10 tips on how to fix an overly slow computer

Don't you hate it when your computer begins to run very slow?  I mean, when it takes a long, long time just for your cursor to become active, or when it takes 90 seconds to open up a Microsoft Word document.  Besides making sure your computer doesn't have any viruses (for which I recommend using Ad Aware SE Personal Edition, which is free and is also what Google recommends), there are a variety of other reasons that will slow down a PC. 

Of course, what I'm talking about is slowing down beyond what a normal person is willing to accept.  I have a $2500 laptop and it was ridiculous for Internet Explorer or Outlook to bring the system to a crawl.  If none of these work, you may want to try to get professional help.  I'm not an expert, but Id did note that these fixes helped fix my XP machine.  Some of these tips from a very skilled computer support person where I work.

Here's what I recommend:

1. Empty your trash.  To do this, right-click on the Recycle Bin on your desktop and then choose Empty Recycle Bin.
       
2. Clean out your cookies and temporary internet files.  The easiest way to do this is with Clean Up!  It's free.
    
3. Tell Internet Explorer not to store so many Temporary Internet Files.  Go into Tools > Internet Options and you should be in the General tab.  In the Temporary Internet Files section (in the middle), click on Settings.  At the bottom, you'll see a section entitled "Amount of disk space to use".  If it's set very high (500 megabytes or higher), I recommend resetting this to 250 megabytes.  (Mine was originally set to over 1 gig so it's no wonder why having an extra gig of temporary files on my PC was bogging things down.)
    
4. Tell Internet Explorer to delete all temporary internet files each time it closes.  To do this, go to Tools > Internet Options and then click on the Advanced tab.  Scroll to near the bottom under the Security area.  Here, look for "Empty Temporary Internet Files when browser is closed".  Put a checkbox next to this.  Then click Apply and OK.
               
5. Remove unnecessary files from the System Tray, which are the programs that automatically load into memory upon startup.  You won't be deleting these files, just preventing them from loading into memory at startup.  But please be careful and only remove those that you're sure you don't need.  To do this, go to Start and click on Run.  In the text box, type in "msconfig" (without the quotes).  Then go to the Startup tab and uncheck what you want to uncheck.  After you are done, hit Apply then OK.  I removed things such as iTunesHelper and various programs that load into memory that I don't need to have there (now they won't load into memory until I manually open the programs).
                  
6. Assuming you may still have some slowdowns, use Task Manager to help speed up your programs.  This was a golden fix for me.  Open up Task Manager by hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL at the same time followed by selecting Task Manager in the window that pops up.  Click on Processes.  There will likely be so many that you'll want to sort by "Mem Usage" (click on "Mem Usage" and then click on it again to sort by memory required in descending order).  To set a priority, right-click on the program of interest, then go to Set Priority, then set an appropriate priority (I recommend "high").  From time to time, my Internet Explorer or Outlook turns to a crawl.  This is the method I use to fix that.
    
7. Control the number of icons on your desktop.  If you have 40 icons on your desktop, then your PC has to refresh 40 icons every time any part of the desktop is showing.  This can slow things down.  For those icons that don't need to be on the desktop, create a folder (right-click on desktop then choose New > Folder).  Then open the folder and move some of the icons to this folder.
      
8. If you use Google Web Accelerator and web pages are loading much slower than normal, turn off Google Web Accelerator.  Sometimes I think Google's servers are working slowly.  Either that, or something with their local software gets in a funk and becomes useless and a hindrance.
      
9. If you don't need them, make sure IIS and SQL Server are turned off.  This probably only applies to advanced users who at one point turned these off.  One way to try to turn them off is to go to Start > Run > type in "msconfig" > click on Services tab and then turn them off here.  If this doesn't work, consult Google or your manual on how to proceed.
      
10. If all else fails, get yourself an Apple/Mac computer or anything that doesn't run on a Windows operating system.  I know this is extreme, but I like to take my jabs at Microsoft when I can.  I've had many hundreds of headaches over the past 20 years that I can attribute to Microsoft.  Apparently, Mac users are happy with their machines and these things never happen to them.  Given so many people hate Microsoft and alternates are becoming more prevalent, I wouldn't be surprised to see their market share begin to shrink.  At the very least, I don't think many (if any) of PC's sold in places like China or India will have Microsoft on them.  Anyway, blame Microsoft.

Comments

[Jamie]

Yes ... your last one! I agree ... But mac's also run windows great to :P

[Search Engines WEB ۞]

Using a 56K dialup

The combination of AOL + Google Web Accelater + Open DNS - along with the tips on this page

Resulted in an almost Broadband-like experience.

about equall to 500K

[ravindra]

done a good job. easy to understand and works well.

