Speed up your computer

You might notice your computer running a litter slower as the days go by.  After a year or so that speedy little computer might seem like a turtle.  Below are some things you can check to speed things up a little.

1 Viruses and Adware – Keep your virus scanner up to date.  Check regularly for viruses and adware 

2 Get enough memory.  Most new computers come with insufficient memory to start with.  You should be running a minimum of 512 meg to begin with.  Preferably 2-4 Gig  for Windows XP or Vista.  To check your memory right click on my computer and left click on properties.  It will show you how much physical memory you have.

3 Remove some programs from startup.  At the bottom of the screen by your clock are lots of little icons.  Each represents a program that opens with windows.  Some are good, almost all are useful, but few need to start with Windows.  Determine which ones DO NOT need to start with windows, right click them and go to their setup or properties tab.  Look for checkboxes that say something such as “start this program when Windows opens” or something like that.  Remove the check from the box.  You will want to keep your Antivirus program there, but if you don’t need others, get rid of them. 

This technique will not get rid of all unwanted background programs, but it is a start.  Talk to a technician about how to get rid of other programs that you don’t need in start up. 

4. Run Scandisk and defrag monthly.  Click on my computer, right click on the c: drive and click on properties, click on the tab that says tools.  You will see the options to run error checking and defragment the hard drive.  The error checking checks for bad files that could cause data corruption.  The Defrag program speeds your computer up by putting files and folders back together again in an order that is easy for the computer to find and access them.  Allow 1-2 hour for the defragmenting process if you have never done it before.