How to Fix a Slow Computer

How to Fix a Slow Computer

Keeping your computer working fast shouldn’t be complicated.

Here are some helpful tips you must follow:

1 – Restart your computer often – The most common way to fix and refresh your computer is by restarting it.

Putting your computer on sleep mode might be more time-efficient, but it doesn’t allow the computer’s system to refresh.

Make sure you click “shut down” or “restart” rather than just closing your laptop.

Allowing the computer to restart ensures that it’s cleaning and updating itself.

2 – Update Your computer regularly – System and App updates cover for new cybersecurity risks and provide more efficient technology to fix glitches that might make your computer slow.

Therefore, keeping everything on your computer updated will ensure it works well.

3 – Archive on an external storage media or delete old media – The more information your computer has, the slower it will become.

Simple.

If you have used 95% of the storage available on your computer, there will not be enough room left to help the computer work quickly. Therefore, archiving or deleting old data allows for you files to be saved elsewhere, and your computer doesn’t become saturated with information.

free consultation with a specialist from our team can help you a data backup plan that fits your needs and works best for you.

Call 858.859.9490 to get started.

4 – Use less tabs at a time – Having to many pages running at once will make your computer slow.

5 – Scan for viruses or malware – Viruses and malware are commonly the reason why a computer becomes slow. Having an efficient and automatic cybersecurity service in place ensures your computer is always scanned and that you save time by maintaining your computer working fast.

7 – Update your privacy settings – If proper privacy settings aren’t in place, your computer might be downloading data or junk from the internet without your permission.

8 – Maintenance – Give maintenance to your hard drive by deleting potentially unwanted files left by programs, along with cleaning your browsing history, cookies and emptying the recycling bin. This can be done manually or you can use utility programs that does it automatically for you.

9 – Defrag you hard drive – defragmentation is a process that reduces the level of the files and programs crumbling.

File fragmentation occurs frequently when the system doesn’t have enough space to store the complete file, so instead it puts parts of it in gaps between existing files. A computer runs faster when it does not have to search for all the pieces of the file and put them together to be able to work.

10 – Upgrade your standard hard drive with a Solid State Drive – If you want to boost the performance of your computer or even extend it’s life, you should upgrade your computer’s standard hard disk drive (HDD) with a Solid State Drive (SSD).

A SSD can significantly increase your computer’s speed in different ways.

To be specific, the SSD could deliver between 2,500 and 3,500 MB/s (millions of Bytes per second). The boot time with a SSD averages about 10 to 13 seconds, compared to 30 to 40 seconds (or more) for a standard hard drive. The SSDs use nonvolatile storage media that stores persistent data on solid-state flash memory, thus file copy/write speeds are faster.

Another speed improvement is in program starting or file opening. The time for starting a program like Word or Excel is typically 25-30% faster than an average hard drive. As for the file opening time, the SSD takes one third of the time as compared to HDD.

To summarize, an SSD is 20-30 times faster than an HHD.

Additional to the speed boost, the SSD offers several more benefits like:

  • Longer Life Expectancy: the SSD could last two to three time longer than the HDD
  • Quieter: the SSD has no moving parts, which means zero noise. The expression “hear the computer thinking” comes from the standard spinning hard drive.
  • Cooler: the SSDs dissipate less heat, which is favorable for electronics.
  • Consumes less power: the laptop’s battery life will improve with SSD as they consume less power compared to mechanical hard drives.
  • Smaller Footprint
  • Resistant to Voltage Fluctuations: SSDs have a built-in power failure circuitry to backup data in those kind of events.

We hope these tips help you improve the speed of your computer.

Many of these tasks are included in the monitoring and system maintenance service we provide, which keep computers running on their peak of their performance.

To learn more or install, call us to speak with a specialist!

How to Fix a Slow Computer