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Tip #1: Turn Down Your Settings
If a game is lagging on your computer, what do you do? You turn down the texture quality and the resolution, and other stuff like that. Believe it or not, there are settings in your Control Panel that allow you to turn off resource-intensive features that can slow down your PC, such as animations, shadows, and transitions.
To get there, first go to your Control Panel and, next to "View by" in the corner, make sure "Small icons" is selected. Then click "System".
Then click on "Advanced system settings" in the left sidebar. A box should appear. Under the Advanced tab, click "Settings..." under the "Performance" heading.
Then, under the Visual Effects tab, you can balance between appearance and performance. Choosing "Let Windows choose what's best for my computer" checks some effects, whereas adjusting for best appearance turns on all effects, and adjusting for best performance turns off all effects.
If you're running Windows 8 or 8.1, I would suggest turning off all effects. On my laptop, the only effect I have on is "Smooth edges of screen fonts", which I think looks nicer. After applying your changes, you may have to restart. Your machine won't look different, but there wont be any animations, shadows, or transitions when you do things like go to the Start Menu or opening the Charm. However, your computer will be much faster.
In Windows 7, when you turn off all effects and you apply your changes, it looks like you took a step back a decade. If you want to keep Windows 7 looking like Windows 7, make sure only these effects are checked:
As I said before, my desktop PC is very slow. This is largely because of the fact that it only has 1GB of RAM, which makes it incredibly sluggish and unable to do almost anything without blowing up. I want to upgrade it as soon as I can, but for right now, I have to take measures like these to speed it up temporarily. Virtual memory is basically RAM your computer can use, but the memory is taken from your hard drive, not from a RAM stick. So, as long as you have a big enough hard drive, you can put as much virtual memory on your PC as you want, which, by the way, I don't recommend.
A hard drive is much slower than a RAM stick. RAM is even faster than a solid-state drive. This is why you only need 4GB or 8GB of RAM for a really fast computer. Think of it like this: most DDR3 RAM sold today is at least 1333 MHz, which means the RAM goes through about eighty billion (80,000,000,000) cycles per minute. Meanwhile, most hard drives can do 5,400 or 7,200 cycles a minute. There's a big difference between those numbers.
So, virtual memory can only do so much. If you have hardly any RAM on your PC (2GB or less), I would strongly suggest just buying some more RAM, especially if you're trying to do things like play games or edit picture or video. 4GB sets can be found that are less than $50. 8GB sets aren't that much either.
To add more virtual memory to your machine, go to Control Panel > System > Advanced system settings > Advanced > "Settings..." under the Performance heading > Advanced tab. Then click on the button that says "Change...".
These are basically the same steps to configuring your visual effects, except instead of going to the Visual Effects tab you go to the Advanced tab.
After you click on "Change...", select the hard drive you'd like to put a paging file on. I have that set to my C: drive, and I have allocated 4000 MB (almost 4GB) from my drive to my file. You don't want to add too much, as you will lose precious hard drive space, so try to allocate the recommended amount. When you're done, click "Set". You may be asked to restart your computer.
Programs opening at startup can be slowing down your computer. Programs that commonly open up at startup include Skype, Spotify, and a lot of other garbage. Here's how you can get them to stop it.
For Windows 7 Users: Press the Windows key while pressing down the letter R. A box called "Run" should open up. In that box, type in "msconfig" (without the quotation marks) and click Enter. Go to the Startup tab and uncheck programs such as Skype and Spotify. Just make sure you don't disable anything manufactured by Windows, as if you are not sure what that program does, you can seriously mess up your computer. Apply your changes. The next time you start up your computer, none of these programs will start up either.
For Windows 8/8.1 Users: Go to the Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Delete > Task Manager), and click the Startup tab. Click on the application you want to be disabled and click "Disable". Then close the Task Manager.
Also remember that uninstalling programs via the Control Panel is also a good way to speed up your computer.
CCleaner is a program I use to free up some space on my hard drive and remove temporary files such as cookies, Prefetch data, program data, and browsing history. Running it for the first time will take a while and will also remove a lot of junk files, several gigabytes maybe. However, if you start doing it daily, it will be quicker and remove less each time. You can download CCleaner here.
The reason your computer might be so slow is because you have a virus. If you're using Windows 7, open Microsoft Security Essentials under your Start menu and do a scan. It might take some time, but Windows will tell you if you have anything harmful on your PC. If you're running Windows 8/8.1, open Windows Defender and do a scan. If anything comes back as potentially dangerous to your computer, remove it using either Microsoft Security Essentials or Windows Defender. If you do not have an antivirus on your computer, install one. I recommend Avast Free Antivirus. I like it and it does what I want it to do without it being all in my face like McAfee or Norton. You can download Avast here.
