In today’s fast-paced digital world, having a slow computer can be a major frustration. Whether you’re experiencing lag while multitasking, slow program loading times, a sudden computer slowdown, or general sluggishness, it’s time to take action and speed up your computer. In this article, we will explore 9 effective strategies and tips to optimize your computer’s performance, enabling you to work efficiently and seamlessly. So let’s dive in and discover how to give your computer the boost it needs.
9 Useful Tips to Speed Up Your Computer:
1. Upgrade Your Hardware
Sometimes, a computer’s sluggishness can be attributed to outdated hardware. Upgrading key components such as RAM (Random Access Memory) or replacing a traditional hard drive with a solid-state drive (SSD) can significantly improve performance. Adding more RAM allows your computer to handle multiple tasks simultaneously, while an SSD offers faster data transfer speeds and quicker program loading times.
2. Manage System Resources
Another effective way to speed up your computer is by managing system resources efficiently. Close unnecessary applications running in the background, especially resource-intensive ones, to free up memory and processing power. Additionally, consider adjusting your computer’s power settings to prioritize performance over energy savings. This optimization ensures that your computer’s resources are utilized optimally.
3. Free Up Some Disk Space
Hard disk has a very huge effect on your computer’s speed and if it’s overloaded, you’ll feel that your computer speed is slow. For this reason you need to free up some space on your hard disk. Use a free tool that already installed in your computer in Microsoft Disk Cleanup. Just go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup. This tool will calculate how much of free space can be freed and you can select which files to delete which mainly are temporary or unused system files. If you are not sure if those files should be deleted and think that you might need them later, a good and safe solution to this is to move and store those files on an external hard disk drive.
4. Speed Up Hard Disk Response Time
A hard drive that has not been defragmented can be another chief cause of slow computers. The hard drive gets fragmented when it attempts to store numerous files together. If the hard drive is too full, it won’t be able to place all the new files together. Running the disk defragmenter will help solve this problem. Again this useful tool is already installed in your computer.
Read also: Boost Computer Speed While Staying On Budget
5. Optimize Start-up Programs
An important step to speed up your system is to reduce the number of programs that start when your computer is rebooted. Some of them start so you can have them as you need them but they can turn into a drainer of resources. The ideal thing to do is take the ones you aren’t using very often off the start-up list. Only allow the ones you really need to start with your computer.
Read also: The Most Common Computer Misconceptions
6. Install Antivirus and Anti-Malware Software
Malware and viruses can significantly slow down your computer and compromise its security. Protect your system by installing reputable antivirus and anti-malware software. These programs scan your computer for malicious software, remove existing threats, and provide real-time protection against future infections. A clean and secure computer leads to better performance.
7. Scan the Windows Registry
In my opinion the most common reason that slows down and freezes a computer is an overloaded Windows Registry. The registry is the place where all crucial and necessary files for Windows to start up are stored and key entries for software installations are made. There are many utility software to fix this problem and one of them is RegCure. ReCure is able to recognize unwanted files and organize critical files efficiently, scan the registry and keep it clean regularly. If you want to fix your slow computer, get rid of all the errors and bugs, try using RegCure.
Read also: 5 Tips to Enhance a Mac’s Performance
8. Keep Your Operating System and Drivers Updated
Regularly updating your operating system and device drivers is crucial for maintaining optimum computer performance. Manufacturers release updates to fix bugs, improve stability, and enhance system performance. Set your computer to install updates automatically, or periodically check for updates manually to ensure you’re running the latest versions.
9. Last Resort: Factory Reset Your Computer Using Recovery Partition
This method will bring your system back to its original purchased condition. That said, all your files and data will be deleted, hence you might want to back up your important files and data before proceeding with this step. For more information on how to perform this method, read here.
How to Speed Up Your Computer: Conclusion
By implementing these tips and strategies, you can effectively speed up your computer and optimize its performance. Regular maintenance, such as removing unnecessary files, managing startup programs, and upgrading hardware, combined with essential steps like disk cleanup, resource management, and software updates, will help you achieve a faster and more efficient computing experience. Remember, a well-tuned computer not only saves you time but also enhances your productivity and enjoyment. Take control of your computer’s speed today and unlock its full potential.
So to recap, here’s how to speed up your computer:
- Upgrade Your Hardware
- Manage System Resources
- Free Up Some Disk Space
- Speed Up Hard Disk Response Time
- Optimize Start-up Programs
- Install Antivirus and Anti-Malware Software
- Scan the Windows Registry
- Keep Your Operating System and Drivers Updated
- Last Resort: Factory Reset Your Computer Using Recovery Partition
Will defragment help in improve computer speed?
