Show shadows under menus
(2) Show shadows under mouse pointer
(3) Show translucent selection rectangle
(4) Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop
(5) Use visual styles on windows and buttonsYou can play around with these settings, as these will not affect the stability of your computer.
2. Disable File Indexing
File Indexing is a service that uses a huge amount of your computers RAM. By disabling this your system can immediately become faster and more responsive.
How do you do this?
a. Double Click the My Computer icon
b. Right click the c: drive and hit properties
c. Uncheck “allow indexing service to index this disk for fast file searching” Apply this change to C: subfolders and files and click OK.
3. Remove Your Desktop Picture
It may be nice to have a pretty picture on your desktop background. However, did you know that this pictures uses a huge amount of memory and can slow your computer performance. If you remove the image this can improve the speed of your computer.
4. Scan Your Computer Registry
RegCure™ is one of the top rated Registry Cleaners available in the market. One of the best ways to improve the speed of your computer is to clean your computer registry with an effective registry cleaner. Visit http://www.fixaslowcomputer.com/ for a free scan to see if your registry requires attention or click here.
5. Empty the prefetch folder
‘Prefetching’ is when Windows XP pre-loads portions of data and applications that are frequently loaded. While this has the benefit of allowing programs to appear and start quickly… after a while it can end up a burden on your computer as XP wastes time pre-loading obsolete data.
By regularly emptying your prefetch folder you can gain some improvements in system performance.
How do you do this?
The prefetch folder resides on your local hard disk, under the Windows folder.%systemroot%\prefetch-or-X:\windows\prefetch
Where X is the drive letter where you have Windows installed. Either path will get you to your local system. The second path is for those who have the default installation on the most commonly used drive letter, C:\
6. Reduce the number of fonts
Extra fonts on your computer do use up a lot of your systems power! TrueType Fonts in particular are a drain on computer resources.
So how can you get rid of some of these fonts?
Open Control Panel
Open Fonts folder
Move fonts you do not require to a temp directory so you can reinstall them later if required.
Anything over 300 fonts is probably excessive and can really slow your computer.
7. Improve folder browsing
You can improve your folder browsing so that a single Windows Explorer window does not take the rest of your operating system down you can launch separate folder windows in multi processes.
Step 1.
Click on My Computer, tools, then Folder Options.
Click on the View tab.
Scroll down to "Launch folder windows in a separate process," and enable this option.
Step 2.
Stop Windows XP automatically searching for network files and printers everytime you open windows explorer.1) Open My Computer 2) Click on Tools menu 3) Click on Folder Options 4) Click on the View tab. 5) Uncheck the Automatically search for network folders and printers check box 6) Click Apply 7) Click Ok 8) Reboot your computer
8. Disable Performance Counters
Windows XP has a performance monitor utility which monitors several areas of your PC's performance. These utilities take up system resources so disabling is a good idea.
To disable:
1) download and install the Extensible Performance Counter List
2) Then select each counter in turn in the 'Extensible performance counters' window and clear the 'performance counters enabled' checkbox at the bottom button below
9. Disconnect USB Devices not in use
Printers, Scanners, Cameras and hard drives that connect to your computer can slow your system when Windows boots. This is because Windows will load all the drivers for the devices connected to your computer. If you are not using these items regularly disconnect them. You can plug them back in when you need them and Windows will only load the drivers it needs at any time.
10. Scan for Spyware or Viruses
Unfortunately, whenever you use your computer to access the internet you are at risk from Spyware and Viruses. If you computer becomes infected it will significantly slow your computer, not to mention making it vulnerable to crashing, corruption of data and ultimate failure. You need to ensure that your computer is protected from viruses and spyware. Visit http://www.strowan.com/ for details on the most popular anti virus or spyware products on the market today. Each of these will give you a free scan to see if your computer is infected.
