Fixing slow pcs and maintenance

If your Windows based PC seems to be running slow, and programs are taking a long time to load, there are a few simple things that can be done before you start to panic.  Since Windows operates by swapping memory to and from a cache on the hard drive, the condition of said drive can be an important factor in the overall performance of the machine as a whole.  Regular maintenance can go a logn way towards keeping your machine running at top performance.

Run antivirus and antispyware programs.  These unwanted items can significantly reduce the speed of PC, and some are capable of making it completely nonfunctional.  Even when such programs are not maliciously affecting the system, each one that loads into computer memory uses resources that could be directed to other tasks, thereby slowing down the system.  Animated mouse pointers are a huge drain on resources, also.  While it may be aesthetically pleasing to have a mouse pointer which is animated, you must consider the implications of such things, and if performance is a key issue, it is probably best to disable them.

The next step is to perform regular system maintenance.  The recycle bin is a handy tool to prevent accidentally deleting files, but by default it is allowed to use as much as 10% of your hard drive, which takes away from resources available for important performance tasks, such as swap files.  When you know that the recycle bin contains files you no longer need, empty it.  Running cleanup, in addition to emptying the recycle bin, will remove old temporary files, cookies, and other unnecessary files.  Likewise, cleaning the system registry will make system resources available that are used by programs that may no longer be of use.

Another important task that should be performed regularly is system defrag.  When a file is written to a freshly formatted hard drive, it is written out in one long block.  As files are moved and deleted, the resulting empty spaces are refilled with new data, but the data becomes broken into pieces which fit the empty blocks left by previously deleted files.  In time, this results in your programs being spread out across larger segments of the hard drive, and more and more processor time is required to load those files as it has to search out segments on your drive.  Eventually, some file segments may even become lost or corrupted, resulting in lost data or programs that are inoperable.  By running defrag, you are able to reorganize the hard drive, putting all of the pieces back together again.  This will increase system performance, sometimes making run noticeably faster.

Article written by MyComputerAid.com