Yes Tan. Of course you won’t be seeing an increased computer speed that blows your socks off, but over the long haul, your computer will work much more efficiently. It will do so because the files written to the drive will be in good order. If you are looking to increase computer speed over the long term and keep your computer in proper running order, then Windows Disk Defragmenter should be included in your computer maintenance routine.
Thanks for the answer, but sometime very difficult to free out 15% disk space to perform defragment. By the way, I am just recall someone told me that do not put files/shortcut on desktop as this will slow down the computer performance. Is this true?
That is true Tan. Having too many shortcut icons on the desktop will slow your computer down, better get rid of some that are not needed.
defragmentation is thegreat way to speed up. sometimes you will not feel that your pc speed has improved but it does.
That’s right Andy. Thanks for the comment.
Just treat disk defragmentation like rearranging books in the library. When your books are organized, searching for any books is easy and fast. Thus it will boost the performance.
Yes! That’s a very good example, thanks Alan 🙂
i am also bothered and irritated when my computer is slow and it took me a long time before I accomplish my work. Yes I do delete some of the files which I no longer use but I did not know that there is more to know and do. Good thing I was able to see this post of yours and I was able to gain new information and knowledge at the same time.
I’m sure that goes to most of the computer users as well, speed is vital 🙂 Thanks for stopping by Liane.
If I remember right my windows 7 computer came pre-configured to run a disk defragment. I couldn’t tell you the time it runs or how often I just recall it being automatically scheduled. I have way to many things on my desktop that are probably slowing things down. I try to clean them up and put them somewhere else, but as soon as I do that I seem to find a bunch more things that wind up on my desktop.
The only time my desktop was kinda full and messy was the time I moved from Blogger to WordPress. I saved all the files and images on the desktop. It was so full until I couldn’t even locate my Recycle Bin (I should have taken a screenshot). I guess I just abuse the purpose of having a desktop for “shortcuts”. Anyway, too many shortcut icons/files on the desktop does slow PC down a bit, we should create a folder and move those shortcuts/files that we don’t use much into it. Thanks for the comment Ray 🙂
Cool tips…I am always complaining that my computer is slow, but now I see, it is like a recycle bin – full of useless programs and applications.
Thanks for the comment Anna.
cleaning up start up programs works for me. making my computer free of virus and malwares also helps me enjoy my computer time 🙂
Yeah Kevin, simple yet effective right? Thanks for the comment.
Hey Peter, Great tips! I’m trying these methods asap as my PC is so slow lately. You have a new fan..lol
Keep them coming!
Jeff
Thanks Jeff.
Hi Peter,
I totally agree with you. Choosing the start up programs would definitely increase the speed of the computer performance and this can easily be accessed by typing in msconfig in the search bar for Windows.
Simple things can often do wonders isn’t it Veronica? 🙂
Could you recommend any malware removal tools out there?
I actually realized that I haven’t taken care of this lately, and that would be the cause of some of my searches being re-directed.
Thanks a mil!
There are many good tools out there, just do a Google search and you’ll get plenty. I’m not saying this is the best but you can give Malwarebytes a try. Thanks for stopping by Ruan.
Great tips! I would check on RegCure.I have not heard of this one. I tried another Windows Registry before. It only slowed down my computer performance. Hope this would boost my computer performance.
Bhing,
Give RegCure a try and if possible, do a blog post on it 🙂 Thanks for visiting.
I’m currently using NOD32 anti-virus and I’m quite satisfied with its security and performance. With regards to cache clean-up can you recommend a good software I can use?
There are many good tools that can do a good job. Just do a Google search and you’ll stumble with a lot of them. Thanks for the comment Izzy.
Nice post, I’m using TuneUp Utilities to check registry error and it really helps to speed up my pc.
Thanks for commenting Rosel.
Great! the article sums up the tips to speed up computer in a consize manner. You may also use some additional ways to speed up computer.
These are:
1. Remove all viruses/spyware.
2. Optimize your computer’s visual (set the classic view).
3. Remove desktop wallpaper.
4. delete prefetch files (all the files inside C:\windows\Prefetch).
