Speed-up your computer

(Informative)

I am not a computer technical person, but have computer’s basic function understanding. Following are my tested steps gathered from web world to improve computer performance, you may also try;

1)     Check your hard disk space. As a rule, always keep at least 15% of the hard disk space free to keep the computer running smoothly. Remove unnecessary files from your hard disk.

2)     Install an anti-virus program. The fewer bugs and viruses your computer has to manage, the more time it will have to devote to other processes. Always have a good, licensed, updated anti-virus on your computer. Run full scan once in a week. You can schedule anti-virus for the task.

3)     Run a Disk Cleanup tool. While working, computer saves many temporary files in various folders. Disk Cleanup tool can clean up hundreds of megabytes of temporary files. The Disk Cleanup tool helps you to free up space on your hard disk to improve the performance of your computer.

Go to My Computer, right-click the Hard Drive and select Properties, and then click Disc Cleanup (within the General tab).  

Or

Go to Start> All Programs> Accessories> System Tool and then click Disc Cleanup

Check all the boxes except for the game files and setup files.

Use Disk Cleanup to:

·         Remove temporary Internet files.

·         Delete downloaded program files, such as Microsoft ActiveX controls and Java applets.

·         Empty the Recycle Bin.

·         Remove Windows temporary files, such as error reports.

·         Delete optional Windows components that you don't use

4)     Clear your Prefetch folder. Windows saves a file of the program you are using to make it start up faster. After years of use, this folder gets stuffed with irrelevant programs.

a.       Open Notepad and type:

del C:\Windows\Prefetch\*.* /Q

Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks

(Copy and paste this text to ensure you don’t make any mistakes.) 

b.      Save as faster.bat (the .bat extension will run it as a batch file).

c.       Run it! Simply double-click the file to initialize. In a few moments, the command prompt will disappear and your programs should run more smoothly.

5)     Check for any disk errors. These will also slow down your computer. You can help solve some computer problems and improve the performance of your computer by making sure that your hard disk has no errors.

Go to My Computer, right-click the Hard Drive and select Properties, then go to the Tools tab and click Check Now under the Error-Checking area. When the dialogue box opens, check both boxes (Automatically fix file system errors, Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors).

If you get a window saying that Windows can't check the disk while it's in use, click on Schedule Disk Check and then OK. It will run on your next reboot.

6)     Disk Defragmentation.  Over the period, saving and deletion of files on computer makes hard disk fragmented i.e. files are scattered over the disk. It slows disk access and degrades the overall performance of disk operations

Disk Defragmenter consolidates fragmented files and folders on your computer's hard disk, so that each occupies a single, contiguous space on the volume. As a result, your system can gain access to your files and folders and save new ones more efficiently. By consolidating your files and folders, Disk Defragmenter also consolidates the volume's free space, making it less likely that new files will be fragmented.

Go to My Computer, right-click the Hard Drive and select Properties, then go to the Tools tab and click Defragment Now.

Or

Go to Start> All Programs> Accessories> System Tool and then click Disk Defragmenter select drive and click Defragment

7)     Adjust visual effects. Windows allocates resources according to its settings and manages devices accordingly. You can adjust the settings for your computer’s visual effects. There is inverse relation between best performance & best appearance on your computer. If you are little concerned about the appearance then you can speed up computer by changing visual settings

Right-click on My Computer and select Properties, then go to the Advanced tab and click Settings under the Performance area. When the Performance Option box opens, check Adjust for best performance under Visual effects Tab then click Ok.

Following additional step may be taken if you have basic computer programs knowledge otherwise skip.

8)     Remove any programs you do not use. Go to Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs (or Uninstall a Program, depending on your operating system) to find a master list of programs installed on your computer. Some things will immediately strike you as useless, in which case you can remove them right away.  When in doubt, don't remove anything you don’t recognize; it may be critical to the function of your computer – and if you delete twelve different things only to discover that your computer no longer works properly, it will be very difficult to determine where exactly you went wrong.

Note:

Before doing this, backup all your work.

Ensure there is continuous power supply. If a computer turns off while doing this, it will create more problems than not.

I am sure this will help speed-up your computer. If you have done all the above steps and your computer does not become more responsive, you might consider reinstalling the operating system and programs.

Happy computing

Mohit