Some things I have found out about what makes your computer slow down. The obvious culprit is spyware. Good antivirus and protection software is defiantly the way to go to stop this and keep the spyware off of your computer but there are other things to consider also.

For example when your computer starts up it loads necessary components to operate the computer. Some of these are not necessary for your computer to work or may be extra things leftover. A prime example for me is software that I have changed around on my computer.

A most recent example was I had printer software and drivers on the computer that I did not have the printer for anymore. You can check your start menu options from windows control panel. And also go into add remove programs remove things like your printer software that you may not be using anymore.

Another issue I have seen is a thing called your computer’s registry it’s like a list of how your computer runs all the programs when something is uninstalled it will stay in the registry files I use a free software that does registry repair it is called some antivirus and utilities programs have a registry fixer or cleaner that will help the computer also.

These are some things I have noticed from experience that may cause a computer to slow down sometimes though it is just time to upgrade your computer’s memory or ram. It is depending on your computers model replacing and getting more memory can help improve your performance for a very reasonable price if you are not ready yet to get a new computer.

I find that the software that you use on the computer improves or upgrades constantly putting more demand on your computer’s resources like the memory and over time the computer will get slower. I hope this advice helps some.

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 I will answer this question for Windows users. For those who don’t have windows I give the advice to do the similar things but in any case you have to look how this is done on Linux or MacOs (or whatever).

There are two main cases of slowness: The pc itself is slow or the internet connection is slow. The best thing to find out, if your pc itself is slow, you should download a benchmark test program. You can find many of them on a common search engine (e.g. google or yahoo).

Just type in the search terms benchmark test download and you will find a lot tools and description how you can test if the benchmark output is correllant to you machine. But in most cases it is not your computer that is not fast enough, but the internet connection.

To check this, try the following points. It could be, that your neighbours are surfing together with you, but you don’t know it. Things like that happen, if you have a wireless connection between your router and your computer. To be sure, that this can’t happen anymore, login into your router (he has normally an IP-Adress by itself) and make your internet connection keyword safe.

Best thing to choose is RSA at the moment. To set that, you normally have to directly connect a cable to your router. The next thing is to check all the tasks running in the near of the clock. There are many things, that need to “call at home” permanently. So ask yourself: Do I know this program? Do I need this program?

Another important thing is the system update of windows. If you like to make your computer only in the standby mode, the system can get more and more unsecure. So always drive your system down or manually check, if all updates are always installed.

Very important is a virus checker that is always updated. Antivir is not the best one, but its for free and its better than nothing. Another point are all the places windows has to start programs automatically. Get from sysinternals the autostart checker and put everything away there what you don’t know.

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While it is often difficult to determine the precise cause of your sluggish PC, there are several likely culprits. Over time, the files and folders on your hard disk drive(s) may become fragmented. You should periodically ‘defragment’ your hard disk drives(s) by using a utility program for that purpose. For example, if you are using Windows, the Disk Defragmenter can be found in Accessories, System Tools.

 However, there are many other commercial and open-source utilities with additional features that will keep your file system up to speed. The Windows registry can become fragmented, thereby slowing down your computer. Again, a good utility program can be purchased or downloaded (either as freeware or shareware) to take care of this problem.

Did you know that your system’s memory can become fragmented? There are several specialized programs that will ‘defrag’ your RAM. If your computer seems sluggish, you probably have accumulated a great number of temporary files that can be deleted, in the case of Windows, by using the Disk Cleanup utility in Accessories, System Tools.

It’s also important to empty the Windows Recycle Bin periodically. Viruses and other malware, including rootkits, can bring your PC to its knees (or to a screeching halt). It is very important that you protect your system with a good anti-virus program as well as with firewall software.

Ironically, anti-virus and firewall software may slow down your system somewhat, because of their features for updating virus signatures and blocking malicious Internet traffic. Yet these and other tools for optimizing your PC will prove to be invaluable.