Slow Bandwidth

You don’t say what kind of Internet connection you have, but speed can vary depending on how you connect. Videos and large files will have trouble over a dial-up connection, but should run well with DSL or cable. If you are running with dial-up, it doesn’t matter what kind of computer you have, you’re going to have viewing problems. Consider upgrading if that’s possible.

You can check the speed of your bandwidth at sites like these:

http://www.bandwidthplace.com/ and

http://reviews.cnet.com/internet-speed-test/ . CNet will run a comparison of your bandwidth to other ISP providers. If you find that your bandwidth is slow, you can optimize your Internet connection at Cablenut:

http://cablenut.com/ .

Spyware or Adware

Spyware and adware are programs that are downloaded when you are visiting other websites. They track user activity and can use up your computer’s resources and slow you down. You should be running a good antivirus program regularly, particularly if you spend a lot of time on the Internet.

You can download some good protective software here:

• AdAware
• Spybot
• Paretologic antivirus

Update Flash Player

Most videos, including YouTube run with Adobe Flash Player. If you have an old version, it might not run as well. You can go to the Adobe website and download the latest version here: http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash.

Because your computer is new and it looks like you have plenty of memory, one of these options should help speed up your computer.

When you first purchased your computer, I bet it started up reasonably well, correct? But now, you’ve had it for some time and it takes much longer to load. The most common reason for this is that as you add more programs and customize your computer over time, you are also inadvertently asking Windows to do much more than it used to.

Automatic Startup

For example, whenever you add a new program, most programs default with an option for “automatic startup.” This means that as Windows boots up, not only is it loading the basic device drivers for your hardware, it is also launching a variety of programs that you may or may not need. In addition, more desktop shortcuts need to load, a large desktop image may need to load, antivirus and anti spyware applications need to check for updates, and so on. All of these processes take time.

Registry Errors

Obsolete entries in the Windows registry also contribute to slow startup times. For example, if you have removed hardware from your computer but the registry still thinks it’s installed, then Windows will load the necessary device drivers unnecessarily.

Speed up Vista Startup

This doesn’t mean that you have to live with dreadfully slow Vista start up times. The first order of business is to remove unnecessary programs from automatic start up. Unnecessary programs are those that are not crucial to the security of your computer and are not used regularly. For example, you DO want your antivirus program to load automatically. That is crucial. But, you DON’T need QuickTime to load every single time you start your computer. Go to the Start button and type msconfig into the Search bar. Click on the msconfig.exe icon that appears. Now, click on the Startup Items tab. See the list of programs that are automatically launching each time you start up Vista? Remove the check mark next to programs that you don’t need to launch. You can always launch them as needed.

Remove Unnecessary Desktop Icons

If your desktop is cluttered with icons and shortcuts, cull these down to a more manageable number. This recent article details how to remove desktop icons.

Clean the Windows Registry

If reducing startup items and desktop icons don’t make much of a difference, consider purchasing a registry cleaner to clean up the obsolete, broken, damaged, and missing entries that may be interfering with your computer’s performance. We recommend RegCure. You can try a free scan to see if RegCure detects any errors with your registry before you buy.

. . . I have a 250 GB HDD with a dedicated, separate 750GB HDD for backup of my C: drive. I’m only using 56GB because I have 5 external-Network, 1TB drives.

Most of the documents, music, photos and other stuff (LOTS), is stored on a 1TB Network drive, which is dedicated to backing/imaging the other drive, thereby leaving only applications on C:. BUT my system doesn’t run as fast as it did when I first bought the unit - 3GHz, 4GBs of RAM (Pentium 4, dual core? processor).

I’ve dealt with MSCONFIG, run, runonce (in the registry). I have “UniBlue Power Suite” that cleans the registry, and a few other utilities that are supposed to clean up the system. I am ABSOLUTELY sure that I don’t have a virus. I use Norton SystemWorks 2009, and defrag on a regular basis. My paging file is minimum and maximum 1 1/2 times the ram. In the Norton Defrag software, I set the pagefile.sys to be defragged first (in the center of the drive where it is faster), I’ve also used one of the utilities to defrag the pagefile.sys at boot-up.

Any help would be appreciated.

