Why is my computer so slow?

submitted: Sep 6th 2008 | by: EthanHunter | Total views: 2 | Word Count: 728 | PDF View | Print Article

There are several reasons why a PC starts to run slow. Background programs that are still running in your computer could make the execution of other programs slow down. This is due to the background programs taking up quite a large amount of your RAM. The icons in your system tray are some of the background programs that are taking up the memory. To have your PC run optimally, you need to take care of the background programs and set the minimum which you need to run. As you boot your computer, some of these programs start by themselves. To configure the programs or to stop them from running at the time of booting, you should use the Start/Search function and either remove or delete them from "program start up".

For your computer to function normally, it is always desirable that your hard drive has free space for your computer to use when executing tasks. If you do not have enough free space left in the hard drive, your computer may get slow. In order to be safe, you should allow 3 to 4 MB of free space available on your hard disk. Some computers have more than one drive installed. In this case, you need to have the space available in your "C" drive or any other drive in which you have installed your Windows operating system. In case you do not have any free space, or the space that you have in your drive is not enough, you should delete some of the programs.

At times, the updates of your Windows operating system or any other software may run automatically when you are browsing the Internet. This mostly happens at the background, rendering your computer to run slow for as long as the update is not completely downloaded. As soon as the computer finishes downloading, your computer should come back to normal speed. In order to avoid this, you would need to disable automatic updating.

The data in your hard drive could be fragmented, and this fragmentation makes your computer run slow. You should regularly use Windows "Defrag" to defragment your hard drive so the data in your disk could be put in a contiguous manner. This makes your computer find the required data easily instead of scanning the whole disk.

If you regularly play games on your PC and find your computer is running slow, it could be that the RAM in your computer needs to be upgraded. Games require lots of RAM spaces to run, and you would need to upgrade your RAM suitably to run games software in your PC.

Your computer may run slow owing to conflicting Windows device drivers. You might have two different video drivers installed in your PC. This conflict makes your Windows operating system indecisive about which one to use. You should get rid of one of the video drivers for your computer to run normally. If you open your "system" from the control panel, click on the"hardware" tab and open the "device manager", you will find yellow exclamation marks on the devices causing conflicts. You may either delete or reload the driver which is causing a problem.

Virus infections and malicious software in your PC make your computer run slow. Your computer remains vulnerable when you are browsing the Internet. Even opening unknown attachments in your inbox may infect your system. You can protect your computer against viruses and malicious software by having the proper anti-virus and anti-spyware software running in your system when these vulnerabilities can be detected and removed. Malicious software creeps into your computer and installs itself without your knowledge and may start to gather personal information kept in your computer, sending it out to someone through the Internet.

Computers tend to get slow as the Windows registry becomes larger and larger. As you use your computer, installing and uninstalling software, executing tasks, etc., the registry of your computer develops errors. With your Windows operating system constantly looking for relevant data in the registry system, the errors cause conflicts. Also, Windows takes a longer time to find the required data from the registry as the registry starts to get larger, making windows take more time to scan the system. In this case your registry needs to be optimized by removing the errors in the system. You must use an appropriate registry cleaning software to put back your computer in shape.

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