We buy a new computer; work on it for some time happily and eventually we realize that it is not working the way it used to work earlier. We notice that it has gone sluggish, it takes time to boot, it takes time to shutdown and it takes time to open files and applications. We call a local technician or visit a local service centre, pay them the hard earned money to get the missing speed back.
Wait! Why we should pay unnecessary money to someone when we ourselves can take good care of such minor problem. It is just about our working habits and the periodic care we take of our computer. In this post I will mention some ways to keep our computers running at their best, and deliver the optimum performance.
Keep it simple:
Applications and Operating System available these days are rich in graphics and thus consume lots of computer resources. If the Hardware of your computer is not complimenting the resource needs of the Software installed on it then it is a good approach to minimize the graphics and other Window layouts. This can be done from the System Properties window where we can set the computer work for the best performance. You can also apply the Classic style of Windows instead of the latest visually tempting looks.
Clean the Hard Drive:
By this I don’t mean cleaning the hard drive with a cloth and removing dust from it, but to clean the unwanted and unnecessary files from it. Hard Drive space is also one of the reasons for any computer to run slow. Hard Drive is the place from where all the data is read before any file can be opened or any application can be started. If your Hard Drive is fragmented and consists of lots of junk then it will always take a decent time in collating the data before opening the file or application. So make it a periodical habit of cleaning the hard drive for any junk. A tool called Disk Cleaner can be used for this purpose and this can be invoked by Start -> Run and typing CleanMgr.Exe
Monitor what is running:
Apart from the Hard Drive the other device which affects speed the most is the Random Access Memory (RAM). As we use the computer it is likely to receive infections from other files or from the Internet. These infections stay resident in the RAM and slow down the performance by occupying the useful space. This can be reduce or killed completely by running Virus, Spyware scans after updating the Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware applications.
Alter the Virtual Memory:
Virtual memory is the space on Hard Drive which is used as a part of RAM. This helps a lot while we multi-task because this ways the computer gets more Random Access Memory to write to and fro. By default Windows manages it on its own but if you want you can increase the Virtual Memory so that more space can be consumed. Do not increase it to any large size but only to 3 times the size of the RAM. So, if your RAM is of 1GB then the maximum Virtual Memory you can have will be 3 GB and a minimum would be 1.5 GB.