Maintaining a computer so that it remains in top shape and continues running smoothly is simple once you get a system down. It sounds like you are on target with this for the most part. A brief explanation of the major methods for optimizing speed on a computer is explained below. For your individual needs, the first two strategies might apply.

Computer Speed and Processors

The processor of a computer is the most critical factor when it comes to speed and performance. Keeping up with technology often necessitates the purchase of a new processor. When replacing a processor, it is essential to make sure that it is compatible with the motherboard. The type of processor that you purchase should also match your use of the computer. Check to see if you have the fastest processor available for your motherboard.

Each process that your computer runs uses resources from the processor. If two processes are running and each one is using up 40% of the processor time that equals 80%. Therefore, if you are running multiple processes at the same time and each one uses a large percentage of the processor’s resources, it might be time to upgrade.

Computer Speed and Disk Space: Temporary Files

Freeing up disk space isn’t just about deleted unwanted documents, images, and programs. It’s also about deleting temporary Internet files and temporary files in Windows. In fact, temporary Internet files can take up an excessive amount of space especially if you do a considerable amount of Internet browsing. Each time you visit a web page, the browser caches it to facilitate faster loading of the page should you revisit it. Clearing out the browser cache and all temporary files will increase your computer’s speed. You need to have accessible RAM in order for the computer to retain its processing speed.

Computer Speed: Cleaning up the Disk

It is important to clean up and repair all errors on each drive that you are using. Complete the clean up on one drive at a time. The general path for this is as follows: Start→ All Programs→ Accessories→ System Tools→ Disk Cleanup. Cleaning up the computer allows it to run more efficiently.

Additionally, you should uninstall any software applications that you aren’t using. Empty the recycle bin frequently. Remove optional components and program files that you don’t need or use such as Java applets.

Computer Speed and Detecting and Repairing Errors

The overall speed of a computer is affected negatively by the fragmentation of its disks. Defragging the disk solves this problem by detecting errors and repairing them. Fragmented files lead to longer processing time since the computer must sift through the hard disk to locate all of the pieces of the file so that it can be used.

In addition to using an application to defrag your computer, you can access the disk defragmenter, following this path: Start→ All Programs→ Accessories→ System Tools→ Disk Defragmenter. As the computer performs its tasks, it needs to scroll through every file that you have on the disk until it locates the right one. It’s kind of like cleaning out the sock drawer and mating all of the socks.

Also, you can run the Error Checking Utility to ensure the integrity of the computer’s files. Bad sectors are notorious for running down the performance of computers. Repairing them will restore the computer’s performance to an optimal level.

Follow this path: Start→ My Computer→ Select the Disk→ Properties→ Tools→ Check Now→ Scan for and recover bad sectors→ Start→ Fix the bad sectors that are detected.

Computer Speed and Protection against Spyware

Since Norton SystemWorks 2009 does protect against both viruses and spyware, it does appear that your computer is protected from these forms of malware. Most antivirus/anti-spyware applications use up a lot of resources when they are running. Therefore, running the application to scan your computer at a time when you are not actively using it should prove beneficial in improving the computer’s speed performance.

Our PC Performance area is loaded with articles filled with speed and performance tips. Spend some time there as well; you may find some real gems.

If you are still experiencing trouble with your computer’s speed, you can contact live support at http://www.filetonic.com/support to receive assistance with your problem.

First, take a look at what programs he is running. If he’s like a lot of computer users, he has more programs running than he is actually using at any given time. For example, many programs install with a default option of “automatic startup.” While it’s convenient to have programs ready to go when you need them, they take up their share of the CPU’s resources. Go to Start >Run and type in msconfig.

From here, click the Startup Items tab and see what’s loading automatically. Remove the obvious ones such as Real Player, iTunes, Google Desktop, Adobe Reader, and so on. Unfamiliar startup programs will need further research before removal. Removing the items from Startup doesn’t remove the program. Your friend can open the programs on demand rather than having them open at all times. 

Next, take advantage of the Vista’s Performance Information and Tools center. This is found in the Control Panel. Here, you’ll find dozens of tweaks to fine tune your friend’s computer. For example, Adjust Visual Effects gives you options for performance versus appearance, processor allocation for the best performance of either programs or services, adjusting virtual memory, and Data Execution Prevention. Work through the various tasks in Performance Information and Tools and you should see a big improvement. 

