One of the most common reasons for replacing computers (especially home computers) is that it "runs too slow". The funny thing about that is that most of the time the problem isn't a hardware problem, but a software problem, curable through a variety of methods that are almost all available to the home computer user.



First, many computers have way too many things running when they first start. Take a look at your startup folder and see if you have ten million programs running when you start the machine. Remove ones that you never use, and if you've used your machine for any real amount of time there should be quite a few there.

You can use utilities such as msconfig to locate and remove additional programs that run when your system first starts (And msconfig can help uncover adware, covered below).

Second, you may just be low on hard drive space. In addition to data storage, the hard drive is used to store data that is used in the current session of the computer running, but won't fit in memory. You should always have at least ten percent of your C drive available for windows to use. Any less and you're looking at a severe performance hit.

You can free up space by deleting your temporary internet files and other browsing history or, even better, just finding things that you don't need any more. You can use the control panel's add and remove programs panel to find and remove programs that you no long use (it even shows how much space they take up!)

Third, you should defragment your computer. Defragmenting the computer will allow windows to find things much faster which will result in a quicker computer. With a highly fragmented drive, your machine will slow down severely as it will have to search all over the place to find data.

You can find the windows defragmenter under start, programs, accessories, system tools. If you have more than one harddrive on your system, you should defragment all of them. Note that this will take some time and you shouldn't use the computer while it's running.

Finally, one of the biggest causes for computer slowdowns is adware. Adware, in addition to showing a bunch of useless advertisements, will slow the machine down by requiring resources to download new ads and all kinds of other things that don't benefit you. You absolutely need an anti-adware program to keep your machine running smoothly.

Anti-adware programs also check for other types of malware that can cause all kinds of problems for you. Included in the malware "family" would be things like password sniffers and credit card sniffers, programs that will detect when you enter credit card numbers and send them to people. Talk about a good way to get your identity stolen.

Check over these four things on your home computer and you'll be sure to squeeze out quite a bit of extra performance that you may have thought it never had. It's amazing how many old machines can be made to run like they're new just by cleaning them up.