5. Remove unnecessary shortcuts from the desktop.
6. Defragment your drives.
7. Uninstall unnecessary softwares (especially startup softwares that load with windows startup).
8. Optimize your registry (either manually or by using a registry optimizer).
9. Disable unnecessary services running on the background.
10. Uninstall your antivirus after removing all threats (you may skip this step as it is not reccomended).
11. Repair disk errors.
12. Decrease color quality (from 32 bit to 16 bit).
13. Use pen drive to speed up computer.
14. Keep your drivers updated (Very important step!)
Thanks for sharing such a loooonngg list of great tips to speed up a computer Dipojjal, appreciate it 🙂
@Peter Lee You are welcome. I found the article to be of my interest, so, it was my pleasure sharing these tips 🙂
And you have a very nice blog too Dipojjal. By the way, you can click on the ‘Reply’ link to continue the conversation, thanks for dropping by again 🙂
This is exactly what I’m doing just in case my PC or laptop is loading very slowly or hung up sometimes. But the most important thing I did to speed up my PC is to use DIsk Defragmenter on a regular basis. It really helps.
Cheers!
Dan Lew
Yes Dan, disk defragmenter is a useful tool to help speed up your computer performance. Do you use Windows disk defragmenter or 3rd party disk defragmenter?
Hey Peter,
I’m only using the Windows Disk Defragmenter, and I haven’t tried any third-party disk defragmenters for now. But I really don’t know if the third-party is better than Windows, I’ll just have to research it then.
Dan Lew
Dan,
You might want to check out Defraggler. I personally never used it, but a fellow blogger had told me that Defraggler works a lot faster and it can defrag only page files and other systems files when you don’t have the time to fully defrag the whole drive.
Well i dont know much about computer, i have installed windows xp on my computer almost 3 months ago, but now my PC is very slow, it freezes oftenly, i have deleted all the search history and cleaned the desktop, but still there is not any noticeable increment in the computer speed can you tell me what i need to do now? do you think i should install the windows again?
It’s very difficult for me to guess what’s wrong with your computer based on what you’ve described here. It could be virus/malware, I suggest running a virus scan to see if your computer is infected. Good luck Ayesha.
How about getting rid of vista? Man that thing is a serious POS. Worst bootup time ever . Reminds me of the old Windows ME
Hmmm, that was the reason I get rid of Vista long ago Scott 🙂
Nice blog and thanks for the tips. I must admit they were really helpful to speed up my PC. My PC was running really slow for a while now until i tried out your tips.
Cheers !
Glad it helps Paul.
my disk has only 2% available space left 🙂 So, defragment will effect??
Trung,
You will need at least 15% free disk space to defrag, but it will still run with less without causing any harm whatsoever. So it’s perfectly safe. Whether it’s effective is a different matter, since even with 15% or more, it often does not defrag properly especially when there are large files and system files involved. I try to keep the used space under 80%. Above this number the file system generally has to work harder to place data on the disk, leading to fragmentation. I would suggest you clean up your hdd of unwanted files, free some space then only run Windows Defrag.
Thanks for your reply. My hdd has 250 Gb space,
I checked all data in my computer, no videos, or audio files. Just software and business data. I dicided to delete some files, but reduced not much.
My laptop have problem with KIS. CPU always over 70%
Adware is soo frustrating. I need to scan my registry more often, like you mention here. These are all things I know I should keep up to date with to help keep my computers alive, I just forget! Lol. I’m going to bookmark this article so I can’t forget.
Yeah you should Karen. It’ll help improve the speed of your computer.
Hey buddy,
Awesome post man. I’ve got a website around the same niche so I thought I’d share a tip or two here.
Lowering the performance settings in your control panel to “Adjust for best performance” will make a huge difference to your computer’s speed. Also, setting a blank desktop wallpaper will show slight improvement in desktop login speed.
Thanks for the tips Orpheus!
Removing the unwanted applications and removing unwanted background apps from start up will yield good results.
That would certainly help speed up a little.
Hey Peter,
Great tips, some of them I have never thought of, cleaning Windows Registry is the tip that I often forgot to do.
Have a great day
Ronny
I’m using TuneUP Utilities and I can recommend it to anyone as a great tool for computer maintenace and speed up. It’s great for beginners and advanced users alike.
I agree with this information. It is very true that the malware and adwares take much space inour computer and major reason for slowing the speed. These mentioned reasons are very true. Thanks for sharing information. But if you can help me, I want to ask one thing that what is major reason to slow down the speed of interne. Actually now a days, I am facing one problem regarding internet, that is in buffering, Even though speed is good. But still I am not avle to watch videos in youtube or any other site. Can you expalin me about this. Thanks in advance.
i would like to specify some additional suggestions:
1.reduce the internet temp folder size to 50 MB, through internet explorer.
