“How can I make my computer run faster?” seems to be the proverbial question asked by most computer consumers these days. Making your computer run faster and perform better overall is not that difficult. There are a handful of simple things you can do to help speed up your computer. Most of them are so simple, you’ll probably feel like a total idiot for not already knowing how to do these things. It’s okay, after you learn what to do, you can rub it in your friends’ faces and make them feel like an idiot.
Cleanliness is Next to Godliness
A clean computer is a fast computer. No, I’m not suggesting that you douse your computer in windex. I’m talking about unnecessary files and desktop icons that are cluttering up your computer. We all love those easy-to-access icons on our desktop, and that pretty picture of sunny sky, but all that desktop-decor is eating up your RAM. Keep it simple. Delete any unnecessary icons from your desktop and opt for a solid color background instead of a picture.
Now that your desktop is closer to the days of DOS, it’s time to throw away some more junk. Click on the Start menu and go to “All Programs>>Accessories>>System Tools>>Disk Cleanup.” Once you do this, a dialog box will pop up and ask you to select the drive you want to clean. By default it should be your (C:) drive. Click on “OK.” Windows will begin to do it’s thing, and as always, test your patience while it does it. Just hang in there. It may take a few minutes, or lifetimes, depending on how many files are on your computer.
Another dialog box will pop up with a few boxes checked off. If you’re not sure what these boxes mean, just leave the default boxes checked and click “OK.” Windows will probably ask you if you’re sure you want to do this, just click “Yes.” Silly Windows, it always assumes you have no clue what you’re doing. You should notice an immediate increase in the speed of your computer after the disk cleanup has finished.
Okay, lets do some more cleaning. Click on your Start menu again and go to “Control Panel>>Add or Remove Programs.” Uninstall any programs you’re not using. After you’re done removing unwanted programs, restart your computer. Again, your computer should be noticeably faster now.
The next thing you need to do is defragment your computer. Open the Start menu and go to “All Programs>>Accessories>>System Tools>>Disk Defragmenter.” A dialog box will open. If you want to, you can click on “Analyze,” or you can just go ahead and click on “Defragment.” This usually takes a very long time. You should probably go to college, start a career, get married, and have a couple kids while you’re waiting. In all seriousness, it is best to do start this before you go to bed or plan on leaving your house for a while.
Now that you’re an official computer genus, lets move…
Give Your Computer a Checkup
It’s time to make sure your computer is healthy. Virus are one of the main problems that will make a computer slow. You should download, install and run AdAware, AVG, and CCleaner. All these programs are free. AdAware and AVG will get rid of most of the spyware and cookies on your computer, and CCleaner will clean out your registry, which is wear viruses like to hangout and do their dirty work.
Get Techie
If your computer still isn’t as fast as you would like it to be, you should consider upgrading your hardware. Adding extra RAM to your computer is easy to do and will make it tremendously faster. Upgrading your video and sound cards can also make your computer much faster, especially if you use your computer for graphic design, video editing, or recording audio.
After you have done all of these things, if your computer is still too slow, try reinstalling your operating system. If after that, your computer is still too slow, just throw that piece of junk out and get a new one.