Remember that your computer might be slow because of your hardware and the only way to fix that is by actually opening up your computer and buying some new parts. Like I stated earlier, a RAM upgrade is affordable and a much better alternative to buying a new computer.
To get there, first go to your Control Panel and, next to "View by" in the corner, make sure "Small icons" is selected. Then click "System".
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| Click to zoom in. |
Then, under the Visual Effects tab, you can balance between appearance and performance. Choosing "Let Windows choose what's best for my computer" checks some effects, whereas adjusting for best appearance turns on all effects, and adjusting for best performance turns off all effects.
If you're running Windows 8 or 8.1, I would suggest turning off all effects. On my laptop, the only effect I have on is "Smooth edges of screen fonts", which I think looks nicer. After applying your changes, you may have to restart. Your machine won't look different, but there wont be any animations, shadows, or transitions when you do things like go to the Start Menu or opening the Charm. However, your computer will be much faster.
In Windows 7, when you turn off all effects and you apply your changes, it looks like you took a step back a decade. If you want to keep Windows 7 looking like Windows 7, make sure only these effects are checked:
Tip #2: Increase Virtual Memory
As I said before, my desktop PC is very slow. This is largely because of the fact that it only has 1GB of RAM, which makes it incredibly sluggish and unable to do almost anything without blowing up. I want to upgrade it as soon as I can, but for right now, I have to take measures like these to speed it up temporarily. Virtual memory is basically RAM your computer can use, but the memory is taken from your hard drive, not from a RAM stick. So, as long as you have a big enough hard drive, you can put as much virtual memory on your PC as you want, which, by the way, I don't recommend.
So, virtual memory can only do so much. If you have hardly any RAM on your PC (2GB or less), I would strongly suggest just buying some more RAM, especially if you're trying to do things like play games or edit picture or video. 4GB sets can be found that are less than $50. 8GB sets aren't that much either.
To add more virtual memory to your machine, go to Control Panel > System > Advanced system settings > Advanced > "Settings..." under the Performance heading > Advanced tab. Then click on the button that says "Change...".
These are basically the same steps to configuring your visual effects, except instead of going to the Visual Effects tab you go to the Advanced tab.
After you click on "Change...", select the hard drive you'd like to put a paging file on. I have that set to my C: drive, and I have allocated 4000 MB (almost 4GB) from my drive to my file. You don't want to add too much, as you will lose precious hard drive space, so try to allocate the recommended amount. When you're done, click "Set". You may be asked to restart your computer.
Tip #3: Remove Startup Items
Programs opening at startup can be slowing down your computer. Programs that commonly open up at startup include Skype, Spotify, and a lot of other garbage. Here's how you can get them to stop it.
For Windows 7 Users: Press the Windows key while pressing down the letter R. A box called "Run" should open up. In that box, type in "msconfig" (without the quotation marks) and click Enter. Go to the Startup tab and uncheck programs such as Skype and Spotify. Just make sure you don't disable anything manufactured by Windows, as if you are not sure what that program does, you can seriously mess up your computer. Apply your changes. The next time you start up your computer, none of these programs will start up either.
For Windows 8/8.1 Users: Go to the Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Delete > Task Manager), and click the Startup tab. Click on the application you want to be disabled and click "Disable". Then close the Task Manager.
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| Windows 7 (left) and Windows 8.1 |
Also remember that uninstalling programs via the Control Panel is also a good way to speed up your computer.
Tip #4: Install CCleaner
CCleaner is a program I use to free up some space on my hard drive and remove temporary files such as cookies, Prefetch data, program data, and browsing history. Running it for the first time will take a while and will also remove a lot of junk files, several gigabytes maybe. However, if you start doing it daily, it will be quicker and remove less each time. You can download CCleaner here.
Tip #5: Get an Antivirus
The reason your computer might be so slow is because you have a virus. If you're using Windows 7, open Microsoft Security Essentials under your Start menu and do a scan. It might take some time, but Windows will tell you if you have anything harmful on your PC. If you're running Windows 8/8.1, open Windows Defender and do a scan. If anything comes back as potentially dangerous to your computer, remove it using either Microsoft Security Essentials or Windows Defender. If you do not have an antivirus on your computer, install one. I recommend Avast Free Antivirus. I like it and it does what I want it to do without it being all in my face like McAfee or Norton. You can download Avast here.
Remember that your computer might be slow because of your hardware and the only way to fix that is by actually opening up your computer and buying some new parts. Like I stated earlier, a RAM upgrade is affordable and a much better alternative to buying a new computer.
