Good news: you can take matters into your own hands and speed up your computer! It takes a bit of work, but it is worthwhile. Among the common PC optimization steps are: virus and spyware removal, system cleanup, and removing or adjusting resource hungry options.
Computer viruses and malware are notorious for slowing your computer down to a crawl. Several free security products exist that do a fair job at catching and removing some of the more common threats including: AVG Free, Windows Defender (comes pre-installed on Windows Vista), Lavasoft Ad-Aware, and Trend Micro’s Housecall. While these products are free, they aren’t necessarily automatic nor do all of them provide real time protection. This means that you will need to take a more active involvement in setting up regular scans and updates. Commercial products tend to offer more comprehensive protection and real time protection.
Once you have installed free antivirus and anti-spyware products, run a thorough scan and remove any malware found. If you had multiple infections, you should notice an improvement in speed afterward.
Next, let’s clean up your computer of junk. Two important tools are built right into your Windows operating system - these are terrific, and free, ways to speed up your PC. First, use the Disk Cleanup tool to clean your computer of temporary files, temporary Internet files, cookies, and other clutter.
After cleaning up the junk with the Disk Cleanup tool, use the Disk Defragmenter to rearrange your file fragments on your hard disk for more efficient operations. This process takes a bit of time to run, so do it when you don’t need the computer. Vista offers an option where you can schedule regular defragmenting. If you have Windows Vista, take advantage of this schedule and keep your disk from becoming too fragmented for its own good. If you have Windows XP, you can use the Task Scheduler tool to schedule regular defragmenting.
Another free way to speed up a PC is by restricting what starts up each time you turn on the computer. Computers often load numerous programs each time they boot up - many of which you won’t even use. Each loaded program is taking up memory and processing power which contributes to your computer’s slow performance. By not allowing automatic start up, you’ll free up resources. Go to the Start button and click on Run. Type in msconfig. This loads a utility where you can adjust the startup items.
Go to the tab that says, “Startup Items.” Look through the list and remove programs that you don’t need to have loaded at all times. For example, do you need Real Player every time you use your computer? Probably not. What about Windows Defender? Yes. This is one of those free security programs mentioned earlier - and this one does provide real time protection. Use common sense when disabling startup items. If a program is unfamiliar, do a little research to see if it is a necessary startup item or not.
Another free way to speed up your PC is by giving up some of the eye candy. This means removing large Desktop wallpaper photos, using a basic Windows theme rather than one of the fun graphical ones, giving up any active Web content on your Desktop, and paring down all of those icons and shortcuts on the Desktop.
Finally, Filetonic has a whole category of articles discussing various ways to speed up PCs. Much of the advice details built-in tools and utilities that you may not have known are on your computer. If you haven’t had a chance to browse the PC Performance area of our site, please do so. You may find a few hidden gems.
Celeste Stewart | September 20th, 2008
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