[oscar deleon]

Thanks for the help.....it really made a difference.....

[steven davies]

To do this, right-click on the Recycle Bin on your desktop and then choose Empty Recycle Bin.But the information is still on your hard drive.The only thing that a computer does is mark the space taken by the deleted file and note that it is available.if you wish to actually remove files, a program such as Max File Shredder will take files that are deleted and write over their space to remove any evidence of the file’s existence.

[eric]

thanks man made a huge difference. with very simple and easy to use instructions...

[Mike Reynolds]

Thanks Eric. Too bad our PC's don't fix themselves. I look forward to simpler PC's in the future that will be less prone to the messes that we all get ourselves into. Happy New Year!

[Matej]

I was never interested in Microsoft/Apple fights. After one year of forced using Mac OS X I am interested :-)

Yes, Windos has its bugs, but still it's great comparing OS X. Like that stupid feature - if you open CD-ROMD drive and take out CD/DVD before deleting the icon on the desktop - OS X FREEZE!!! Now that's for a headache, not some funny Win slowdown when opening Photoshop.

I mean - use whatever you want. People has great feelings that Gates is gonna bankrupt because of them using Linux and stuff... but that's good for them. What I need is functioning computer - it does what I want when I want and don't have to think how to make things work, they just do. Like: wanna see a movie? I don't want half an hour looking for patches and plug-ins to watch a movie. I just doubleclicks and WMP plays the movie - simple and with no headache :) (ok I use the PowerDVD for watching DVD's but that's it).

So - don't kill me :-) I just really like Windows because I'm just regular user not some high-tech PC engineer wanted to do things in his own OS. I just want to work and relax :-)

[copy dvd to dvd]

Never mind the money…. From what I’ ve heard about Windows Vista’ s intrusive qualities, I don’ t understand why anyone would upgrade to it… I’ ve heard that it’ s built in risk assessments will automatically delete components it deems risky- whether you want it to or not… and there is concern that it will detect disable and/ or remove pirated software and media even of“ questionable provenance”… it has built in proprietary HD media decoding software, but it’ s evidently been crippled so that it will not...

[dvd burning]

I can’ t stand this machine anymore. Its too slow. Getting hard rebuilding over and over every day. Down to 3 gigs of free space too. Time to buy a new one. Anyone care to contribute with the‘ help Zac get a new PC so he can program his open source stuff’ fund?

[www.FreeRegistryCleanerScan.com]

Each of the boys got their own accounts with names they made up with a little help and they got to choose their own penguins. They each have a password that exceeds the site’ s minimum requirements and I made each brother leave the room when we were typing in the other boy’ s password. We sat down and discussed what is appropriate behavior online and what is not. I guess I’ ve talked about it enough in the past because they both knew that telling anyone their real name, phone number or address is a no- no,...

[vyzahirm]

No.. Arent you dont like

[paper shredders ratings]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

[Michael Mann]

Hey, a tip would be to go to free-registry-cleaner-review.com , there I review all of these kinds of performance programs, finding out if they are good or not. Check it out, http://www.free-registry-cleaner-review.com

Michale Mann at your service!

[Kelly Wright]

Tip #7 is espacially good for ALL users. I don't know why so many PC users like their desktop cluttered with no square inch of space left free. My desktop contains 3 icons: My Computer, Network Neighbourhood and Recycle Bin. Nothing else, not even IE icon! Everything I need on a regular basis is kept in the taskbar. So I enjoy a wallpaper at its best.

[computer nerd]

Yeah, definitely check out registry cleaners as another option. These can really improve your system's performance after installs/uninstalls, etc. Here's a little info at our site:
http://www.registrycleanersblog.com/registry-cleaners/registry-cleaners-what-are-they
We also have a review of various registry cleaner programs available on the market.

[registry fix review]

Nice post and some great tips but I'm with you on the last post about getting a mac, unfortunately I haven't been able to get one yet but I will have one soon. :-)

[Registry Cleaner Reviews]

Hi there. Thanks for the great info on your site, I'll bookmark it for later :-) I've got some great reviews on registry cleaners on my blog, so feel free to take a look. Thanks very much!

[RegistryFixReports]

As a sys admin with 9 years Microsoft exeperience, you is right on. I've killed my fair share of systems, both workstations and servers. Sometimes you must play doctor, no way around it (ever support legacy or custom applications?). But now, before even thinking about it, my number activity is a registry backup, and a system restore point, if possible. The more important the machine, the more important the backup.