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25 Ways to Speed Up Your Computer
Eventually you will need to speed up your computer. Cleaning your hard drive of old unused programs, deleting files that aren’t necessary, transferring data to external sources — one way or another, you’ll have to find ways to speed up your PC. Here are 25 ideas for speeding up your computer harvested from all over the Internet.
- Upgrade your graphics card – An extensive review of the five most important factors to consider when selecting a new graphics card or considering upgrading your graphics card. In layman’s terms, updating this card can speed up your computer by increasing the speed at which your computer sends images to the monitor.
- Upgrade your RAM and How to Upgrade Your Ram – The first link is a very basic rundown on RAM upgrading from the usually reliable ehow.com. For more specific information on the topic of upgrading your computer’s RAM, the second link contains a video from pcworld.com — it also contains an annoying advertisement/song combo, so turn your speakers down a bit when you click.
- Upgrade your hard drive – A well researched, well put together, and highly readable explanation of the difficult task of upgrading your hard drive from dansdata.com. Seriously, if this doesn’t help get your new hard drive installed, you should probably consider investing in a nice shiny new word processor.
- Turn off images when surfing the Internet – A basic explanation of how to turn off images while surfing the Internet. This article explains the process in the browser Firefox, but the process is similar for most web browsers.
- Run good antivirus software – A breakdown of the “ten best antivirus programs” of 2009. Provides details on ten different antivirus systems, including their special features for gamers, help and support capability, ease of use, etc.
- Run good antispyware software – About.com’s Net For Beginners blog offers review of the “five best” anti spyware programs.Included are reviews of Spybot, Microsoft Windows Defender, and Navarre SpySweeper among others. Spyware can be a major cause of computer “slowdown” and nearly everyone is infected.
- Run a defrag program once a month – “Defragging” your computer simply means running a “defrag” program on your computer’s various drives. Defragging means gathering files in one place — your computer has, over time, “fragmented” lots of files in multiple places. This article describes the process in depth, and includes some good warnings about the defrag process.
- Upgrade to a higher speed ISP - This page reviews eight different versions of high speed ISP services and provides information on what it means to use high speed internet as well as why it will help speed up your machine.
- Delete temporary Internet files -From MVPS.org, an extensive article about speeding up the performance of your web browser, including images to help you delete your files right now (and keep them deleted!) This article covers the details of deleting files on Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8, but many other browsers use similar systems to delete temporary folders.
- Delete cookies, and How to Delete Cookies – The first link, from worldprivacyforum.org, teaches you about cookies, why they’re bad, and some ways to “just say no” to cookies. The second link is to a video teaching you how to delete “Flash cookies” which are becoming common and are more difficult to locate and delete.
- Keep your PC cool – A hot computer can seriously damage your machine, your data, and those precious photos of your niece. About.com’s PC Support blog provides eleven ways to keep your computer cool. You don’t have to build a microfridge for your tower like the geek down the hall in your college dorm, but there are some good reasons for chilling out your PC and easy ways to pull it off.
- Empty your recyle bin – Believe it or not, keeping those unwanted files in the “recycle bin” can drag down your computer’s speed. If you don’t need the files, get rid of them permanently using this advice from ComputerHope.com. The article also offers help recovering “deleted” files from the recycling bin and other issues related to the ubiquitous desktop trash can.
- Disable error reporting, and How to Disable Error Reporting in Windows XP – The guys at the NSTech blog offer a no nonsense example of how to disable error reporting in Windows XP. Also, I’ve provided a link to a more detailed article at LockerGnome.com, which describes the error reporting process and how to disable it for Windows Vista.
- Run your computer’s disk cleanup application – Five or six solid “speed up” or “clean up” your computer ideas in this post, including the suggestion to run your computer’s own cleanup capabilities. If you’re running most forms of Windows, you should be able to find a disc cleanup option under the General Properties tab. Don’t worry — the computer asks for your permission before removing files or data it finds “expendable”. This is a built in way to speed up your computer that you may not have considered.
- Speed up your mouse – It may sound bizarre, but making small changes in your mouse’s hover time can make your computer running Windows 7 feel faster, and speed up your desktop navigation. This blog post offers plenty of other less traditional methods of speeding up your computer as well, including running your computer with less detailed graphics. Remember that most tips for versions of OS other than your own can be adapted easily to your machine.
- Vacuum your Firefox, Speed up Internet Explorer 7 – No, it isn’t the title of a Frank Zappa album, it is an alternate way of “defragging” Firefox for better memory management. I’ve also tossed in a link that offers general speedup advice for users of IE 7. Wouldn’t want to be accused of playing favorites.
- Terminate memory resident programs – This is a simple way to speed up your startup and your computer’s running speed by putting a stop to unneccessary programs running “in the background”. There are several other easy speedup ideas in this blog post from myistop.com.
- 20 tips for running Windows 7 faster – This list is designed to teach new Windows 7 users how to use their favorite old model Windows speedup tricks on the new OS. That means all of these tips are available to you on any Windows system you run. Find out how to startup and sign in to Windows automatically, etc.
- Clean the computer’s registry – Many blog posts about speeding up your computer refer to “cleaning up the registry”. This blog post gives a simple explanation of that activity as well as other useful speedup tips like optimizing your hard disk.
- Use keyboard shortcuts – This huge list of keyboard shortcuts appears on a message board, but it is useful info if you’re looking to speed up your computing time. Not every method of speeding up your computer involves altering the hardware or installing or uninstalling a program — using your computer’s built in keyboard shortcuts makes using your computer much faster. Think of it like computing in the HOV lane.
- Turn off unneccessary Windows elements – Here’s a huge list of Windows settings that most users can safely change without fear of damaging their system or losing any memory. Many of these features are only necessary for specific types of computing and the average PC user doesn’t need to run them. Shut them down and see some increase in the speed of your computer.
- Start again from scratch, How to Install Windows XP from Scratch – This idea comes to us from digitaltrends.com — it describes how you can take all your important files and programs off your computer, clean the whole thing up, then rebuild your machine from scratch. The second link is from the very useful Lifehacker site explaining the same process in better detail.
- Find (and eliminate) duplicate files – Among the 50 downloadable tools from PCWorld (all of which are useful for speeding up your PC) is a free tool that finds and assists you in removing duplicate files.
- Download a good uninstaller – The uninstaller that comes with Windows simply doesn’t do a good enough job. Generally, traces of files are left in random places all over your machine, causing fragmentation and slowdown. Get ahold of something like Revo Uninstaller, as discussed in this article about speeding up slow PCs.
- Buy a new machine – Use this article to help you determine if it is time to invest in a new computer. Sometimes, all the quick fixes in the world just aren’t enough to speed up a machine that hasn’t had the general maintenance it needs.
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