Are you sick and tired of it taking forever to open a website, file
or program? Did your computer seem to run a lot faster when you first
got it? If your answers to these 2 questions were yes, then please read
on. In this article I am going to give you tips to speed up your
computer. They can all be done today, even if you are new to computers.
The 7 steps that I am going to share with you are so easy, believe me
you can do it! These are techniques that computer technicians in several
different support organizations do and some charge a lot of money for
their walking you through these processes. You are going to get them
today at no charge. Are you ready? Then let's begin!
Step 1: Scandisk
You
should run scandisk at least once a month. This will make sure that
your computer can read all of the information on your disk. How will
this speed up my computer? I'm glad you asked! You see your computer has
in it's hard drive what the technicians call redundancy. What I mean is
if your computer is trying to read a file and the data isn't read
correctly from the disk, the computer tries to read that information
again and again a set number of times. This results in slower loading
times. When scandisk is ran regularly this keeps your disk free of these
storage errors and thus enables the computer to get the information it
needs from the disk as fast as possible. Scandisk should be run before
the next step each and every time.
I know you're asking, how do I
run scandisk. It's simple. Find that icon on your desktop or in your
start menu labeled 'My Computer'. In there you will see a listing of all
the drives in your computer. Right click on the drive you want to scan
and go to properties. There, you will have a tools tab. Click on it. You
will see a button that says check for errors. This is scandisk or also
called checkdisk on different versions of windows. There are 2 different
modes, Standard or Thorough. Standard checks and makes sure that all
the bits and pieces of your files are in the spot on the disk where it
thinks they should be. In other words, it checks for filing errors.
Thorough does a standard check as well as it tests each spot on the disk
where the drive can write something and makes sure that what it writes,
it reads back the same thing. If it doesn't read the same information
back, it marks that spot as bad so that it is not used. This keeps down
that redundancy thing we spoke of earlier. Wasn't that easy? Now, on to
Step 2.
Step 2: Defrag
Defrag should be run once a week if
you use your computer more than 14 hours a week. This equates to about 2
hours a day. Most people who actively use their computer will fall into
this category. Defrag, whose real name is disk defragmenter, is your
best friend for speed. You see when your computer writes something to
the disk; it starts the disk to turning and drops bits of the data you
want to write wherever there is a hole. It then tells the filing system
where it placed that piece. So your file could be literally broken into
20 pieces! Your disk takes longer to load the file because it has to
jump around to different spots to gather the pieces together when it
needs it. Defrag takes care of this by gathering the pieces all together
and writing them back to the disk in one piece. This way when you need
the information, it's all right there. To run defrag it's the same as
where we went for scandisk. You go to 'My Computer' and you right click
on the drive you want to run defrag on and go to properties. There go to
the tools tab. Click the Defragment button. Wow this is getting easier
by the minute! On to step 3.
Step 3: Background Programs
Background
programs really slow down your computer's performance. They accomplish
this by using up your computer's resources. Resources are the combined
power of your processor (brain), memory, and disk space. These 3 are the
equivalent to horsepower. This is where you will gain a lot of your
speed back as well. If you look at an area of your screen right now, I
can show you a fraction of some of these that you never thought of. The
area I want you to look at is called your system tray. It is located
next to your clock, which is opposite your start menu. If your start
menu is on the left side, then the clock is on the right. Next to the
clock you will see these little icons or pictures. These are programs
that run on your computer whenever it boots. Guess what, these are
background programs. They are there to help load things you need faster.
If you are following this guide you really don't need most of them. Do
you?
Here's how you get rid of them and most of the others that
you can't even see as well. Sorry folks who are on Windows 2000, this
step won't work for you. If you read to the end I will give you a bonus
that will make up for it, I promise. Ok, for the rest of you, click on
start. Click on run. Type msconfig. Click ok. You should get a system
configuration utility. Be very careful here and follow my instructions
exactly. Click on the startup tab at the top. You will have a list of
all the programs that run when your computer boots or starts. If you
look down the list there will be some names that are familiar to you.
When you see those names I want you to think: "Do I really need this
program running all the time?" If the answer is no, uncheck the box. For
example, some of you may have heard of RealPlayer. There's a smart
start icon associated with it. You really don't need real player running
when you are only going to be playing FreeCell now do you? :) On to
step 4.
Step 4: Temporary Files
Temporary files hold up
space on your disk. These files are most of the time useless. Temporary
files are just that; files that were temporarily created by a program or
installer. They are supposed to be deleted when not needed any longer,
but a lot of programs do a poor job of cleaning them up. Helping them
out will get you more speed for your horsepower. For example: let's take
temporary internet files. When you go to a website every element of
that website's decorations are stored in a temp file on your computer.
