10 Best and Easy Tips to Speed Up Your PC
What to do to speed up your PC?
10 Tips Helping You Speed Up Your PC
There are many things that can cause a slow computer, and though it is normal for a computer to be slower as times go on, it can still be very frustrated. And many people aren’t willing to spend, or don’t have money ready being to buy the latest tech simply to keep up with what’s new and to have faster speeds. Luckily, there are many ways to restore the speed and performance of your computer without resorting to purchases of new hardware. With only a few clicks of your mouse and some time, you can improve your computer’s speed with fixes and updates, and downloadable software that you can do at home!
What Can Cause a Slow Computer
First, you might be thinking to yourself: What causes a computer to become slow? There can be many causes, and once you figure them out, fixing them is the easier part. While there can be dosens of different causes to slow speeds, they are usually boiled down into a few sections or types of problems.
The most common causes of slow speeds on a computer are bloatware and outdated software, a full/cluttered hard drive and malware and viruses.
Outdated software and bloatware are culprits that are known to cause slow speeds on your PC. Over time, whether for work, education or for entertainment, you might’ve installed a variety of software onto your device. Whether it be a photo-editing software, or extra plugins for a music software, all of them will take up the storage, speed, and power of your device. While regular software that you use isn’t the issue, the programs that you do not use take up unnecessary storage and sucks away power away from your computer that would otherwise be used for proper activity. Software like this is known as bloatware, hogging up your computer without you ever using it. Outdated software causes the same issue, as you cannot use, or impractically use software that has not had a proper update in a while. Since outdated software has less of a chance to be compatible with your computer hardware, your device will have a harder time trying to run it. As a result, software that is outdated poses a big obstacle to the performance of your computer.
A full, or cluttered hard drive is another known offender that can cause slow speeds on your computer. As you use your computer, you download and collect software and files over time. Along with your personal data and information, this is all stored in your hard drive. When you start up your computer, it’s central processing unit uses up resources to load all your files in, so you can open them with needed. Thus, the more files and software you have on your hard drive, the more power and speed your computer takes up to load it up. This results in slow speeds for your computer. The fuller storage, the slower the device. In addition, a cluttered hard drive can cause slow speeds, even if your storage is not close to being full. As you use your computer, it is constantly creating, editing, and deleting the files on your hard drive. As such, this causes files to be separated in many parts across your hard drive. This is known as file fragmentation. The more files you have fragmented across your hard drive, the more power your computer needs to locate all the pieces, then load the files onto your computer. If your device accumulates a lot of fragmented files, your computer can experience much slower speeds, even if your hard drive isn’t full.
When it comes to malware and viruses, the primary concern is about your cyber-security and protecting your private information that is stored onto your computer. While this is true, many don’t know that malware and viruses are also one of the primary causes of your device’s slow speed. Since malware and viruses can change up the files on your computer, and steal your personal data, it needs a lot of power to do so. Just like a parasite, malware sucks up the power that would be used to run your computer, to cause harm to you and your device.
As we’ve seen above, there can be many factors that are causing your computer to function more slowly. And especially if you aren’t a tech expert it might be annoying to try and fix these. But there are free and accessible ways to fix and speed up your computer with these 10 top tips!
Tip 1: Scan for Malware with an AntiVirus
Malware is dangerous to a person’s device, being able to re-write files, steal personal info, and cause slow speeds for your device. It is always helpful for your security and for your device’s performance to scan your computer for any malware and viruses that are secretly in your computer. An effective antivirus will scout out, delete all malware, and restore the performance back to your device. Read more about an antivirus in System Mechanic.
Tip 2: Clear Your Computer Caches
Your computer caches are one of the many collectors of data on your computer. They collect temporary data to help your computer load files faster. For example, your caches will save your internet cookies to load your personal settings on a website. As a result, caches can become full very quickly, putting a strain on your computer’s speed and performance. Speed up your computer by clearing your computer caches on a weekly basis, to keep your performance in check.
Tip 3: Clear and Delete Old, Unused Files
There are many types of files on your computer that serve no purpose and take up space and the speed of your device. Files such as photos, videos, text files, and emails sit on your computer without anything happening. And, as they might not be considered “junk files” by a computer cleaner, they have a chance at not being effectively cleaned out. Take a look through your computer storage and look out for files such as these that you have no need for.
Tip 4: Turn off Startup Software
Your computer takes up a lot of resources when you turn it on. It must load an operating system and other files from your hard drive. Thus, your computer having to also start up software upon turning on your computer is an extra job for it, giving your device a hard time. Fix this problem by turning off programs that start-up automatically in the task manager. You will save many minutes in your wait time when turning on your computer.
Tip 5: Clean up and Defrag Your Hard Drive
As mentioned previously, a cluttered hard drive can have a large impact on the performance of your computer. Along with bloatware, these can cause unnecessary slow speeds to your computer. You can correct this by uninstalling un-needed software via the Programs and Features page in your Control Panel and fix your hard drive by using a defragging software to defrag and re-organize your drive to make it faster and more efficient.
Tip 6: Update Your Computer Drivers
All your hardware components need software called computer drivers to be compatible and work with your computer’s operating system. Your mouse will not work if your computer driver that connects the operating system and your mouse is outdated or broken. As a result, outdated and/or broken drivers are a big offender when it comes to slow speeds on your computer. To combat this, make sure your computer drivers are up to date on a regular basis via your operating system’s updates page.
Tip 7: Delete Any Bloatware
There is many unnecessary software that is either pre-installed or installed by you that serve no purpose to you, and simply take up room and speed. These can be a big hinderance to your computer, especially if there is a large amount of it. Simply find all the software that you do not use and delete them from your computer. This way you can speed up your computer and free up space on your drive.
Tip 8: Change the Power Settings on Your Computer
If you want to sacrifice a bit more of electricity usage to boost your performance of your device, you can change the power settings. When in your computer settings, access the power settings via control panel, and switch to the high-performance option. This will result in a stronger performance for your computer but remember that it will use more power to do so. If you use a laptop, be wary of how much your battery runs out when you are not plugged in.
Tip 9: Upgrade Your Hard Drive to a Solid-State Drive
When it comes to hardware, it might be out of reach for the average computer user to buy a brand new, top of the line computer. But there are two components that you can upgrade that will drastically change your computer’s performance, without breaking the bank. Your hard drive is usually a moving piece of technology, so the top performance of a hard drive is very limited. To speed up load times of files and other software, you can buy a solid-state drive (SSD) which can give a large boost to your computer’s storage and speed.
Tip 10: Use a PC Optimizer and Cleaner
One of the best ways to clean and adjust your computer is to use a quality, effective PC optimizer and cleaner. A reliable PC cleaner is one that clears junk files from your drives, helps you disable startup programs, helps you delete bloatware and can also scan for malware on your computer. A great PC optimizer and cleaner like System Mechanic Ultimate Defense can do all of this. You can easily unlock the true potential of your computer’s speed and power with only a few clicks of your mouse when you use System Mechanic. After installing it, the software runs in the background, ensuring your PC is clean and optimized, without extra time or hard work needed! Get this all-in-one online privacy, password manager, antivirus, and pc cleaner today!
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