computer running slow

Reasons

There are several reasons for a pc or a laptop becoming slow. I am not considering virus activity here, I am concerning only to general maintenance.

1)The most frequent reason is having many programs running on the computer at the same time. If you look at the right corner of windows task bar, you will find icons of programs currently running on your computer. Close down unnecessary programs whenever not necessary. Also if you disable some programs from startup it will save some memory for other programs. Usually necessary programs include the anti virus, anti spyware, firewall , modem etc. whereas you can safely remove programs such as computer games, adobe reader speed launch, picasa media detector, ms office, and any other such programs from startup. You can start open those programs from programs menu whenever you need to run them.

2) To a certain extent screen savers and desktop wall papers consume RAM. You can turn off screen saver, and set the wallpaper to blank


3) If you have important work to do on your computer and it is not running as you'd expec then you should consider removing any Computer Games that are installed on your computer. (Not the ones that come preinstalled with windows and listed under accessories > Entertainment.)
In this situation you simply can not affort the luxury to have computer Games. Either you should uninstall all Games or consider yourself buying a more Powerful computer.

4) Another reason of computer running slow is having less space on hard disk, particularly on the C partition where windows is usually installed. If there is very little space and you are getting messages that there is no space left on C drive or messages that Virtual Memory is too low, then that can be a cause of computer slowing down.

5) Fragmented or scattered files can cause a slight delay in computer operation.

6) Another reason of slow down is leftover, obsolete entries in the windows registry, unused dlls, etc from previously uninstalled programs. They go on accumulating in your windows registry and on the hard disk if you do not use a separate registry cleaning software time to time.

I am listing a few softwares here. ATF cleaner, RegScrubXP , ccleaner and Advanced Windows Care Personal Free Edition. They are good for cleaning your daily online cache at the end of the online session, before closing your computer. Remember that most virus programs enter your computer as temporary internet files, so if you make it a habit to delete as much as of it as frequently as possible.




Solution

Here are some steps you can use to lessen the burden on your computer making it run faster. (Copy and paste these instructions on your desktop in a new text file. It will be easier for you to read them after rebooting your computer, when you are not online)


1) To begin with click on start > run type msconfig. Press ok. Click on Startup tab. Uncheck names of those programs there that you do not need at startup. (These settings are reversible, if you uncheck something and later decide that it is necessary at startup; you can always come back and change the settings again.) Press Apply. Press close. Click on restart to reboot the computer. After reboot system configuration message window appears . Check the box that says do not display this again, and press ok to close the box.

2) If possible uninstall some programs from your computer which are not essential.(start > control panel > add/remove programs)

3) Right Click on Desktop > Select properties
Click on Screen Saver. Choose None from the list . Press Apply
Click On Desktop Tab . In the list of Backgrounds select None. Press Apply.
Press Ok to Exit

4) Run cCleaner or AWC Personal to clean your registry and temp files.

5) Run Defrag. start > all programs > Accessories > system tools > disk defragmentor.

6) See to it that there is enough free space left on the hard disk partition where windows is installed. Copy files elsewhere and delete them to make space from your hard disk partition where windows is installed.
You can copy all files from the My Documents Folder and any other folder you have used to save your text files, music, video, downloaded files etc. You can copy them to another partition on your hard disk D, E etc, if there are extra partitions and they have free space. Otherwise you can copy all on cd/dvds. After making backup delete as much of them as you do not need frequently from their original location. This will free up some space on the partition

Increasing Virtual Memory

The default virtual memory management in winXP is set to automatic, and it is better to leave it like that unless you have a reason to do so, or you want to experiment with increasing virtual memory.

Virtual memory is the swap space alloted on the hard disk. It has a minimum and a maximum value. Usually minimum is equal to the physical RAM on your pc. and the maximum is one and a half times the RAM. In case you want to increase it, you can set the minimum and the maximum equal to one and a half times the size of RAM in MB.
You can find the virtual memory setting on the location in winXP
start > control panel > system > advanced > performance settings > Advanced > Virtual Memory Change
select the hard disk partition.
select the custom size radio button. Enter values.Press OK
Allocate VM on all partitions of the hard disk.



Links

Read How to use and download links of Programs mentioned above

ATF-Cleaner

using ccleaner

RegScrubXP registry cleaner

AWC Personal Free Edition