Having trouble with your PC just not being as fast as it used to be? Personally, I reinstall the whole OS every 6-12 months, but I have a few friends who are a little daunted by that task, so Ive suggested a few things that might help clean up their computer. It’s a fairly regular question too, so for anyone stumbling upon this, here are a few good, cheap/free applications that should make your system run better without any (or little) out-of-pocket expense.
Also, I have tried many other applications, some of which have not helped, and others which have made things worse. These tend to be reliable and do what they say. BUT, of course make your your system is backed up to a memory stick, hard drive, or burnt DVD, before running these sorts of applications just in case the unforeseen happens. When was the last time you backed up your PC? (Now that I think about it, its been a few months for me…)
First things first, head into the Control Panel, and uninstall any programs you don’t use anymore… after that, try these to finish off the cleanup process:
- Registry cleaner (Free): http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
- All round cleanup / performance tool (15 day trial, but that should be enough to clean up your pc. $50 US for the unrestricted version): http://www.tune-up.com/products/tuneup-utilities/
- Stop unnecessary programs starting up (Free): http://www.malwarebytes.org/startuplite.php
- Then, once you have cleaned up the PC using the software above, defragment your hard drive. Personally, Ive found this free program quite good. If you do install this, run the full “defragment and optimise” on all your drives the first time, and after that the software recommends weekly, but monthly will be enough for most home or small office users: http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/download/
With all of that, the machine should be a little snappier. After that, you could always overclock it! Once your PC is out of warranty (as overclocking can void warranties) then its a relatively easy way of getting 10-20% more power with very little, or no cost. Think of it like boosting the performance of the engine in your car…
Oh, one last word of advice, if you want to know more about how to do things Ive mentioned then just type it in to Google. Don’t forget, Google is Your Friend!
