How to speed up a slow PC?
Community Forums/General Help/How to speed up a slow PC?
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| My girlfriend is moaning her laptop (running Vista) is getting really slow, especially when first logging in. Can you recommend any apps/tools/tips to help speed things up? I've just read about this ReadyBoost thing where Windows can use a USB memory stick to speed things up. Has anyone tried this and does it make much of a difference? Cheers |
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| is getting really slow If it's becoming slower as time passes, it probably needs a cleanup... Get CCleaner or some other cleaning tools to delete unnecessary data, check the automatic startup and services list to turn off anything that's added itself to them, that sort of thing. |
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| Probably too much crap loading at startup. Click Start>>Run Type "msconfig" Check the "Startup" tab to see what stuff's being loaded. Probably loads of old cack you didn't even know about. If you have any Norton products, uninstall them. Then take the Norton installation CD into the garden and burn it. |
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| CCleaner looks like a pretty damned good tool. Just tried it on my machine. Probably too much crap loading at startup. Yeah, I was going to check this. CCleaner actually lets you disable unwanted start up programs, too... which is nice.Click Start>>Run Type "msconfig" Check the "Startup" tab to see what stuff's being loaded. Probably loads of old cack you didn't even know about. If you have any Norton products, uninstall them. Then take the Norton installation CD into the garden and burn it. :D Good thinking. It's almost certain to have some form of Norton crapware pre-installed on it.Thanks P.S. any recommendations for malware removal etc? Last edited 2011 P.P.S. I read up a bit on that ReadyBoost thing and by all accounts, it's not much cop. :/ Last edited 2011 |
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| CCleaner actually lets you disable unwanted start up programs, too... which is nice It only actually shows the same small subset of the startup list that MSconfig shows. One tool that shows a much more complete list is Spybot S&D, which is also an anti-spyware program (although opinions differ on whather it's actually any good on that bit). I wouold suggest taking a look at services.msc (Start->Run), which lists the same services as MSconfig's services menu but gives a text description for each one (at least, the official ones). You can start, stop, restart, and change their status from Automatic to Manual to Disabled. Be warned though that you can also terminate critical services here so use a guide or just don't touch if you don't know what all of them are. |
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| Regarding anti-malware, can't get much better than malwarebytes. |
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| I agree with GFK on malwarebytes! very good Stuff :) Used Game Booster as it does Speed everything up :) Last edited 2011 |
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| Instead of restarting your computer from scratch every time, use hibernation!! That will save you a LOT of time, 30 sec to start, 30 sec to stop... (even shorter if you have not a lot of memory) |
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| Have you tried defragmenting the drive manually in case it's not been happening automatically? What kind of spec is it? |
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| 30 sec to start, 30 sec to stop An fully optimised Windows setup should have no trouble beating this time with normal startup and shutdown. Although I'd weight it slightly towards the startup and be happy with 40/20 (which is probably closer to reality since one doesn't re-optimise it all the time). |
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| OK, I'll give malwarebytes a whirl, too. Her laptop isn't exactly a power house - think it's only got 1 gig of memory - but it used to be fine and has just gotten slow over time. Needs a good clean out, no doubt. Thanks for the help so far. |
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| Another thing that slows down a computer over time is a messy registry. As you install and uninstall software, the registry becomes bigger and bigger, until you find that the computer takes forever to start up. As for which registry cleaner to use, that I couldn't say, I've downloaded all of the *FREE* registry cleaners. But invariably they only display how messed up your registry is and want you to buy to full version to actually clean it. (going to nonags.com to see if there is any free registry cleaning software) From nonags.com - http://www.nonags.com/freeware-registry-repair_2471.html Last edited 2011 |
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| As for which registry cleaner to use, that I couldn't say, I've downloaded all of the *FREE* registry cleaners. But invariably they only display how messed up your registry is and want you to buy to full version to actually clean it. Andy - check out CCleaner as mentioned above. It's fully freeware and includes this functionality. |
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| Before using any tools that messes around with the registry make a backup. Another thing that can slow a computer down and can cause serious harm is "DUST!". My niece's laptop was slowing down so ran a few system tools to clean up Windows and as it was just out of warranty I striped it down and gave it a blast of Dust Off. When I put it all back together, it ran almost like new. Oh and just a wild stab in the dark I bet your girl friend sits in a chair while resting the machine on her lap. Not a good idea for a number of reasons. 1) Clothing fibres can break off (that's what belly button fluff mostly is) and can get into the machine. 2) Clothing can block the machine vents and lead to the machine over heating. 3) Many modern laptops can get hot and there has been some reports about causing male sterility and damage to skin. |
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| And regarding the overheating: modern processors will prevent themselves from getting damaged by reducing their operating speed in order to lower the temperature if the fan alone isn't good enough If you look in msinfo32.exe, does the speed in MHz match the advertised speed? (Note: speed at idle time may be lower thanks to speedstep saving power, but if the computer is busy it should run at the maximum speed) |
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| Hmm, I hadn't considered the possibility of the processor running at a slower speed because of heat issues. I'll have a look to see is the vents look blocked but I don't really want to start taking the thing apart if I can help it. If you look in msinfo32.exe, does the speed in MHz match the advertised speed? (Note: speed at idle time may be lower thanks to speedstep saving power, but if the computer is busy it should run at the maximum speed) Are you sure msinfo32 displays the processor's actual running speed, rather than just it's rated speed? |
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| Malwarebytes is pretty good. Gets lots of stuff my anti virus misses, that you would consider a virus. "Norton installation CD into the garden and burn it" S$@#t doesn't burn... |
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| There's a decent program called HWMonitor that will show you the temperatures of the individual laptop components and the basic version is free. Any temperatures above about 80°C at full load are cause for concern. But frankly if it's overheating that badly then you should surely be able to hear the fan screaming - they're usually pretty noisy at full speed. Unless one of the fans has failed that is. Last edited 2011 |
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| Are you sure msinfo32 displays the processor's actual running speed, rather than just it's rated speed? I believe it shows both. cpuz (free tool) is better, though -- it shows the running clock speed, and automatically updates it every second so you can see the speed change in real-time. (Most laptops automatically step down to a lower speed when idle, to safe power, but ramp back up when it needs to do work) |
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| P.S. any recommendations for malware removal etc? SpyBOT: Search & Destroy has a Tools section which features an interface for process management and startup, registry settings, etc. You could just use msconfig and others for this, but it gives an easy to use interface so... Last edited 2011 |
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| Thanks all. |
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