How Can I Keep My Computer Running Fast?

Posted on: September 16th, 2009

New computers usually run quick and snappy but as one uses the computer it tends to slow down more and more. In this article I’m making an attempt to explain why this is and what you can do to keep your computer running quick and snappy.

First of all, what are the reasons a computer gets slower?

Programs installed that add items to the computers start up process. For example, you install AOL (to single out a bad offender), it adds 5-6 items in your start-up without asking you. The first sign you’ll see is that it will take longer to start the computer up. Also the speed of normal operations, not related to AOL, will also suffer because these modules stay in the memory and use the computer’s resources. Interestingly, and contrary to many parents’ opinion, games in most cases do not affect the speed of the computer. Simply because they don’t load anything until you start them.
Disk defragmentation. This is a slow (or with heavy download activities, not so slow) process which causes that files become fragmented (stored in small pieces instead of one continuous chunk). There’s another article on this website that explains this in great details: http://www.computerwizardindy.com/defragmentation-what-it-does-and-what-it-doesnt/
Unwanted software: Here we have viruses, adware, spyware, trojans and so on. These can be just annoying, or dangerous to your data and privacy. Some have very little effect on your computer’s performance but I’ve seen some trojans making a computer run like a turtle. In any case, none of these would do you any good, so just get rid of them and do the actions to prevent them getting on your computer.
Faulty hardware. Sometimes a faulty component in the computer causes the whole system to run slow. Most of the time it’s the hard drive. If a hard drive develops bad (meaning unreadable) sectors and the computer tries to read from those areas then everything will go to a screeching halt. This is the case usually when starting up a computer takes 10-15 minutes. Sometimes faulty CD or DVD drives can cause similar unresponsiveness.
Software corruption. There are cases when the computer is clean of infections and any extra, unnecessary software and it’s optimized but it still runs slow, or takes a long time to start. This is when system corruption is suspected. There are settings which are off can cause the computer to wait for things that don’t happen, or use access methods that are slow and non-optimal for performance reasons. This is relatively rare but occasionally happens.

Now the solutions to these:

Unnecessary startup items and sofware installations: The best tool I found to fight these is called CCleaner (http://filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/). This little program has features that allows you to check the startup list, disable and delete items from it. I highly recommend disabling them first and then running the computer for a couple of days and see if you are missing anything that you need.
CCleaner also allows you to uninstall software. Both uninstall and startup items are listed under Tools in CCleaner. This does the same thing as the Control Panel Icons: Add/Remove Programs in Windows XP, or Programs and Features in Vista. But it makes the list a lot faster.
Disk Fragmentations: To handle this I’d recommend using MyDefrag’s slow optimize method at the first run and the the Fast Optimize afterwards. It does a much more thorough job than Windows’ built in defrag program. Please look at the article mentioned above for detailed instructions on how to achieve the best result with the defragmentation.
If have Windows XP then you can also run a program called PageDefrag (http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/System-Tweak/Pagedefrag.shtml ). This can defragment system files that are locked during normal operation so the normal defragmenters can’t access them. It does not Work on Vista, unfortunately. Here’s an article though that gives a step-by-step procedure to do that on Vista: http://www.techmetica.com/howto/how-to-defragment-your-pagefile-in-vista/
Defragmenting system files is very rarely necessary, maybe once or twice in the lifetime of the computer.
Unwanted software: For these the best approach is to prevent them in the first place by having an up-to-date antivirus and knowing the tricks by which these programs try to infect computers. An earlier article gives the details on this: http://www.computerwizardindy.com/how-can-i-keep-my-computer-clean-of-viruses-and-other-infections/
Faulty hardware: this is sometimes not easy to diagnose but if your computer get extremely slow then there’s a chance that your hard drive is failing. Diagnosing and taking care of these issues are best handled by computer repair professionals.
Software Corruption: In a few cases this can be fairly easily corrected. But my experience shows that in most cases the only viable option is to do a full reinstall of the system.
Very heavy virus infections, faulty or interrupted updates, sudden power outages, etc can all build up a system corruption that lead to slow performance and other oddities. One effective measure is called System Restore. It’s a built-in function in Windows XP and Vista. It works especially well in Vista. It allows you to return the system to an earlier stage when it was working right. The sooner you catch the point where the system broke the better chances you have to return it back to its working condition. System restore can be found under Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools.
If the system restore can’t fix the issue then again it’s best to take the computer to a repair professional.

These are the main points and if you go through these steps (if indicated) on a regular basis, then you’d have a computer that runs at its maximum speed.

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