How to Speed Up your PC and Give New Life to it

So finally you bought a new PC and its blazing fast as tons of documents, files and games load so smoothly and most importantly it always gets the job done. But what happened after years of using, all of sudden it begins to slow down drastically. 

So Hi friends, i am here to show you how to speed up your PC and make it just like new. This is for people out there who have Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7, as windows 8 and above are designed to boot faster. Have you ever felt that your PC takes so much time to boot and load programs. Windows XP and above versions automatically allocates resources according to its settings and manages devices accordingly. When your computer is running low and RAM and more is needed immediately, Windows uses your hard drive space to simulate RAM. This is known as virtual memory or paging file. 

Though you have enough RAM, this feature is useful. Most of you will think why your PC is dead slow if window’s already has this feature. There are plenty of things that can cause slowdowns on your PC but the most important is installing obsolete software’s and drivers.

Obsolete software’s and viruses are the most common cause of slowdowns as it can causes registry errors, system stability problems, file fragmentation, make your computer take longer time to boot up etc.SO in this post i am giving you a  step by step tutorial to speed up your pc and bring new life to it :)

Note: You may need an internet connection to download utilities and software’s.

STEP 1: Remove Junk files and fix Registry errors.

Junk Files can reduce your HDD free space, which would otherwise have been used for something useful. The most common junk files are from your browsers i.e., browser history, temporary files, cookies etc. So to remove these files download Ccleaner software form here. Install it click on "Analyze" button. Wait till it scans your system for junk files. Click "Run” cleaner" button.

Ccleaner from Piriform

Registry errors can also slow down your pc, so go to “Registry" tab and click on "scan for errors" button.You can also use Ccleaner to remove program startup entries, uninstall apps etc. 

     

Registry scanning..

 

STEP 2: Check your hard drive for errors.

Go to My computer and right click on the drive you want to scan for errors and click properties. Go to tools tab and under Check Disk section, click on "Check Now" button. A new window will open, tick both boxes and click start. You may be asked whether to schedule your scan on next boot. Click yes and restart your PC manually. Wait till it scans your drive for errors and fixes it. Your PC will restart automatically when scan is complete.

Click on Check Now button.

STEP 3: Check your PC for viruses.

Viruses can drastically reduce your computers performance. So to avoid this, Install an antivirus program on your PC and update your virus definitions. Then fully scan your PC for threats. We strongly recommend that you help protect your computer from viruses by installing and using an antivirus program. The Internet is full of fun places and vast amounts of information, but also some dangers. Your computer can be damaged by a computer virus sent through e-mail or through a program downloaded from the Web. If you do not use antivirus software, you run the risk of passing viruses along to other computers as well. If you administer a network without virus protection software, all of the computers on your network might be vulnerable.

Download Kaspersky Internet Security Trial from here.

Download AVG Antivirus from here.

Download Esset Nod32 antivirus from here.

STEP 4: Defragment your Hard Drive.

Hard drive fragments cause low drive access speed and in turn increase the time your pc takes to boot up. It can also affect your gaming, cd writing tasks etc. So to defragment your hard drive Go to control panel and double click on Administrative Tools and open Computer Management. Click on disk defragmenter on the left pane. Select your desired drive and click on analyze button. Finally click on defragment button if there are any fragments. Always defragment your hard drive once in week and before writing files to a CD to prevent buffer under-run error. 

STEP 5 (optional): Install an all-in-one PC optimization kit like Auslogics Boost Speed, Advanced System Care PRO etc.

STEP 6: Speed up your browsing speed and enjoy the internet to its maximum extend.

Although this step is irrelevant to this post, i know many of you techs use your PC mainly to access the internet. A faster PC can get you everything done faster; it can also speed up your browsing experience. Many of us call our ISP and complain that we are not getting enough internet speed. But what we actually don’t know is that even though they provide you with 1 Mbps connection speed, the secret lies with your PC .The faster your PC is , the faster it can load webpages and download files i.e., make use of that speed . 

So if you’re stuck with that default Internet Explorer from Microsoft. Why not try Google Chrome from the search engine giant GOOGLE or Mozilla Firefox Browser. Trust me it will change your whole outlook on browsing. You can also try changing your bandwidth settings in Windows Registry to improve your speed although I’m not covering that in this post. You can check your actual connection speed from here.

Download Google Chrome from here.

Download Mozilla Firefox from here.

STEP 7: Download latest drivers for your PC.

Installing obsolete drivers can cause startup problem and can even make your system unusable, so i recommend you to Download Driver Robot software from here. It will scan your PC and installs the latest drivers automatically without you having to download it manually. You can also download drivers manually from websites like PC-driver.com, driver-downloads.com etc. If you’re gamer by heart then probably the first thing you need to do to make your gaming experience awesome is to update video and audio drivers to the latest version. 

STEP 8: Clear your prefetch data.

Clearing prefetch data deletes all your corrupt prefetch data (if any) and writes new files. It can also free up hard drive space. Many people say that clearing prefetch makes your PC slower. But it’s not true, I personally tried it , it only  makes the first boot after clearing prefetch a bit slower (it takes time to write new files).After that your PC will boot more faster. So to clear prefetch, click on start menu. Then click on run. Type "prefetch" in the run dialog. Press OK. Delete all files in prefetch folder and you’re done.

STEP 9: Increase your PC memory or RAM.

In today’s world a PC should have a minimum of at least 2 GB of RAM to keep pace with the modern software’s and games. RAM is your physical memory in which your PC stores its data for easy access. So the more RAM you have, the faster your PC is. When buying your RAM, make sure you buy the correct type of RAM for your PC. Older PC usually supports DDR. Check your PC documentation or go to manufacturers website to find out which type of RAM your PC supports. 

STEP 10: Check whether your PC is heating up.

Make sure you have sufficient ventilation in your room. Also check whether all fans in your pc are running smoothly and whether it is making too much noise. You can check the fan speeds and temperature by installing Speccy from here or if you are an advanced user install SpeedFan from here. If temperature is above 75°c during normal use you should consider replacing your fan at that part. Overheating can also reduce your PC’s performance as the CPU or other parts tent to lower their processing power to reduce heat and to protect it. This method is called thermal control mechanism. If you overclocked your PC, make sure you’re not setting the values that your board can’t handle. Play with the settings and find out what’s the best setting which is a balance between performance and temperature. Since heating is cost one has to pay for overheating, I recommend using water cooling system to reduce your pc temp. 

NOTE: If you are not sure whether this software’s will install on your PC, here are the system                    requirements:

RAM: 512 MB (minimum)

HDD: 1 GB free space.

OS: Windows XP SP3 and above versions.

PS: If your pc is too old, try disabling all visual effects or why not buy a new PC at the best price from online and use the old as a custom Server. But how-to? Well, stay tuned and i will upload the post soon :))

Hope this post helped to make your PC faster, if you have any suggestions please post your comment. If you liked my post, why not pause a moment to say thanks :)

ALSO READ : PREVENT YOUR ISP FROM CAPPING YOUR INTERNET SPEED