Windows 7, 8, or 10: Quick Ways to Speed Up Your Slow PC

Windows 7, 8, or 10: Quick Ways to Speed Up Your Slow PC

If your PC gradually goes slower or it suddenly making a halt for few minutes then there could be few reasons for that slowness! As of all PC issues, just re-boot your computer if something is not working properly. This can fix a few problems and faster than attempting troubleshoot by manually to fix the problem yourself.

Clean Your PC: If you want to clean-up your PC, CleanMyPC is a best tool to get the job done easily and it can even keep your computer clean automatically. It also includes great tools like ‘uninstaller’ to get rid of Apps and to clean-up the junks with the click of a single button.

Check Your PC’s Resource – Hungry Programs: If your PC is running slow or suddenly going slower then assume that there’re something is using-up those resources where a runaway process might be using more of your CPU resources, like 99%. Or, an App might be experiencing a memory leak, which using a huge amount of memory, causing your PC to swap to disk. Alternately, an App might also be using the disk a lot that causing other Apps to slow down when they need to load data from or save it to disk.

You can find out these resources from Task Manager. Just right-click your taskbar and select the “Task Manager” option or press Ctrl+Shift+Escape to open it.

On Windows 8, 8.1, and 10, the new Task Manager provides an upgraded interface with color-codes applications using a lot of resources. Click the “CPU,” “Memory,” and “Disk” headers to sort the list by the applications using the most resources. If any application is using too much of resources, you can close it normally and if you can’t, select it and click “End Task” to force it to close.

Close System Tray Programs: Many Apps tend to run in the system tray, or notification area. These applications often launch at startup and stay running in the background but remain hidden behind the up-arrow icon at the bottom-right corner of your screen. Click the up-arrow icon near the system tray, right-click any applications you don’t need running in the background, and close them to free up resources.

Disable Startup Programs: It’s better to prevent those Apps from launching at startup to save memory and CPU cycles, as well as to speed up the login progress. On Windows 8, 8.1, and 10, there’s now a startup manager in the Task Manager you can use to manage your startup programs. Right-click the taskbar and select “Task Manager” or press Ctrl+Shift+Escape to launch it. Click over to the Startup tab and disable startup applications you don’t need. Windows will helpfully tell you which applications slow down your startup process the most.

Reduce Animations: Usually, Windows uses a few animations, and those animations can make your PC a bit slower. For example, Windows can minimize and maximize windows instantly if you disable the associated animations.

To disable animations, press Windows Key + X or right-click the Start button and select “System.” Click “Advanced System Settings” on the left and click the “Settings” button under Performance. Choose “Adjust for best performance” under Visual Effects to disable all the animations, or select “Custom” and disable the individual animations you don’t want to see. For example, uncheck “Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing” to disable minimize and maximize animations.

Lighten Web Browser: If you use your web browser a lot, then your browser may just be little slow – because of browser’s few extensions, or add-ons as possible to slow down your web browser’s experiences and cause it to use more memory. So, go into your web browser’s Extensions or Add-ons manager and remove add-ons that you don’t need. You should also consider enabling click-to-play plug-ins. Preventing Flash and other content from loading will prevent unimportant Flash content from using CPU time.

Scan for Malware and Adware: Some malicious software may also slowing down your system that running in the background. And it may not be a malware, but a software, which interfering into your web browsing to track it and add additional advertisements. So, for an extra safe, we recommend you to scan your computer with an antivirus program like Malware Bytes, which catches a lot of “Potentially Unwanted Programs” (PUP) that most antivirus programs tend to ignore. These programs try to sneak onto your computer when you install other software, and you almost certainly don’t want them.

     

Free-Up Disk Space: If the hard drive is almost full, then your computer may run slower. So, you want to leave your computer some space to work on your hard drive. You don’t need any third-party software — just run the Disk Cleanup tool included in Windows can help quite a bit.

To get the disk cleanup option: Right click Start button, choose Disk Management then choose Action > All Tasks > Properties > General > Disk Cleanup > OK.

    

Defragment Hard Disk: Defragmentation is not a major issue most of the time and it's not necessary for modern versions of Windows as the modern versions automatically defragment the hard drives in the background. Solid-state drives really need traditional defragmentation, although modern versions of Windows will “optimize” them — and that’s enough.

If you have a mechanical hard drive with lots of file, like huge files of  PC game, on it and those files have to be defragmented – because Windows doesn't defragmenting them. In this situation, it is better to open disk defragmenter tool and perform a scan.

To defragment hard disk Right click Start button, choose Disk Management then choose Action > All Tasks > Properties > General > Tools > Optimize.
  

Uninstall Programs You Don’t Use: It’s better to uninstall the programs that you don’t use, and those occupying plenty of room on your system. This helps to speed-up the PC, as those programs may include auto-start, background process, and some other critical things can slowing your PC. This will also save space on your hard drive and improve system’s security. Open Control Panel, find the list of installed programs then uninstall you don’t use. 

Reset the PC / Reinstall Windows: If the above said tips didn’t fix your Windows problem then a timeless solution is to re-boot your PC by getting a fresh Windows installation! Windows modern version, such as 8, 8.1 & 10, is easier to get a fresh Windows installation and you can simply use the feature “Reset your PC”, which is built-in Windows to get a new and fresh Windows system. This process is similar to re-installing Windows and will wipe the installed programs and system settings on your PC while keeping your files.

If the PC that you’re using, still, is a mechanical hard drive then upgrade it to a Solid-State-Drive (SSD) or make sure your next PC to be SSD, which will offer a dramatic performance of improvements as most people need faster CPU with graphic processors that offer single biggest boost to complete system.