This, in turn, can affect the speed at which your computer performs. Dust off your computer occasionally to clear its air vents. Also, once in a while have an IT professional clean inside of your PC. Your computer uses drivers to communicate with hardware devices connected to it.
If you are using outdated drivers, then the communication will most likely be faulty and take your computer longer than it should to have the connected hardware devices working properly. Browse the internet for the most recent drivers compatible with your computer hardware, download and install them or install driver updating software to locate and install the drivers for you.
If your computer has been in use for more than 5 years, then running slow is more of a natural progression rather than a problem. At some point, due to the frequent releases of updates for programs, your computer will fail to meet the minimum requirements for certain updates leaving you to work with old and outdated programs. You only have several options.
If none of the above issues are the reason behind your computer running slow, then hardware failure could be imminent hence causing a slow down on your machine. At Vintage IT services, we understand how frustrating the speed slump down must be to your productivity and business efficiency.
As a leading provider of managed IT services, we can help take the burden away by troubleshooting, installing, and supporting your PC, so that you can focus on your core competencies. Would you love to learn more about how we can help you manage your IT resources? Contact us today and let us do the legwork for you. Skip to content. Need To Restart When is the last time you restarted your computer? The solution: Close all your programs and files, then restart your computer. How many tabs are active on your browser?
The solution: Only open the tabs you need to use at that moment on your browser. The solution: Start by first knowing the amount of free space on your hard drive. For windows: click on My Computer then right-click local disk C and go to properties.
For Mac: click on the Apple then select About this Mac. Empty your trash bin. Unnecessary Software Updates Software updates are vital to keeping your installed applications running smoothly and secure. The solution: Find a proactive maintenance solution suitable for your computer. Too Many Apps Open Automatically When PC Starts Almost every program you download on your computer will come with a prompt requesting for permission to run when your PC starts, known as startup programs.
The solution: Always be keen when downloading new programs and ensure to uncheck the box giving it permission to run when your PC starts if it is not necessary. Go to your Start Up tab, right-click on the program you want to remove then select disable. For Mac: go to either Login Items or Applications then uncheck the unnecessary programs. Viruses Or In-Effective Anti Virus If everything else in your computer is in order, then you should consider the presence of a virus or an in-effective antivirus that fails to detect and prevent viruses from attacking your computer as the reason behind your computer running slow.
The solution: Download a verified and recognized antivirus program as your cybersecurity tool. If you have photos, music, or other files that you want to keep but don't use often, consider saving them to removable media, like a USB drive. You'll still be able to use them when the drive is connected, but they won't take up space on your PC. Select File Explorer from the taskbar and find the files you want to move. Select your removable media from the location list, then select Move.
Get more info about freeing drive space in Windows. Windows 11 includes many visual effects, such as animations and shadow effects.
These look great, but they can also use additional system resources and can slow down your PC. Select Search , type performance , then select Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows in the list of results. Your PC settings let you choose where files will be saved by default. You can save files on your PC or to OneDrive by default and sync files between the two locations.
This lets you get to your files from any device that can connect to the internet, and it helps make sure your files are backed up in case your PC is ever damaged or lost. You can pause OneDrive syncing temporarily and see if it helps improve your PC performance. You can also visit Fix OneDrive sync problems to check for any sync issues.
When you turn on your PC, some programs start automatically and run in the background. Many programs are designed to start automatically when Windows does. Sometimes you can determine which programs start automatically by looking at the program icons in the notification area on the far right of the taskbar.
To try to find out the name of the program, point to the icon with your mouse pointer. Even after you check the notification area, you might still miss some programs that run automatically at startup. To stop a program from starting automatically.
Open Startup Apps settings. In the Startup Apps area, find the program you want to stop from starting automatically and set it to Off.
Note: If you turn off a program and it continues to start automatically when Windows starts, you should scan for viruses and malware. See the next section for more info. A virus, malware, or malicious software could cause your PC to run slowly. Other symptoms include unexpected pop-up messages, programs that unexpectedly start automatically, or the sound of your hard disk constantly working.
