Speed Up My Computer

A huge pet peeve is when I ask to use someone’s computer, and when I go to use it I realize that they have a million programs running in the background and I can barely even use it.  I treat my computer the same way I treat my car, I change the oil regularly and if I think a problem is developing I cut it off before it ruins my engine.  Use these techniques for speeding up your computer to save yourself the $150 you would get charged if you brought your computer to a computer repair shop.

Each computer has its’ own problems, so some of these steps may not be necessary while others could quite possibly require more serious steps.  Just because you aren’t technically inclined does not stop you from performing a few of these simple PC optimization tricks.

PC Optimization Tips

The reason having more RAM speeds up your computer is that if you have more space to store stuff, it is less likely you will need to go to the hard drive (which is slow by comparison).  The average person has a better processor than they really need anyway, the main goal for us will be to maximize space for frequently used objects in the RAM so that it can be sent to the processor without the need for going to the hard drive; a secondary goal will be to speed up those disk accesses (defragmentation).

Spyware

The most common slow down for a computer is so called “Spyware” or “Adware”, which is a somewhat new term that overlaps with what some consider to be a virus.  The difference is that a virus is typically designed to disable a computer, while spyware is most effective if it goes completely unnoticed.  Spyware is created by companies/individuals looking to make a profit somehow, whether that is tracking your activity online or attempting to steal personal information.  Spyware is usually relatively benign and just sits around reporting which websites you visit, and while this may not jeopardize your personal information this is the type of spyware that slows your computer down.

There are quite a few options out there for dealing with adware, some of which are free and some you have to pay for.  I’ll list the three best known, and give you my personal opinions on each.

• SpyBot Search and Destroy – Honestly I have had far more issues with this software than I have with spyware in general.  The “Tea timer” option is beyond useless, just do a Google search on it and you will see most inquiries are how to remove to stupid thing.  I would never use it, but nonetheless it is free and one of the most popular spyware programs out there.

• Ad-Aware this is the best of the free options out there, I had used this on most of my computers at home until I decided that it is easier for me to manually remove spyware.  It fulfills my basic needs, it is free and it works.  The upside is that it is free (don’t waste money on the upgrade), and it does a decent job of detecting spyware.  Unfortunately it has 2 major flaws, one is that it misses a good amount of spyware as well, and a much larger flaw is that it cannot figure out how to remove many of the more complex adware programs out there. It is the best free option out there, so if you don’t plan to spend any money this would be the place to go.

• Spyware Doctor – Now we enter into the world of paid software, which for some reason people try to avoid at all costs.  If you just bought a new BMW, are you going to go put $2/quart oil from China in it or will you spend a few extra bucks and put in Mobile One synthetic?  The old phrase “You get what you pay for” applies here, you are getting a much more complete package and with that comes customer support, more reliable software, and an all around better experience.

Virus Protection

This has less to do with the speed of your computer than the overall health of your computer.  A virus is much more serious, but less common than spyware.  Most computers will have spyware, but by design spyware will allow the computer to continue to run causing it to be more of a PC optimization issue.  Viruses on the other hand can completely destroy your computer, causing data loss and in many cases forcing you to reinstall Windows and all your programs.  I usually deal with viruses manually, but I will share my experiences with a few different anti-virus programs that I have used over the years.

• ClamWin – A free open source anti-virus.  No major company behind it so you won’t need to worry about being “upsold”, downside is no major company for quality control.  I was not overly impressed when I tried it last, which was about 2 years ago.  It may have improved since then, but I prefer AVG as far as free software goes.

• McAfee - This is kind of the old guard of virus protection, they have been around forever.  They do a decent job of detection and removal of viruses, but the downside is that they chew up far more system resources.  This is on one of my parent’s computers, but I will not put it on my own because from my experience the updates will bring your computer to a grinding halt every time you reboot.

• AVG – This is one of those confusing business models, because they release a good free anti-virus that they don’t really improve on too much with the paid option.  I would pass on the paid option because you aren’t getting too much more than the free version.  The free version on this is by far the best of the free software options out there.  The only downside is that I have seen a few viruses slide through it (especially Smithren viruses) and occasional software glitches, such as a bug which caused my friend’s computer to crash resulting in me reinstalling his operating system.

• Nod32 – This is what I would use on my own computers.  ESET created a perfect balance between creating a barrier of protection without making it so thick that you cannot use your computer for what you want it to.  The last time I checked it was rated as the best in overall protection for anti-virus programs by CNET.  I have not discovered any flaw in the system, and it is specifically designed to minimize the impact on system performance.  ESET has done an excellent job of balancing system performance with virus protection, a very good value for your money.

• Norton Anti-Virus – This is what I would get for my family.  If you are looking for the best protection from a big name that you have heard of, this is the best of the big names.  This is what they use at my school district and with a couple thousand computers I very rarely get called out on virus removal calls (maybe once a month?).  It also comes with a PC optimization package which I have not tested, but according to their website it shuts off unnecessary startup items, etc. doing automatically the steps that I will recommend later in this PC optimization guide.  I would also highly recommend this software.

Registry Cleaners

You cannot talk about PC optimization tips without mentioning the registry.  The registry is basically the gears of the operating system that make your computer tick, much of the data here is literally ones and zeros. These are all of the configuration settings that you make to your programs, operating system, etc.  No tech likes to play with the registry of a client’s computer, because it is very easy to mess up if you do it manually.  You will never accidentally encounter the registry, it is hidden for a reason.

Have you ever seen a blue screen of death (BSOD)?

The dreaded blue screen of death is often caused by registry errors (the one above is not).  When I get to the point of blue screens I will typically venture in to the registry in safe mode to vanquish my foe, otherwise I will not play with the registry other than for some extracurricular activities.

