Posts Tagged ‘speed up pc performance’

Do You Know How to Speed Up Your Computer?

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

Of the many computer users and owners worldwide, you may be one of those always trying to find new methods on how to speed up your computer. In today's technological age, we use the computer for just about everything, whether it's for work or personal stuff. But a lot of things can cause your PC to bog down, be slow to respond, hang, or even crash altogether. Fortunately, once this happens, it needn't be the end of its life. You have still so many possible solutions you can try. Listed below are some of them:

Give Your Graphics Board an Upgrade

A lot of computer users wrongly assume that only a full-time or avid game ethusiast would need a powerful graphics board. There may be some truth to this but it can't be denied as well that your PC could also perform at slower speeds as you run more graphics-heavy programs. If you use Vista or Windows 7 for instance, your graphics board could already be using quite a lot of your graphics board's capacity as these two operating systems are a bit heavy on the fancy effects for the user interface. If you have a relatively new PC, choose a board that would fit into a PCI-express slot. Older units however, would require either a PCI or AGP slot.

Get Rid of Unused Applications

Unknown to you, there may be a variety of programs or applications that immediately load upon your PC's startup. Chances are, you're not even aware that these are actually running in the background, especially if you don't use them most of the time. But the resources that they take up could add to the slowdown of your computer, so this is one area where you can make some changes if you wish to know how to speed up your computer.

How do you do this?. On your PC using Windows 7 or Vista, go to Start and in the field that says Search programs and files, type msconfig, then press Enter. Next you will find the System Configuration window, and when you select the Startup tab and look under Command column, you can see a list of the programs that load when your PC boots up. To prevent them from loading on startup, just uncheck these applications to load on startup}. 

Check Your Network

While being connected to a local network is important to many primarily for business reasons, it can also contribute to longer processing time of your computers. To maximize the use of your network without sacrificing your PC's speed, use the latest drivers for your network card, and the newest firmware for your router.

All would agree that a slow computer is usually a big headache and in some cases, even leads to wasted time and resources. But if you know some troubleshooting strategies on how to speed up PC performance, there isn't any reason why a slow PC should continue to be a burden to you.

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What Kind of Problems Can Windows XP Registry Cleaners Fix?

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

If you use Microsoft Windows, then you might have heard about a Windows XP registry cleaner. While it’s not a fix-all for all the troubles that may be ailing your computer, it is definitely a useful tool that every computer user should have. If you want to know how to speed up computer performance that’s been affected by a murky registry, then read on.

The registry is essentially the communication switchboard for all the programs on your computer. Whenever a program makes a call to another, the registry records that information for reference the next time the program needs to use it. However, when a program is deleted without using the uninstall process, it can leave behind outdated information. As this unused information builds, your computer has to search harder every time is looks through the registry. This can cause slow down, freezes and even a complete crash.

The market is saturated with registry cleaner software that eliminates the files that slow your computer down.  Easy to use, these programs scan the registry for the errors, and then you are able to rid your system of the unwanted information.  It is wise to run the software periodically in order to keep your registry clean and tidy.

A smart consumer performs product comparisons, and reads reviews.  It shouldn’t be any different in the case of a Windows XP registry cleaner.  Before downloading or installing any software on your computer, you should thoroughly research the product, and you may even want to consult a professional for suggestions. 

If you choose to download a program, you may end up getting a great product for free, but you run the risk of getting something cheaply made or even loaded with malware. If you’re hesitating to get a program you have to pay for, you can probably find a demo or trial version from their website that you can try first. If you like it, you will be more comfortable purchasing the program. By buying a program, you also get access to customer service that you would not get from a free program. 

Ensure that the registry cleaner makes a backup in case something goes wrong, so you can restore the information.  Again, caution is the key when making any changes to the registry but with a backup file on hand, the risk of losing important files becomes less. 

Registry cleaners can fix PC errors by eliminating unneeded information, and allow your computer to work to its full potential. You have the choice of using one that is free but fraught with risks, or paying for a tried and tested product. It’s entirely up you but using a combination of caution, common sense, and these tips, you should have no problem choosing a top-notch Windows XP registry cleaner.

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What I Did to Speed Up My Computer

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

The things I did to speed up my computer did not involve buying new hardware or paying expensive fees to a professional to tune up my PC. If you spend a little money as an investment in your PC’s health, you won’t have to pay big money to get it repaired at a shop. Your PC, just like any machine, requires regular maintenance to perform at its best. This maintenance might be all your need to get your computer running at that like-new speed again. 

The first step in any computer maintenance is to backup whatever you’re about to work on. If you have a backup program, use it. While basic cleaning on your computer comes with only a very small risk of data loss, you can never be too careful. If you don’t have a backup program, you should strongly consider getting one. There are plenty of web-based companies that can store your data for only a few dollars a month. If you have important information on your computer, it’s very much worth the money.  

When I searched for ways to speed up my computer, one of the most common pieces of advice I came across was to run a registry cleaner. While it should be a part of every computer’s routine maintenance, very few people actually know the importance of running a registry cleaner. Your registry is the brain of your operating system and it can become cluttered very quickly. Running a cleaner can free up hard drive space and speed up your computer. However, you may want to be cautious around free programs. They may not come with all the features you need or they may be poorly written. Typically though, registry cleaners are very straight forward to use. Run the backup utility they come with, then run the cleaner.

After you run a cleaner, you’ll want to run a couple programs that are so important Microsoft included them with every copy of Windows. Scan disk and drive defrag are both found under system tools and can dramatically improve the speed of your computer. They basically find errors on your drives that may be causing problems and then restructure your files so they load more quickly. The programs essentially run themselves, but since they may take a while, you should consider starting them at night before you go to bed.

Something many people tend to overlook is the additional network drives connecting them to other computers. Whenever your computer loads it has to scan all drives, including network drives, and that can take time. By disconnecting unnecessary network drives, you’ll greatly speed up load time.

I get annoyed with all of the programs that autostart. It is most annoying when I am accessing the hard disk for important files, and I have to wait for all of these programs to open. I finally went into the “system configuration tool”, and modified the programs that I didn’t need to autostart. Some of these programs like chat software and musicdownloads can attach themselves to your startup wthout you even knowing it so it’s definitely worth a try to find out.

These steps are easy enough for anyone to follow and with the exception of purchasing a registry cleaner, they are all free. Should you decide to buy PC maintenance software, Registry Mechanic by PC Tools is one of the programs we recommend. If your computer is running slowly or taking forever to boot up, you might consider following these tips. It took me next to no time at all and helped to speed up my computer a great deal, so I’m confident that it will do the same for you.

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