Disclaimer: Obviously this guide might not work for everyone, this guide is being
written to target those people that may not know a whole lot about keeping up with your computers performance.
So let's keep the flamming and ranting about "I already knew these things" down to a minimum if we can.
written to target those people that may not know a whole lot about keeping up with your computers performance.
So let's keep the flamming and ranting about "I already knew these things" down to a minimum if we can.
1. You know how your PC likes to randomly pop up a little message towards the bottom right-hand corner of your screen prompting you to restart windows to install the latest updates?
Well, this may be good for your PC in short term because most of these updates are meant to plug security holes or install new features to your system. The problem with this is Windows is kind enough to leave behind a big mess on your computer each time.
One of the biggest problems left behind are uninstall points, which some of you may know are just points bookmarked within your system that will allow you to "rollback" to a prior point in your systems life. Do not get this confused with Windows recovery as they are 2 different things.
The reason these Uninstall points are such a problem is that they are so huge. We are talking about Gigabytes of useless information just stacking up within your computers disk drive. Even if you do nothing, download nothing, your computer will slowly fill up with these points, making it slower and slower each time. Their are tons of free programs out there to choose from for cleaning useless uninstall points.
2. Fragmentation (Most commonly known as a defrag) This is one of those "I already know about this" parts of the guide, but if you know about it, and aren't doing it, you are causing your PC to suffer. Fragmentation is easily one of the biggest contributors to slow computer performance.
When your disk starts to become majorly fragmented it can literally take 10 times longer to read or write basic information from your disk. So make sure you are running weekly defrags on your PC to keep it running smooth. If you're not sure how to start a defrag refer to the picture below.
3. Internet Cache. Not going to try to get into detail on what this is, so here is an easy explanation. Your internet Cache is like a bank of useless shit your computer thinks it should save. For example, did you know Windows stores EVERY image you look at on your hard drive? This is a Cache problem. You can use CCleaner for easy cleanups of your Internet Cache.
4. Start up programs and services. We all know that we have certain programs that start up when we first restart our PC, and while those do tend to slow your computers performance, the real enemy here is Services. There are literally hundreds of services running on your computer at any given time. Most of them are essential to making your computer run properly, but you would be surprised by the amount that honestly have no use but still decided to hang out and take up space.
While I would love to suggest you go through your services to eliminate any unnecessary hoarders, I would rather suggest you look up guides elsewhere on doing this. I have never experienced any damage from messing with my services list, but if you mess with the wrong shit you could fuck your current Windows start up, forcing you to restart your computer to get everything running again.
So either go with trial and error here, or do a little more research to find the rights ones to mess with and the ones to leave alone.
5. Extensions/toolbars. Unless you REALLY need that toolbar hanging at the top of your screen, delete the damn thing. You wouldn't believe the amount of juice those useless little pixels take up. Now, extensions are something similar to toolbars and also services that we talked about earlier.
These little buggers like to hide inside your browsers and run anytime you are surfing the web. Most people install extensions to their browsers without even knowing they have done so!! That's because a lot of websites are slipping in little extra programs in their downloads. You could be installing a great new game from Pogo, but don't notice that you clicked the agree button to also download their amazing new toolbar!!
To find out if you have any extensions running refer to the pictures below.
For Chrome:
For Firefox:
If you are using IE (Internet Explorer) then ignore everything in this guide and download one of the browsers above, because that's what's wrong with your PC.
Well, thanks for reading everyone, I hope this guide helps at least one person considering all the typing this took
Enjoy!