• Registry Mechanic – You will notice a huge advertisement for Registry Mechanic on the side of my website, I pick my own advertisements on this site since my ad space is in high demand so you know that I must like this product.  I ran the free scan and saw that I had nearly 200 registry errors, I then installed the software pressed a single button and it fixed all of my problems with one click.  Could not recommend it more, it is the best option for keeping your registry clean to prevent system crashes and keep it running nice and fast.

Cleaning out your registry will achieve a few PC optimizations, it will reduce the number of things running the background allowing you to use your RAM more effectively, reduce startup time, and it will prevent crashes as seen above.

**You can now receive a free copy of my e-book “PC Primer“, a guide to PC optimization, by signing up at PCprimer.net**

MSConfig Startup List

This is one of the fastest, easiest, and guaranteed ways to speed up your computer.  People have a tendency to collect things they don’t need, go take a look in your garage, basement, attic, or other preferred place of putting things you will never use in storage.

On your keyboard press the Windows key and “r” simultaneously or click on Run in the start menu. In the search window type msconfig.  Click on the “Startup” tab, and you will see a whole bunch of programs.  Each item represents a program, follow these steps:

• Look at each item, and look it up at Bleeping Computer. If it is non-essential to your computer, uncheck it.  For example one item I see the program is called ‘Adobe Acrobat’.  You might be thinking “But I need Acrobat!”, and that is true, I use it all the time, but that doesn’t mean you need it to automatically open in the background each time you turn on your computer.  It will sit there eating up RAM for no reason.
• Continue through the list unchecking non-essentials, and when you are done simply hit OK and restart your computer.  I would recommend going to and searching for each one.  It will take 10 minutes and make a HUGE difference in your computer’s speed.

Shutdown Your Computer

This one should be fairly obvious, but many people will leave their desktop turned on for days on end or will constantly put their laptops in hibernate/standby mode rather than shutting down.  I use hibernate during the day on this computer, but every night I shut it down so that it clears out the RAM.  Every little program you run will leave a little hook in the RAM and as a result.  Random Access Memory is able to very efficiently transmit data as it uses volatile memory, which means that once you turn it off all the data goes away.  This is why we still have to use hard drives, but turning it off each night will free up some space in your RAM.

Uninstall

This goes back to people collecting stuff that they will never use.  Just because you have a piece of software that allows you to make podcasts doesn’t mean that you will ever find a practical application for it.  Go to control panel –> add/remove software or programs/features.  Go through the list and uninstall anything you no longer use, many of these programs will chew up RAM by lurking in the background and hard drive space.   This is something that is once again a very simple task, but nobody wants to take the time to do it.  Just do it right now, if you are reading this article you have time to uninstall some stuff while you read.  Always do a complete uninstall, no need to leave settings, etc.

Drivers

Another big cause of blue screen errors is that you have improper drivers.  Any gaming fan can tell you that when a new version of a game comes out, you will need to have the most up to date drivers or else it will crash or act funny.  Windows will update itself so usually I find that people have the most recent security patches, but many people do not realize they need to manually update drivers.

You can do this one of two ways, the first is to go to My Computer –> Properties –> Device Manager and then look up each driver from the manufacturer and install it manually.  The second is to go to your OEM ( ie: Hp, Lenovo, etc.) and look at their support section for driver updates and follow their directions.  Most of the time they will provide you a list of drivers and then let you manually install each one (usually involves just hitting next many times).

Turn off useless visual effects

Myself I am all about practicality over flashy graphics and pretty screens.  You can make your computer faster by sacrificing a few of the visual effects that Windows tries to impose on us.  This one is extremely easy, you will probably laugh when you see the screen for yourself.  Right click on My Computer and go to properties.  From here go to advanced settings, click on performance.  Under performance options it says ‘Adjust for best appearance’ or ‘Adjust for best performance’.

Defragmenting

This is one of those things that you can go out and spend money on, but it will not be any more efficient than using the built in Windows functionality.  In fact I hate the products on the market because they are using the same Windows tools but putting a fancy interface on them and run in background so they steal your performance a little at a time rather than doing it out in the open for a short period of time.

Defragmenting will speed up your computer by optimizing your hard drive space, programs will often have to put pieces of data on areas physically separated from the core of the program.  This causes all sorts of problems when you want to take advantage of spacial locality, so to fix this you will need to “Defragment” or put all the pieces back together for your programs to make your computer run faster and you will get some extra HD space.   If you don’t defragment often it will take a while on the first run (Kind of like when you go for dental cleaning, you’ll spend a lot of time getting plaque removed if you don’t brush near the gums).

To defrag your computer do the following:  Windows menu –> Accessories –> System tools –> Disk Defragmenter.  Hit analyze and then defragment, it will take a while if you don’t do this often.  Some tech people will tell you to do this once a day but that is a complete waste of time, do it once every other month and you’ll be fine.   Before running this, go through and uninstall any programs that you do not need and delete old files you don’t need.

Chuck it!

If all else fails, then you can either format your computer and reinstall Windows, buy more RAM, or go out and get a new computer.  If you want to buy more RAM I would recommend you get it from Newegg.com.  Newegg is the secret place that the tech savvy go to buy things for about half the price you would pay at a retail store.  Just Google your computer and find out what kind of chip to buy.

With the price of computers falling at a constant rate, many times it makes economic sense to simply buy a new computer. If you want a new computer then check out my Custom Configured Computer page, I will pick one out that fits your needs for free!  If you want to pick one out for yourself I recommend you check out HP.com all of my computers and computers I pick out for my family are from HP.

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**You can now receive a free copy of my e-book “PC Primer“, a guide to PC optimization, by signing up at PCprimer.net**