Has your computer started to run noticeably slower over the years? This is a very common situation, many end users complain about their systems running slower, how their computers were, at one point relatively fast. But with all things, they slowly die out, decay, and perform worse. Anyway, the point of this article, is to fill you in on the various steps you can take to make your outdated system, perform reasonably better. 

 

So, why do you think your system is slower?

 

Well, basically, just like in your typical workspace, files start to build up, on your system, slowing things down. If you never clean your house, emptied out your bins, you’d find it near impossible to function optimally every day. Every time you add a new program to your system, jump on the internet, create a new word document or perform your work duties, there are temporary files being created, which over time, clog up the system. 

 

Additionally, technology is always advancing, and at a very fast pace. That high end PC you purchased just 3 years ago, is now starting to show its age, as its hardware starts to struggle with new software, especially the more intensive kind. 

 

So what are the things you can do?

 

 

1. Change Your Power Plan 

If you’re on a desktop machine, you should consider switching your power plan profile to High Performance. Your system comes with several power plans (such as Power Saver, Balanced, and High Performance), all of which are designed to control how your system uses its power. Some plans are designed to get the best out of your battery by lowering the performance demands of other areas of the system. Whereas High Performance is designed to increase the speed and performance of the system. 

 

One thing to keep in mind is that the High Performance plan is only effective on desktop systems. For laptop computers, it’d simply drain your battery life very quickly. 

 

2. Remove What You Don’t Need 

You should carry out a review of all the tools and programs running on your system, every couple of months, and remove all the things you don’t need. All of these unnecessary programs take up crucial amounts of hard disc space. So if you’re not using them, then you should load up Add/Remove Programs and remove it from there. 

 

3. Turn off Your Computer 

It is best practice to turn your system off at night, then boot it back up, each day in the morning. There are many end users and businesses that are guilty of keeping their systems constantly on. Keeping your system on for extended periods of time, can lead to memory issues, where certain closed files no longer free up space for you to carry out other tasks. Instead, you notice the performance of the system deteriorating with time. 

 

When you restart your system, you’re essentially clearing the system of its memory, ensuring that you system remains healthy for as long as possible. Another thing you’re also doing is reducing carbon footprints, which is especially the case with older systems that do not have any power management capabilities. Modern systems have no problem starting and stopping resources in order to manage system load. 

 

4. Defrag Your Hard Disc Drive 

Of all the components that make up your system, the hard drive is without a doubt the hardest working component. You use it all the time, from the very moment you turn on your computer. You install programs onto it and save sensitive data on it. However, any data you add to it, is not stored in a sequential order, in fact, it’s installed as disorderly as the end user, allocating free space, wherever it can find it, to save whatever you wish to save. The end result is a hard drive made up of scattered data, this makes it perform slower, as it must take more time to access the data it’s being asked to access. 

 

It’s for this reason why you’d want to defrag your hard drive. This is a task you should carry out on a regular basis, at least, once per month. However, if you’re more of a power user, then you may want to consider weekly defrags. 

 

Note: SSD drives cannot and do not require defragging. 

 

5. Add Additional RAM to Your System 

Your RAM acts as temporary storage, which is used by your processor to access and read data. Every time you run a program, a certain amount of RAM space is allocated to it. However, if you lack the necessary RAM space, then the system will allocate hard disc space, which is significantly slower. This in turn, leads to your system running slower. The best workaround is to simply add more memory to your system. RAM isn’t nearly as expensive today, so you should buy as much as you can afford. 

 

6. Move Old Data to the Cloud (or External HD)  

This should see you free up a lot of space on your hard drive, which should also make your system faster. You want to copy, only sensitive data that you do not need immediate access to, like family pictures etc., to your cloud or an external HD, if you own one. 

 

7. Install Only What You Need 

Ensuring your system is safe from cybercriminals is very important if you don’t want your data getting into the wrong hands. For this reason, you want to ensure you have the right antivirus and firewall program installed on your system. These crucial pieces of software, which you should be updating on a regular basis, will ensure everything on your system remains protected. 

 

8. Toolbars 

Toolbars have been around for almost as long as the web browser and have slowly established themselves as a plague of sorts. They, in many instances install themselves onto your web browser, when an end user mistakenly forgets to un-tick a box during the installation of a program. These toolbars take up a lot of real estate on your system screen. 

 

It’s not uncommon for a web browser to have multiple toolbars installed on it, essentially slowing down the web experience by eating away at its bandwidth, with the worst thing about it being that it tracks the websites you visit and what you type on them. 

 

All web browsers that you can get today come with their own search bar, while on the top right of the applet, it connects either to Google or Bing. That should be enough for the vast majority of users. In order to remove an unwanted toolbar, there should be an option to enter extensions, from there, you should see a remove button besides each extension. In other circumstances, you may even be able to uninstall the toolbar directly from the applet itself. 

Uchenna Ani-Okoye is a former IT Manager who now runs his own computer support website https://www.compuchenna.co.uk.