Your computer does this to help supposedly. It's supposed to help by
when you visit the same site again; the elements of the website will
already be on your computer and therefore don't have to be downloaded
again. This in theory should speed up your surfing right? Wrong! Here's
what really goes down. For every element of the website, your computer
reads every temp file to see if it matches. Every single file in your
temporary internet files folder! To get a grasp of this here's what I
want you to do. Open internet explorer. Go to the tools menu and click
on internet options. Click the settings button. Then click the view
files button. Do you see what I mean? Every file! Now...Close the
temporary internet files window. Click OK on the settings window. Do you
see that button next to settings on the internet options window? It's
labeled delete files. Click it. Check delete all offline content. Click
ok. When the hourglass is gone, you are all clean! This should be done
once a month. This will keep your whole computer running smoothly. The
secret lies in Internet Explorer. It's integrated so much into windows,
when it has a problem, windows has a problem. What I am saying is when
you opened my computer in steps 1 and 2. You were using internet
explorer. Ok. Nuff said. On to step 5!
Step 5: Antivirus
Good
Antivirus software is an absolute must! There are several choices to
choose from. Some cost money and some don't. Viruses hide on your
computer and wreak havoc. If you don't have antivirus software on your
computer, you will never know they are there. They sit and hide out
until their appointed time and then interfere with your computer.
Viruses are programs written by people with too much time on their hands
and not enough morals. They sit and think of ways to make your day bad.
Some viruses will sit on your computer and do nothing but open up
connections to other servers all over the internet. What does that do?
It slows your computer down drastically! Nuff said. Your choices are to
get paid antivirus software like Norton, Mcafee, or Computer Associates.
If you don't have the cash to spare then you can go to your favorite
search engine like Yahoo or Google and enter in 'free antivirus
download' and get a list of all kinds of scanners. Some is far better
than none. Some of the best free software that I have found are AVG,
Avast!, and ClamWin. If you have a fear of installing software, never
fear. There are also free online virus scanners. Again, you go to your
favorite search engine and type in 'free online virus scan' and you will
get plenty of results. Beware though, with these scanners you run the
risk of getting infected still. The reason is you have to go to the site
and scan the computer yourself, preferably once a week. In that time a
virus could have already infected your machine. Antivirus software that
you install on the computer checks every file, every time it's used thus
drastically decreasing the chances of infection. It's like a flu shot.
Some of the good online virus scanners are Norton, Panda, and
BitDefender. Now, on to step 6.
Step 6: Recycle Bin
It is
very important to keep your recycle bin empty. What I mean is this, you
don't want to have hundreds of files sitting in your recycle bin that
you deleted 6 months ago. They are taking up valuable space. Windows
uses your drive as memory to run programs. When you run out of physical
memory, it uses what's called a page or swap file and stores it there.
These recycle bin files are taking up space that windows could be using
for memory. Every bit of memory you can get adds to your horsepower. So
for God's sake, please keep your recycle bin tidy. Get rid of things
that you are sure you won't need again. When you go to delete something,
and you are absolutely sure you won't need it again, you can hold down
the shift key and press the delete key to permanently delete it without
sending it to the recycle bin. And now, last but not least, step 7.
Step 7: Adware and Spyware
I
like to call these small time viruses. The industry calls them
parasites. Norton calls them extended threats. Do you get my drift? What
is adware and spyware you may ask? They are actually quite similar.
I'll start first by explaining the ways that you can get them on your
computer. Let's say you download a 'free' program to run on your
computer that you think is pretty neat. If you are like most of us, you
don't take the time to read the license agreement. If you did, you would
find a line similar to: by installing this product you agree to install
xyz product which will be used to send marketing information to the
makers of the software. Do you see how they get you? One of the other
ways you can get it is by going to some random website. It doesn't
matter what it is, but they have this script that runs as the page is
loading and it installs the adware and/or spyware on your computer. The
last way that I will discuss here is through a virus. There are viruses
out there whose sole job is to download adware, spyware, keyloggers, and
other malicious software on to your computer. These things really slow
your computer down. Here's how they work.
Adware and spyware
install on your computer and watch what you do, where you surf, you know
what you are interested in. They then open a connection to a server and
report your activities. They are very good at what they do! Where
adware and spyware differ is spyware does nothing but report your
activities. Adware on the other hand reports your activities and the
server it reports to in turn sends it an ad to display on your computer.
Now, just like there are antivirus programs out there, there are now
very good antispyware and antiadware programs on the market. Noadware,
Spybot, and Adaware are a few of the good ones.
In conclusion
there are 7 major ways to speed up your computer with simple maintenance
and preventative measures. Run scandisk, defrag, get rid of excess
background programs, delete temporary files, get some antivirus
software, and also get a good adware and spyware remover utility. I hope
you have found this information useful. I hope that I have helped
someone here with this information and I pray that you will check out
some other very useful information at
I love you all. God bless you!
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