2.reduce the size of your recycle bin.[double-click it,select organize,properties and then reduce the size]
3.make sure to enable system restore for the system drive[c:],disabling it on the other drives.system restore
backs up only system files,not the data.
I am using the preview version of Windows 8, and believe me, its freaking fast.. very faster than Windows Vista or 7.. Also, the windows defender works awesome after update. Anyways, nice tips.. Keep up the good work. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts, Prithvi. Hope to see you around 🙂
Those are some simple methods to use. I currently use multiple programs to keep things running fast.
Thanks for tips 🙂 my computer was running very slow but now is a little bit faster ! I would also recommend to defragment hdd because it makes the computer very fast
I would also add increasing memory as well as looking at msconfig and programs that run at startup.
Cool tips…I am always complaining that my computer is slow, but now I see, it is like a recycle bin – full of useless programs and applications.
Thanks for the tips. I always find my computer getting slow at odd times. Another good tip is to turn off your computer every so often (many users keep their computers in stand-by of hibernation states), this will clear the RAM on your computer and allow it to perform better. It never hurts to add another stick of RAM either.
My laptop is so slow lately, is so annoying, I tried everything I could think of but no success. I will have to reinstall everything soon, it drives me crazy!
The above speedup tips are most helpful in case when the hard drive is almost full. But even with plenty of free space, some machines go slow and this might be due to hardware issues such as RAM, processor etc.
Your information is very useful. I often waited so long because the computer is too slow, and sometimes almost asleep 🙂 Your tips are worthy. Thank you …
My computer is very slow process and very disturbing. Approximately what percentage of the hard drive must be empty so that the process is back to being good?
If not mistaken you need to have at least 15% free space to perform fragment.
My computer really need to perform those task. Thanks for the share, simple task but very efficient to speed up our computers.
Sound about right. Also, physically cleaning your computer can help reduce the heat build up. If it is a laptop you can buy a fan to place under your laptop to cool it down. Check to see in your task monitor if you are using alot of RAM or cpu cycles. If you are using up a large percentage of your RAM you probably need upgrade to more RAM or use less programs at the same time. If you CPU is continously spiking, it could be your computer is overheating or you have a program that using it. You can try to find and kill it using your task monitor.
I’ve done all of these tips you’ve suggested, and I have to agree with you that in my experience the most common reason that my PC has slowed down was a corrupted or overloaded registry. Cleaning up your Windows registry can make a HUGE difference in PC performance. Thanks for the great post, I really enjoyed reading it.
I have had some issues lately with my computer running slow. You suggested some great tips and advice. I cleaned out my files on my desktop and harddrive, cleaned my registry, eliminated any programs not used, ran the disk defragmenter and updated my anti-virus software. After all this, my computer is running quicker.
Enjoyed reading all the comments and replies here. I am a computer buff and like to keep abreast of new and more efficient ways to speed up PC performance, much like the little things I do to help my car run better. One thing I have noticed is how important it is to know what these registry cleaning software products are doing, but not having to be expert enough to go in and do all the clean up yourself. I’m all about short cuts, if the outcome is effective. Thanks for an excellent blog, Peter.
hi peter,
thank you for your post regarding how to improve speed of a computer.now a days speed is much needed anywhere.in the same way with respect to computers also speed is needed to do our work more faster. above mentioned will definitely helps to improve speed of the computer.
Your mentioned tips are good but I won’t go with the 2nd and 3rd Tips. They are not very much affective. What I myself do to boost my computer speed is
Clean Registry
Remove temporary data, log files
Clear Cookies
Check if there is any unnecessary program installed on my computer
Thanks for sharing those tips 🙂
Hey peter,
These days everyone wants computer with good speed. Viruses really effect our computers and slow down speed of computer. Regular scan of computer helps in speed up our computer. Thanks for sharing these tips with us.
I’m not sure if scanning the registry can speed up your computer. I’ve read an article about it How To Geek, in which it states that unless you are using an archaic system, fixing the registry won’t speed up your computer.
My advice would be:
Scan your computer for viruses and malware.
Scan your hard disk and let it fix drive errors.
Defragment your drive.
Remove any unused startup programs. If you have a lot of “cloud drives” this can slow down your startup times a lot.
If you have the cash the cheapest upgrade will be the computer’s memory. Around 8GB of memory is suffice for that performance that you so desire.
Use SSD – Trust me, you’ll see a huge performance increase.
Newer graphics card – I wouldn’t recommend to use high end cards unless you’re a gamer. Those new entry level cards are just fine.
Will software that boost ram speed help in any way?