Speed Up Your Slow Computer - Optimal Computer Performance. Part 1
Technology is evolving so rapidly in this day and age that the lifespan of any electronic product seems to get shorter and shorter every year. Computers are no exception with new computers becoming outdated within just a couple of years. Often it seems that after only a matter of months your computer performance is no longer as fast, responsive or satisfactory. Many people think that this is just part and parcel of computers as you add software, files and continue to surf the internet and that you need to start looking for a new computer within 18 months to 2 years.
However, this is not actually the case. There are a wide range of things you can do to speed up your current computer and prolong the life of your slow pc.
Part 1 of this article discusses 5 steps you can take to fix a slow computer and keep it running at optimal performance. And best of all – they are either free or very minimal cost… so you don’t need to shell out thousands, or even hundreds to improve your pc.1.
Optimize Display Settings
While it is always nice for your computer to look great… displaying a huge range of visual options can also slow your computer and mean less than ideal performance. By removing some of these unnecessary visual options you can improve the speed of your computer.
Go to the Control Panel
Click System
Click Advanced tab
In the Performance tab click Settings
There 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.
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.
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.
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 RegCure for a free scan to see if your registry requires attention.
Technology is evolving so rapidly in this day and age that the lifespan of any electronic product seems to get shorter and shorter every year. Computers are no exception with new computers becoming outdated within just a couple of years. Often it seems that after only a matter of months your computer performance is no longer as fast, responsive or satisfactory. Many people think that this is just part and parcel of computers as you add software, files and continue to surf the internet and that you need to start looking for a new computer within 18 months to 2 years.However, this is not actually the case. There are a wide range of things you can do to speed up your current computer and prolong the life of your slow pc.
Part 1 of this article discusses 5 steps you can take to fix a slow computer and keep it running at optimal performance. And best of all – they are either free or very minimal cost… so you don’t need to shell out thousands, or even hundreds to improve your pc.1.
Optimize Display Settings
While it is always nice for your computer to look great… displaying a huge range of visual options can also slow your computer and mean less than ideal performance. By removing some of these unnecessary visual options you can improve the speed of your computer.
Go to the Control Panel
Click System
Click Advanced tab
In the Performance tab click Settings
There 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.
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.
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.
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 RegCure for a free scan to see if your registry requires attention.
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:\
