why is computer slow

Why is my Computer so Slow?

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There are a number of reasons why your computer’s performance is getting worse every day. If the processing speed of your computer gets slower, not only will you not be able to perform all the tasks in time, it will also increase your frustration. You might also experience a lot of lag in the videos and the games that you play on your laptop. Here we are going to explain a number of reasons for a slow computer.

What makes your computer slow?

Every computer is made up of two components. One is the hardware component while the other one is the software component. Both of these have a large effect on the processing speed of your computer. Therefore, we are going to explain both of them differently and then tell you ways that you can use if you are facing the question as to how to speed up my computer.

Hardware component:

This component consists of the various parts that can be physically touched. Hardware component has a very big part to play with the speed of the computer. These hardware will determine what the processing speed of your computer. This consists of the processor, RAM, the hard drive and the motherboard of the computer. The computers with fast processor will make your computer faster. Similarly, higher the RAM, the higher will be the speed. Same is the case with the mother board and the hard drive.

Software component:

This part of the computer consists of the operating system and the various programs that run on your computer. The operating system of a computer will determine how the computer will use the available resources in order to perform the operations as requested by the user. Therefore, if the operating system is an older version, it will reduce the speed of the computer as well. Apart from that, if there are a number of programs that are running at once, your computer might not be able to run all of them efficiently at the same time. Therefore, it will reduce the processing speed. Another reason can be a number of background programs. Similarly, if the drivers of the various hardware components have not been updated, it will also effect the speed of your computer. Another main reason for low performance speed of the computers is there might be a malware or a virus on your computer which might be affecting the speed of your computer.

How to speedup old laptop?

There are a number of ways in which you can enhance the speed of your old computer or laptop. Some of those methods are very simple and do not even need a single penny to be spent. There are also various other methods which are comparatively more complex and are also a bit expensive. Some of those methods are explained below

A simple restart:

A very simple and easy way to boost up the speed of your old laptop is a simple restart. This way is also fruitful when your computer gets totally stuck at something. Just turn off your computer and then turn it on again after sometime. There are various reasons why restarting a computer helps optimize the performance. There might have been many days since the last time you have restarted your computer. Therefore, there might be a number of programs that are running in the background. Once you restart your laptop, all those programs are closed. There might also be a new update that needed to be installed. With restarting the laptop, that update gets installed. Restarting also fixes a number of bugs.

Free up the disk space:

Another way to optimize the performance of your laptop is by freeing up the disk space. When your hard drive is low on space, a notification will pop up telling you to free up the disk space. With less space on the hard drive, the computer will eventually become slow. There are a number of ways that you can use to free up space on your computer. Some of those ways are

  • Run the disk clean up tool.
  • Delete any files that you no longer use.
  • If there are any heavy software like video editing, photo editing or audio editing, delete them.
  • If there are various games that are very heavy, un-install those.
  • Empty the recycle bin.
  • Check the various download folders to see if there are any files that you no longer need.

Another helpful way to enhance the performance is to run defragmentation tool. This will consolidate all the files that have been saved at various places. This will also enhance the performance of your old pc or laptop.

How to speed up windows 7?

This is comparatively old operating system. But there are a lot of people who still use it. The reason is that there are a lot of changes in configuration and outlook of various folders. If the windows 7 is slow, you can do following things

Not using all the visual effects:

It is rather a compromise that you need to do if you want your computer to be faster. Therefore, if you want your computer work faster on the expense of the screen looking rather dull, you should turn off the special visual effects of windows 7. There are total 20 visual effects that you can control in order to make your computer work faster. Therefore, if you want to turn off any one or all of those off, you should follow the steps given below

  • Click on start menu
  • Click on tools
  • Click on Performance information and tools in control panel
  • Select Adjust Visual Effects
  • Select Adjust for best performance
  • Select OK
  • You can choose options from there or ask the computer to select the suitable options for you.

This will decrease a lot of load on the processor and thus will speed up your laptop.

How to speed up windows 8 and 8.1?

