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Why is my computer so slow?

By: Ethan Hunter

There are several reasons why a PC starts to run slow. Background programs that are still running in your computer could make the execution of other programs slow down. This is due to the background programs taking up quite a large amount of your RAM. The icons in your system tray are some of the background programs that are taking up the memory. To have your PC run optimally, you need to take care of the background programs and set the minimum which you need to run. As you boot your computer, some of these programs start by themselves. To configure the programs or to stop them from running at the time of booting, you should use the Start/Search function and either remove or delete them from "program start up".

For your computer to function normally, it is always desirable that your hard drive has free space for your computer to use when executing tasks. If you do not have enough free space left in the hard drive, your computer may get slow. In order to be safe, you should allow 3 to 4 MB of free space available on your hard disk. Some computers have more than one drive installed. In this case, you need to have the space available in your "C" drive or any other drive in which you have installed your Windows operating system. In case you do not have any free space, or the space that you have in your drive is not enough, you should delete some of the programs.

At times, the updates of your Windows operating system or any other software may run automatically when you are browsing the Internet. This mostly happens at the background, rendering your computer to run slow for as long as the update is not completely downloaded. As soon as the computer finishes downloading, your computer should come back to normal speed. In order to avoid this, you would need to disable automatic updating.

Windows operating system requires the hard drive to be de-fragmented regularly. Fragmentation in the hard drive scatters the data in your computer. Your Windows operating system needs to look for the relevant data all over the disk making your computer slow down. Use Windows "de-frag" regularly to de-fragment your disk system and keep a contiguous data pattern in your hard drive. Contiguous data takes less time to find as they are well sequenced throughout the disk system.

If you are keen to play games on your computer, you might not have sufficient memory installed in your system. In this case your PC will run slow. You need to upgrade your RAM to an extent that makes your computer run normally even when you are playing games.

If you have two drivers of the same device installed in your computer your PC may become slow. For instance, if you have two video drivers in your PC it will be conflicting with your Windows operating system. The system will not be able to decide which driver to use in order to drive your video system, resulting in slowing down your computer. To put computer back in its normal operation, you need to remove one of the video drivers from your system. If you want to know which component in your hardware system is conflicting with Windows, open your control panel and then click on the "system". Click on the "hardware" tab to view the device manager. There you will find all your conflicting hardware components marked in yellow, and you would either need to re-load the drivers for these devices or remove them if you find them of no use.

As you are browsing the Internet, there are possibilities of viruses and spyware creeping into your system. Opening unknown attachments could also make your computer vulnerable. Virus and spyware will make your computer run slow. You must have the right ant-virus and anti-spyware software installed in your computer which can detect and remove known viruses and spyware programs. Spyware is malicious software which runs at the background, making your computer run slow. It is also responsible in passing personal information to the hacker when you are connected to the Internet.

Computers tend to get slow as the Windows registry becomes larger and larger. As you use your computer, installing and uninstalling software, executing tasks, etc., the registry of your computer develops errors. With your Windows operating system constantly looking for relevant data in the registry system, the errors cause conflicts. Also, Windows takes a longer time to find the required data from the registry as the registry starts to get larger, making windows take more time to scan the system. In this case your registry needs to be optimized by removing the errors in the system. You must use an appropriate registry cleaning software to put back your computer in shape.

Article Source: http://www.avidarticles.com

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