Under the Advanced task, you’ll find a link to launch the Reliability and Performance Monitor. This is like the Task Manager’s Performance tab but even better. Click on the CPU down arrow to view real-time CPU activities. You may find valuable clues here regarding what’s eating up all of that CPU power.  

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.    

To launch the monitor, go into the Control Panel, click on Performance Information and Tools, and then click on Advanced. From there, click on Reliability and Performance Monitor. The main screen displays an overview of your computer’s current resource usage including real-time graphs detailing CPU, disk, memory, and network usage. Convenient down-arrows allow you to click to view further details such as which processes are running and how much processing power they are using up.

In the left side pane, you’ll see several options below the Reliability and Performance Monitor including Performance Monitor, Reliability Monitor, Data Collector Sets, and Reports.

The Performance Monitor is a simple graph that displays current performance data or performance data from log files. You can look at this data in graph form, report form, or as a histogram.

The Reliability Monitor displays a graph of the system’s stability using a “stability” index and “system stability” chart covering the computer’s lifetime. The System Stability Index uses a scale of 1 to 10 with one being the least stable and ten being the most stable. By looking at this chart, you can see your computer’s rating as well as specific events that have been flagged such as software installs and uninstalls, software failures, hardware failures, Windows failures, and miscellaneous failures. By default, the Reliability Monitor runs and collects system stability data.

Data Collector Sets provide the data that the Reliability and Performance Monitor relies on for monitoring and reporting. Windows Vista comes with several pre-made Data Collector Sets which should be extensive enough for most computer users. For those who want to monitor other functions, new Data Collector Sets can be created.

Reports are stored in the Reliability and Performance Monitor as well. If you have previously run System or User Defined reports, you can view them in this section. If you’d like to run a report, you must first go to the related Data Collector Set, right click it, and choose Start. The diagnostics take a few minutes to run. Once the diagnostics have completed, click on the related report and view the results.

The Reliability and Performance Monitor is a valuable tool that you can use to troubleshoot performance and reliability issues in real time. By checking this tool periodically, you can see just how well, or how poorly, your computer is running.

If every page that you attempt to load takes a long time but never used to take that long, I suggest checking for spyware and other forms of malware. Spyware and viruses can usurp the bandwidth from your Internet, creating functioning problems for your computer. Slow page loading exists among these problems. Therefore, if you suspect that your computer might be infected with spyware, adware, or a virus, run an antispyware application as well as an antivirus application.

Check into the amount of RAM or random access memory that you have available on your computer. If you are browsing the Internet and each page you view seems to take forever to load, you might be low on temporary resources. This can happen if you forget to clear your browser cache and history.

You can access the browser cache and history through your browser. Navigate to the “Tools,” which is located at the top of the screen. Click on Tools, click on Options or Internet Options, and click on Privacy. You can change the settings that have been set to clear your history at the top of the dialogue box that opens. Plus, you can also have all private data cleared upon closing out of the browser.

If the issue of slow loading of pages is related to the web sites that you have created, another issue to take a look at includes the type of content that is displayed. Images in particular can increase the load time for web pages. Avoid having too many images if you want to decrease your page load time. Plus, avoid having the images resized in the HTML for your web page. This also increases page load time. Instead, resize the pictures first before placing them on the page.

Javascript is also notorious for causing pages to load slowly. In fact, third party Javascript can be one of the worst culprits in this type of scenario. If you are running ads or widgets, the other site could be experiencing slow load time, thereby affecting the loading of your web page.

For personal pages on my Yahoo, collapsing modules should lead to quicker page loading. As long as you only collapse these, they will still be available for viewing. It’s just that closing them really does help the page to load faster. Additionally, adding an extra page and separating the content on the page to smaller portions will also lead to quicker page loading.

If you are simply browsing the Internet, you might be able to increase page loading time by selecting pages with less content as your initial landing page. In particular, sites such as eBay have slow loading pages and not-so-slow loading pages. If you select a page that does not display a lot of images, banners, etc, it will load more quickly than a page that has a ton of stuff displayed on it.

