There are many reasons your computer may run slowly: spyware, viruses, cpu or memory-hogging-applications, too many apps running, not enough RAM memory, too small of a pagefile, registry damage, fragmented harddrive. I would always investigate the easy stuff first then look into the complex. The Easy Stuff: Defrag your harddrive, keep a spyware-antivirus program handy and make sure its got the latest definitions, and patches. Also disable or remove programs from your computer that you don’t need, especially the ones that like to start automatically when windows boots up.
Alas, the problem that every pc owner eventually runs into; The butt dragging windows session. Oh you know what I’m talkin’ ’bout. The pc that takes 5 or more minutes just to boot up. The hour glass pointer that never goes away! I feel your pain. The good news is there is a solution! The bad new is the solution isn’t always quickly found. So where do you start?
Troubleshooting windows is and should always be a process like this: First determine when the problem first started (i.e. the computer worked fine until the day after Bobby used it to do his book report! OR Those annoying ads didn’t pop up ’til I installed that free game I like to play!). Second, are there any error messages? This can solve your problem right away as long as Windows is smart enough to know what is going wrong. Third, does the problem happen (At startup or shutdown, after a program is run or all the time)? Use the answer from these first questions to guide you through the remainder of your troubleshooting.
Always do a Full Virus and Spyware/adware scan to be sure there ain’t no intruders. I recommend using no less than two different versions of each. Just to be sure. If this comes up clean then proceed…
Keep in mind that screen savers, and having all the bells and whistles of windows running will slow down performance. So turn off the thumbnail view in folders, turn off the active desktop, turn off the indexing service (this my slowdown your file searching.)
I am a follower of the KISS philosophy. The ’70’s rock band is cool too but Keep It Simple Stupid is my motto. The simple thing to do is check for error messages. I will give generic descriptions to different windows versions, but specific or verbose instructions for navigating and clicking menus can always be found at www.microsoft.com;
click Start button
click run
type eventvwr.msc
click ok
This box you’re looking at is the Event Viewer. It tells you of any errors reported by windows related to applications and services. Information here can be sorta cryptic but generally if it has a yellow exclamation point or red X next to the descriptions it is potentially a problem. The trick here is to find persistent problems and not the ones that happened just once. Make note or save any errors noted for today, then delete these errors:
(from eventviewer left pane)
right click (the event log with error messages)
click clear log
click ALT-F4 on all open windows.
reboot pc.
At this point we are trying to see if windows is giving us a clue to the problem. We reopen Eventviewer and see if the errors continue. If we see the same errors than we should find out what these errors are attributed to. We do this by noting the four digit Event ID number shown in the errors description. Its beyond the scope of this tutorial to list every event number here but if you goto www.microsoft.com and type “event id 1012″ for example it will tell you what it means and how to troubleshoot.
Assuming that no pertinent errors were found I would now look to the startup programs!
Many installed applications or apps as I’ll call them hereon, like to start themselves up automatically when windows starts. Antivirus software normally does this as do many other less useful apps. Trouble is, often times these apps don’t give you an easy way to disable this behavior. Just imagine if you’ve got 15 or 20 apps starting as windows boots up! You’re likely to have a system slowdown. Here’s how to deal with that:
click start
click run
type msconfig
click ok
This window shows you, under various categories, what programs are configured to startup automatically. Here we will experiment. Notice there is options for Normal, Selective, Diagnostic startups, we will select Selective startup.
under the General Tab
click Selective startup
reboot pc
Now observe how fast your pc performs! If this helps then you need only identify which startup app is causing the slow down. This will require unchecking the boxes next to the apps listed under the Startup tab. be careful here because if you un-check an app that controls something critical (i.e. a hardware device) you may cause other problems and not see it right away or if you disable the mouse you will have trouble changing things back! This brings me to my next point.
If you find that app that’s slowing you down, decide if it really needs to be there at all. I swear people like to stockpile useless or seldom used apps on their pc. This only serves to take up valuable time and space later. If you don’t use it regularly, uninstall it! I recommend you use the windows Add/Remove Programs app in control panel:
click start
click run
type control panel
click ok
Here is the control panel. Click on add/remove programs or (Programs in Windows Vista).
Locate the troublesome app, click remove or uninstall. reboot your computer.
Now if after all this your poor pc ain’t getting no faster you should check your pagefile size. The pagefile is windows method of creating more ram memory for itself. Basically it moves some of the RAM memory info to the harddrive to make room. If your pagefile is too small windows will spend a lot of time moving info in and out of RAM to the pagefile on the harddrive - you’ll notice this as a slowing in performance. Generally your page file should be 1.5 times the amount of RAM installed.
click start
click control panel
click system
click performance tab
(slightly different with Vista: control panel, advanced sys settings, advanced tab)
click settings
click performance
Here you should see what your virtual memory is set to.
click change
You can now set it appropriately.
This may only help you if you don’t already have adequate RAM. Other things to consider at this point would be verifying your computer has enough RAM installed; W2K needs 128MB, WXP needs 256MB, and Vista needs 2GB (these numbers assure you that the OS will function WHILE running typical software at an acceptable performance less might work but you are guaranteed to be disappointed with performance. Now realize more memory is almost always better! Our last step would be to try a Registry cleaner!
What’s that you ask? Well the registry is the library of info for your pc. It’s where all the hardware settings and software configurations are stored. This puppy is vast in size! It’s possible to clean the registry by hand but that’s fairly time consuming and potentially disastrous! There are plenty freebies to be had that can do it in a snap, and the most important thing is most of these apps can change things back if a mistake is made: Eusing, or Registry Mechanic.
This tutorial covers the basics of troubleshooting a slow pc, and if these steps don’t
fix your problem you may need to call in some big guns - have hardware diagnostics run to eliminate motherboard, harddisk or RAM issues. Or lastly and sometimes for the best I recommend reinstalling Windows including a fresh partitioning. The nature of windows is to degrade over time and there isn’t much to be done about it; Harddrives can have minute failures that begin to reveal themselves after awhile, in the form of lost or corrupt data and Windows isn’t always smart enough to warn you before things go bad. Other than back up your work and just be prepared for these inevitable problems you just have to deal. Thats for another lesson kiddies. Now recess!