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Many times after using your PC, it gradually starts to slow down. However, your PC was not manufactured in such a way; this is rather due to many issues some of which are a direct result of how the user uses it.

In such cases, don’t be afraid to tweak your PC a little bit to give it a new lease of life. Starting from the most common and easiest ways to more complex and technical ways, we are going to share with you some of the ways that you can inject a new life into your PC to make it faster. Don’t let your nerves get the better of you when we say, ‘complex and technical’ you can still do it on your own, following our step by step guides of course.

Restart regularly

One of the most simple and effective strategy, but the often overlooked strategy is restarting your PC. Restarting a PC clears out its memory and ensures that any errant processes and services that started running to get shut down including those that run in the background. This strategy can fix many mysterious performance problems that may be hard to detect.

Run fewer programs at once

Many of us when we are working on our PC tend to open a lot of programs all at once. We often open a dozen browser pages all at once, a media player app, various word pages, and other programs. This will ultimately lead to bogged up memory. It is wise to open only the programs you want to use at that time only than having a whole host of programs and applications open. Too many running programs will lead your PC to bog down and eventually run low on memory.

Close Programs in the taskbar and notification area

There are any programs which run in the taskbar and notification area. They often launch at startup and continue to run in the background. These may include such applications as Skype that you may not use frequently which consume a lot of memory. To close them, click the up arrow icon near the taskbar and right-click the application you don’t need to run in the background, and close them to free up resources.

Get rid programs you never use

Many PCs come with inbuilt programs you might not want. These unwanted programs may come in the form of trial editions and limited-edition versions of programs meant for marketing purposes by software companies. Keeping these programs when you rarely or never use them slows your PC down by using precious memory, disk space, and processing power.

Often times, you can install your own software that you use for a limited space of time, be it trial editions you try for a month or so and decide not to upgrade at the end of the trial period or utility programs you download to help manage and tune your computer’s hardware and software. These utility tools once installed often run automatically at startup, thus quietly eating up valuable memory and space. Uninstall rarely used programs and make your PC run faster.

Limit the number of programs that run at startup

Some programs start automatically when the PC starts. These programs open in the background, where you can’t see them running. This is helpful for programs you frequently use, but not so for those you rarely or never use. For a comprehensive overview of all the programs that run automatically at startup, you have to utilize AutoRuns for Windows, a free tool that you can download from the Microsoft website which highlights all of the programs that run when you start Windows. To stop a program from running automatically, open AutoRuns for Windows, and clear the checkbox next to the name of the program you want to stop.

Clean up your hard disk

As you use your PC more and more, unnecessary files will start to build up on your hard disk from small things like broken shortcuts to file remnants from downloaded programs taking up disk space which ultimately slows down your computer. In this case, it is advisable to use low memory utility programs like CleanMyPC to remove temporary files, empty the Recycle Bin, and remove a variety of system files that are no longer used by the system.

Turn off animations and visual effects

Some of us prefer animations and some high visual effects. However, these tend to slow down the PC affecting its performance in the process, you can speed it up by disabling some of its visual effects. With visual effects, it is solely up to the user, do you prefer appearance to performance. For some who are fortunate to have a fast PC, you are covered, but if your PC is not fast enough, it is advisable to scale down on the visual bells and whistles.

To optimize your visual effects for best performance:

  1. Open Performance Information and Tools by clicking the Start button, and then clicking Control Panel. In the search box, type Performance Information and Tools, and then, in the list of results, click Performance Information and Tools.
  2. Click Adjust visual effects. If you’re prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
  3. Click the Visual Effects tab, click Adjust for best performance, and then click OK. (For a less drastic option, select let Windows choose what’s best for my computer.)

Utilize the Performance troubleshooter

One of the more common ways of automatically finding and fixing problems is through the use of the Performance troubleshooter. It checks issues that might slow down your PC’s performance. This can be the number of users who are currently logged on to the computer and whether multiple programs are running at the same time.

How to use the Performance troubleshooter? Start by clicking the Start button, and then click Control Panel. In the search box, type troubleshooter, and then click Troubleshooting. Under System and Security, click Check for performance issues.

Defragment your hard disk

For some who may have older versions of Windows like 7 and others before it, disk fragmentation is one way of opening up disk space and freeing up some much-needed memory for optimum performance. Disk Defragmentation ensures your hard disk works more efficiently by saving files that were in different locations in a single file. To defragment your hard disk,

“Choose Start→Control Panel→System and Security. The Administrative Tools window appears. Click Defragment Your Hard Drive. The Disk Defragmenter dialog box appears. Click the Analyze Disk button. When the analysis is complete, click the Defragment Disk button. Click Close and you are done.”

For those with later versions of Windows PCs, you need not worry about disk fragmentation as your PC is already configured to automatically defragment when the system detects a disk space shortage.

Get your PC run faster, try any one of these methods.