Overclocking a computer involves changing the settings of your computer’s CPU speed and/or the motherboard’s bus speed to levels above the intended speeds set by the manufacturer. Did you know that manufacturers test the speed of their CPU chips and find out at which point they fail their test? These tests are extremely rigorous, testing for every conceivable use.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s say that chip speeds can be rated on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the fastest. Now, let’s say that a chip fails at level 8. The manufacturer will then rate the chip with a speed rating of level 7 - one step below its failure level.

An overclocker wants more speed and is willing to gamble that even though the chip failed the manufacturer’s rigorous tests at level 8, it will probably perform just fine at this level for his purposes. Many times, the overclocker is right.

Occasionally, manufacturers install higher rated chips on computers requiring lower ones due to shortages or other factors. When this happens, a computer model rated, say level 6, may actually have a level 9 CPU chip installed. The chip has been purposely underclocked, so overclocking brings it back up to speed.

Overclocking gives your computer a bit of a boost but in many cases, that boost comes with a price tag: computer errors, overheating, fire hazards, and the diminished lifespan of the computer’s internal components thanks to the heavier burden and overheating.

If you want more speed out of your computer, overclocking has its share of cons. Instead of taking drastic steps, why not take PC performance steps that reduce risk rather than increase it? Your computer comes with numerous tools built-in that can improve performance and a variety of third party applications are available as well. The Tech Jocks at Filetonic.com are constantly adding articles about PC Performance with steps that the everyday computer user can easily follow.

Once you have your score, you have an idea of how your computer rates. Low scoring computers may be fine for basic computer tasks but will be ill suited for demanding applications such as gaming or video editing.

Since the lowest score becomes the base score, the easiest way to increase your Windows Experience score is to raise the lowest one. For example, if your CPU, Memory, and hard disk are rated fairly high, such as in the 4.5 or above range, and your graphics and gaming graphics scores are down in the 2.0 or below range, then improving your computer’s graphics capabilities will improve your overall score. In this case, upgrading the graphics card should raise the computer’s base score.

Before you go out and buy a new graphics card, consider whether doing so is meaningful or not. For example, if your computer performs just fine as is, then an upgrade may not be necessary. If all you do is send e-mail messages back and forth and do your banking online, then you don’t need a high end graphics card. If your computer is always running low on memory, then adding more memory may be a better choice.

Keep in mind that the Windows Experience Index score is a rating that measures your installed hardware, not actual performance. You may have a high-scoring computer that is inexplicably slow. The hardware is in place, but the system hangs, crashes, and crawls. Even the best equipped computers can get bogged down with clutter - and there isn’t an index that rates actual performance.

While upgrading hardware will get you a higher Windows Experience Index score, it won’t necessarily solve malware-related slowdowns or a cluttered registry. Instead, make sure to scan your computer for viruses and spyware regularly and clean out the Windows registry with a reliable registry cleaning product such as RegCure. Your score won’t go up, but your performance will.

Imagine being able to look at new software and seeing a label showing a compatible score such as “works with Windows Experience Index 3.0 and above” instead of having to compare hardware requirements. That’s what the score aims to do. While it’s hard to remember how fast your processor is or how much RAM you have installed on your computer, the score is easy. For example, if you know that your computer has a Windows Experience Index score of 4.2, then you can confidently purchase software that falls below that score. Your computer may still be capable of running software for higher scores but you’ll need to look at it more carefully.

The following components are scored individually:

• CPU
• Memory
• Hard disk
• Graphics
• Gaming graphics

Each component gets what’s called a “sub-score” and then the lowest sub-score becomes the computers “base score” or Windows Experience Index score. This means that even if you have four high scoring components and one low scoring piece of hardware, the lowest scoring component determines your computer’s overall score.

You can easily find out your computer’s score by going to the Start button, choosing Control Panel, clicking Performance Information and Tools. In the main display, you’ll see your score in a big blue box. You’ll also see each component’s individual sub-score. Remember that the lowest sub-score becomes the computer’s base score.

If you want to see even more details about each component, click the link that says, “View and print details.” This will open up a new screen detailing your system’s details such as system details, memory, processor type, storage, and network adapters.