When we first buy our computer it seems to work quickly and efficiently and it puts your old computer to shame when it comes to how fast it operates.
Unfortunately, over a period of time as we use our computers they start getting slower and slower till everything that we try to do is at a snail’s pace. As your computer starts to get slower and slower it leads to you searching the internet trying to find how to make your computer faster and how to speed up your computer.
Sooner or later your computer may well begin to operate so slowly that you need to contact a computer specialist to try and fix the problem and speed your computer up.
As always we have produced a list of a few simple things that you can try that may well speed your computer up. All of these simple ideas are free and use the various free tools that come with Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows XP Service Pack 3.
Check Your Computer for and Remove Spyware.
Everyone reading this has probably heard of spyware but I’m sure there are at least a few of you who are all that sure exactly what spyware is and how it causes your computer problems.
Spyware are tiny programs that are installed on your computer (usually from the internet) without your knowledge and without your permission. Once installed on your computer spyware secretly monitors and records everything that you do and will most likely allow some undesirable to access your computer and snoop on your personal and confidential information. This is obviously a major concern and can lead to things such as identity theft and financial fraud to name but a few.
To find and remove spyware from your computer you can use PC Safety Scan from Windows Live OneCare. One care is a free utility that will scan your computer and check it for various viruses and spyware.
You can also use Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool. This utility is once again free and can be used to scan your computer for various forms of malicious software and will help you remove such items from your computer.
Free up Hard Drive Space.
As time goes by we tend fill up our hard disk with more and more data. Our hard drives not only get filled up with documents, video and music files they get filled up with various temporary files and various software packages that we install.
A tool which is named Disk Clean up Tools will help you free up space on your hard drive.
This utility will scan all of the files on your computer and inform you which ones are safe to delete and which ones are still required for your computer to run.
You will also be able to delete downloaded programs such as Active X and any Java applets and emptying the recycle bin also can dramatically free up hard disk space.
Disk Clean up Tools will also help you to remover temporary Windows files such as error reports.
When freeing up space on your hard drive you may choose to remove various optional Windows utilities that you do not use.
Speed up Your Computer’s Ability to Access Data.
As we go about using our PC computers a process known as fragmentation happens and this slows down the speed of your computer. Basically the various software packages on your computer are made up of several files and when fragmentation happens these files can get spread all over your hard drive which can make it difficult for your computer to locate the files that it needs. As a result your computer has to scan your entire hard drive to find the file and this takes time hence one of the reasons why your computer may be slowing down.
If you use a utility which comes with Windows named, defragmenter, then it will consolidate all of the fragmented files on your hard drive. In simple terms that means the defragmenter will gather all of the files together so they are easily found and this will save time when your computer needs to use them.
Detect Bad Sectors on Your Hard Disk and Repair Them.
By using a Windows program named, Error Checking Utility you can scan your hard drive for bad sectors and also check the integrity of the files on your hard drive. This utility also allows you to repair bad sectors on your hard drive.
Bad sectors will appear on most hard drives as we use it from day to day. Bad sectors on your hard disk make it difficult for data to be written and in some cases it can make it impossible to write data to that section of your hard drive.
If you use your computer on a daily basis then you should scan your hard disc for bad sectors at least once a week.
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