The best way to handle viruses and malicious software is to try to prevent them by running antimalware and antivirus software and keeping it up to date. However, even if you take precautions, your PC can still become infected. For more info, see How to protect your Windows PC. If they are, choose the one you want to run, and then disable or uninstall any others. If you have another antivirus program installed and turned on, Windows Security will be turned off by default.
To scan for viruses using Windows Security. Open Windows Security settings. On the Protection updates screen, select Check for updates to make sure you have the most recent updates. Wait for Windows Security to finish scanning for viruses and malware.
Run the recommended advanced scan. This scan takes longer but searches more extensively for threats on your PC. If no viruses are found, restart your PC and try to reproduce the performance problem you were having with your PC. To scan for malware and viruses with Microsoft Defender Offline. The scan might take 15 minutes or so, and your PC will restart again after that.
Restoring your PC undoes recent changes that might be causing problems. If you think a recently installed app, driver, or update for Windows could be causing problems, you might get things running normally again by restoring your PC to an earlier point, called a restore point.
Select Search on the taskbar, type advanced system , then select View advanced system settings from the list of results. On the System Protection tab, select System Restore. Select Recommended restore to go with the most recent restore point Windows has made automatically, or Choose a different restore point to select one yourself, then select Next. If you chose to select a different restore point, select one, then select Next.
Either way, select Finish to begin restoring. In the search box on the taskbar, type create a restore point , then select Create a restore point from the list of results.
On the System Protection tab, select Configure. One of the best ways to get the most out of your PC is to make sure you have the latest version of Windows 10 installed. Sometimes apps that were made for an earlier version of Windows will still run on Windows 10, but they might slow down your PC.
In the search box on the taskbar, type troubleshoot , then select Troubleshoot settings , which has System settings listed underneath it. Select File Explorer from the taskbar. In the search box on the taskbar, type advanced system , and then select View advanced system settings , which has Control panel listed underneath it.
In the Temporary Files area, select Delete temporary files that my apps aren't using. Select which files you want Storage Sense to delete your choices are files in your Recycle Bin and in your Downloads folder , then select the corresponding time intervals.
Windows will take a few moment to clean up your files, and then you'll see a message indicating how much disk space has been freed up. In the search box on the taskbar, type disk cleanup , then select Disk Cleanup from the list of results.
To see what programs are running in the background and how much memory and CPU they are using, open Task Manager. If you are running Windows 7 or higher, run Resmon to get a better understanding of how your computer resources are used. If you have an antivirus scanner on the computer, spyware protection program, or another security utility, make sure it's not scanning your computer in the background.
If a scan is in progress, it decreases the overall performance of your computer. If this is the case, allow the scan to complete, and the computer's performance should improve. As a computer runs programs, temporary files are stored on the hard drive. Deleting these temp files help improve computer performance. First, we suggest using the Windows Disk Cleanup utility to delete temporary files and other files no longer needed on the computer.
Unfortunately, the Disk Cleanup may not delete every file in the temp directory. Therefore, we also suggest deleting temporary files manually. Verify that there is at least MB of free hard drive space. This available space allows the computer to have room for the swap file to increase in size and give room for temporary files. On a Windows computer, run ScanDisk , chkdsk , or something equivalent to verify there is nothing physically wrong with the computer's hard drive.
On a macOS computer, access the Disk Utility program, and use the First Aid option to check the hard drive for errors. To open Disk Utility:. Run Defrag to help ensure that data is arranged in the best possible order. If your computer is infected with one or more viruses , it may run more slowly. If your computer doesn't have an antivirus program installed, run Trend Micro's free Housecall online utility to scan and remove viruses on your computer.
We also recommend you install an antivirus program for active protection against viruses. Today, spyware and other malware is a big cause of many computer problems, including slower performance. Even if an antivirus scanner is installed on the computer, we recommend running a malware scan as well. Use the free version of Malwarebytes to scan your computer for malware. Verify that the Device Manager has no conflicts. If any exist, resolve these issues as they could be causing your problem.
To update a computer running Microsoft Windows, run Windows Update. To update a macOS computer, run Software Update.
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