When you start using a new computer it's fast and may impresses you as a big change from
before. On the other hand you may be disappointed at the relatively small increase in
speed. Even if fast, over time your machine may get bogged down.
After a few months you may wonder if it is worth computing at all, considering how long
it takes to do anything.
The truth is by default when your computer arrives it has many services and unneeded
programs that can be turned off or deleted without harm. Also with a machine that has
slowed over time, many things can be done to improve the speed. In fact, after a treatment
like here's, you'll be amazed what a tiger was under hood. If you were considering it, you
may decide to postpone the purchase of a new one. The various procedures and habits you
can perform and change are as follows:
Make Sure You Have Enough Memory
Choose Start Button → Start Menu → Settings → Control Panel → System →
General Tab
Before You Buy Computer Memory Upgrades, you can find out how much you have by
clicking on the System Icon in the Control Panel. The amount is on the first tab that comes
up, the General Tab.
With Windows 2000 or XP, you really should have at least 1 GB of memory and 2 GB is a
more comfortable amount. With Vista be sure to have 2 GB of memory you'll be much
happier.
Be Sure To Clean Up Your Desktop
Windows puts everything on your Desktop into memory, for rapid loading purposes.
If you have a lot of big files there, that means trouble. Apparently folders are not loaded.
Shortcuts apparently are loaded, but it stops there. The applications the shortcuts point to
are not loaded. Maybe downloaded exe files are though.
Uninstall Those Unneeded Applications To Free Up Memory
One last suggestion of the about.com article that sounds useful, is to uninstall unneeded
programs. The reason for this is apparently the registry settings made by installed programs
can eventually slow down your machine. A smaller cleaner registry is therefore useful. A
registry cleaner might be a good tool to use too after removing the unneeded programs.
Get And Keep Your BIOS Fine Tuned
In the BIOS (or "Setup") stop floppy seek, stop memory check (Fast Boot), and put the
disk on best performance setting instead of silent if you have it.
For a faster boot up enter your Bios, by clicking the Delete, F2, or F12 key or whatever
flashes on the screen when you turn on the computer. Next choose boot order, and remove
all entries except the first one which you should set to your hard drive. This will stop the
most of the time useless seeking of a floppy disk at boot time.
If you need to reinstall Windows or some other operation, you can always go back and
change this entry to floppy or CD. Also there should be a setting in your BIOS to make the
boot, quick.
Patch Your Computer To Keep It Updated
Go to Windows update on the top of your start menu and download all the patches for your
operating system, whether they are optional or critical.
Better yet, go into the Control Panel, choose Automatic Updates, Choose Automatic (your
screen might look different with a different version of Windows). Make it Every Day at a
time when you are not using your computer.
Generally if you have cable or DSL, despite the risk of infection, computers should be kept
on and attached to the Internet. This is to allow antivirus and security patches downloading
at off-peak hours.
Keep Your Antivirus Up to Date and Scan Your Disks
Bring your antivirus program up to date and regularly do a full virus scan of your
computer. Check your antivirus program as it will tell you when the last full scan was
done. You may be surprised to see it is not what you thought, but was done months ago.
If you don't have an up to date antivirus program, and don't want to pay for a new one,
there are several high quality free ones available to the private consumer.
They are: AVG, Antivr, avast, PC Tools antivirus, Comodo antivirus and the open source
ClamAV.
Also look into a new different kind of antivirus program ThreatFire which you can use to
supplement your other antivirus. ThreatFire doesn't look for the fingerprints or DNA of
known viruses. Instead it looks for suspicious behavior like key logging.
Also try the no longer free WinHki Anti-Virus, which acts as a supplement to normal Antivirus
program like above. WinHki calculates the checksums ( a mathematical calculation
extremely difficult to fool) of your files on initialization.
After that, whenever a virus changes a file it will be flagged by WinHki because the checksum will change.
Make Sure Your Antivirus/Internet Security Programs Run at
Night
If you are noticing slowness in your PC and you hear your hard drive churning, it may be
because the antivirus is doing a scan during the middle of the day.
Reschedule it for the night. Also check to make sure it updates at night. While your at it,
look in Windows update settings in your System app in the Control Panel in XP or by itself
as an app in the Control panel in Vista. Perhaps it is updating during the day too instead of
the default 3 AM. That could be a real slower in performance.
Make Sure You Have no Spyware
Run at least a couple different antispyware programs. Perhaps most people these days are
buying full computer suites to use with their computers, which should include antispyware
programs, but it doesn't hurt to independently run stand alone anti-spyware programs.
The free ones are, SuperAntiSpyware (maybe the best of the free ones now), Spybot,
LavaSoft's Ad-Aware, Yahoo Toolbar with Anti-Spy, and "Bazooka Adware and Spyware
Scanner".
Note it's also a good idea to use the free spyware prevention tool, Spyware Blaster.
The commercial anti-spyware programs SpySweeper, SpywareDoctor and CA Anti-
Spyware (formerly Pest Patrol) are excellent.
WILL CONTINUE......
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