Wait a minute! Who stomped on the brakes? Your computer used to run through startup at the speed of light and would let you startup and open applications almost simultaneously. However, now it has started to struggle and crawls along at a snail’s pace! Things now take an exceptionally long time to complete, and you get errors or crashes with little to no warning. You know something is not right.
If things have become so terrible, you find yourself daydreaming of a new computer regularly, but the current snail-like system is not incredibly old, then there is some good news for you. You can get back to those quicker speeds and response times with a little TLC.
Within 12 months, you can expect computers to start slowing down. It is not typically broken parts that cause this or because they are faulty. It is most likely not even because you have dozens of web browser tabs open. There are several causes for slow computers, but the common ones are easily fixed.
Programs in the Background
Your computer will run programs in the background as soon as it is turned on. You do not start them, and some may not be crucial for it to operate, but they start regardless. You will not even know about some of them, let alone see them. They will not open in a window or anything else to make it visible on the surface.
One example of this behind-the-scenes program will be your antivirus. You will not need to see it all the time, but rest assured, it is most likely running in the background and protecting your computer. Over a period, more programs will slide into the background and run. These programs start eating up resources on your computer. Some of these programs might be Acrobat updater, iTunes, Cortana listening, Spotify, or Skype. You can speed up your computer by configuring these programs to run only when they are needed, or you can remove them entirely.
Bloat from Applications
So, how do software developers improve on last year’s program? They add more features, of course! These additional features create bloat within the applications, and many of the features may not be required if you even know about them. These additional features keep using more and more resources. Every time the software companies review the programs, they assume you have the latest computer and can run their newest release for the program.
This continued addition of new releases and features can mean your computer can bog down after an update of the program. You may not even know the update took place, as many are set to auto-update. All you know is that your system has just slowed down, and you are not happy at all. After a couple of months goes by, and these updates take place, you start noticing your system grinding to a halt. You can remove these unused applications and increase computer power as needed.
Hard Drives are Slow
The hard drive is the part on your computer that stores your data. Most types are mechanical and work like record players. They have platters that spin, like a record, and a ‘needle’ that reads it. If data becomes spread out over the surface of the platter, the ‘needle’ must search backward and forward several thousand times to retrieve a single file. Not surprisingly, this can take much time to open a file.
Data can be optimized to provide a breather for the computer’s hard drive. However, a better solution is a Solid-State Drive (SSD). SSD’s can store data in memory chips, much like a USB drive, and better yet, there are no moving parts to break or make noise. Since there is no physical need to move a needle across the hard drive, the computer can find and access the data a lot faster.
Once your computer starts running slower, no matter the reason, the problem will get worse the more time goes by. The background applications will continue to grow, the application bloat continues unabated, and the hard drive starts begging for relief. Instead of purchasing an entirely new computer, the current system can return to its glory days, and at a fraction of the cost of buying a new one.
Conclusion
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