There are different ways to speed up windows 8 and 8.1 as well. Most people face the issue of their laptop slowing down after they had converted from windows 7 to these versions. The reason is that these versions have been designed for faster machines with higher processing powers. But if you cannot afford buying a new laptop, there are ways that you can use in order to use these versions on the same laptop, some of those are

Increasing the RAM:

As explained earlier, RAM is used for processing various information. Therefore, if you have low RAM, your computer might repeatedly get stuck or lag. Therefore, in order to get rid of the problem, you can increase the RAM on your laptop. This will enhance the speed and give far better performance. Additionally, it is not as expensive as buying a whole new laptop.

Increase Memory:

Another issue that a lot of computers face is less disk space. Therefore, you can make a back-up disk and store all the data that you do not use very often on that disk. You can buy an external hard drive for that. You can also install a bigger hard drive on your computer in place of the smaller one that you are already using.

Run antivirus:

A lot of computers face processing issues and decreased performance due to the presence of some kind of malware that is affecting their processing speed. They can be downloaded along with various files from internet, or using an affected USB drive from a friend or someone else. They affect the processing speed by opening up additional and unnecessary windows, or running unwanted programs in the background. Therefore, you need to protect your computer against these. With windows 8 and 8.1, windows has released its own antivirus known as windows defender which is quite effective. But if that is not solving the issue, then you can install additional antivirus and get rid of the malware.

How to speed up windows 10?

This is the latest version that has been provided by Microsoft. It has brought amazing features and is far better than all the previous versions. The reason is that it has combined various new features with the same features that had been very popular with Microsoft like the start menu etc. That is why it is very popular also. If you are also using windows 10 and are feeling performance problems, following are some solutions that you can use in order to get rid of the problem

Updating windows:

A lot of people are not aware of the fact that not updating the windows is slowing down their computer. They think of the updates as just an interference in their work and are not aware that with each update, there are certain fixes for the bugs which were present in the previous versions. These bugs might not only be affecting the software but also the processing speed of their laptops. Therefore, you must always keep your pc up to date with the latest updates. If you want to install the latest updates, you must follow these steps

  • Go to windows menu
  • Type in “update”
  • Click “check for updates”
  • If you find that there are any updates, install those

One thing that you need to consider is to save all your work before you update your computer.  During the update, your computer might restart several times so don’t worry about that. Just let it update and also do not turn off your computer while updating as well. A message saying exactly this will also appear on the screen.

Heavy start-up:

Another issue that slows down the laptops is a lot of programs that run on start-up. Whenever you install a program, it asks you if you want to start it as soon as the windows starts. Programs like torrent downloaders, skype and messengers do that. Therefore, with a lot of programs on start-up, your computer will get slower. In order to reduce the load on the start-up, follow the following steps

  • Go to task manager
  • Click “Start-up”
  • Each app will have its impact figure in front of it
  • If the figure shows a higher number, it is affecting the processing speed of your computer
  • Therefore, uncheck the apps with high figure

You can run those apps if you need them while using the computer. Opening them on start-up was just adding more load.

System maintenance:

This is an in built functionality of windows 10. The things that used to be done separately with the previous versions of windows are done by running this feature. It includes

  • Checking for any viruses or malwares
  • Checks for recent updates
  • Defragmentation

Therefore, you must run this feature very often in order to keep your computer up to date with the latest updates as well as free from any kinds of malwares and viruses. In order to run this, follow the steps mentioned below

  • Open control panel
  • Go to system and security
  • Click security and maintenance
  • Click start maintenance

Add an SSD:

Another very efficient method that is not known to a number of people is adding an SSD. You can add this in addition to the already present HDD. As the computers do not use CD’s and DVD’s anymore, you can add a Caddy instead of the DVD or CD rom. In that caddy you can have the original HDD. Install the windows on the SDD and this will speed up your PC.

Therefore, with the help of all the methods explained above, you can speed up your PC’s and laptops without needing to replace the whole machine.