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Five tips for speeding up a slow PC

I would just add two more steps, to a great list so far.

6? Check whats running at start-up. You can use the built in Microsoft configuration utility (Start->Run-> msconfig), or a third party tool, like ccleaner already mentioned. Get rid of those things that run automatically that you don't need, such as quicktime, adobe acrobat, instant messengers. They don't have to run at startup, since you only need them running when you are actually using them.

7? Restart the computer. So often, when I get these calls for a slow machine, the user hasn't restarted in 3-4 weeks. Not restarting regularly can leave old processes hanging in memory, using up resources, thereby slowing your system. A restart will clear all of that out.

Just my 2 cents.

Jason

While specific to the browsing experience of old computers, this does wonders. Run something like noscript that lets you selectively white list what domains can execute scripts in your browser. You'll find an incredible speed bump, it's amazing how much flash advertisements and poorly written js slow down and older computer.

How do you do this?

At our agency, we turn the PC's off at night. There's no sense in letting it run for 15 or so hours when there's no one in the building. I know about the old concept that that it's easier on the drive to let it run than to turn it off often, but today's drive are a lot hardier, and turning it on one a dy is not unreasonable.

If you turn your computer off every night, when does it do maintenance? Oh yeah... "Hey user... this computer is going to run slow for you most of the time because it is doing all of our domain administration tasks during the day while you are trying to work. Sorry about that, but you just keep shutting it down at night because it is not saving you any electricity but it's just better".

There's no real need to post like this. For a far less antagonistic way of making your point, try this, instead:

"I like the idea of running maintenance scripts overnight, which lessens the impact on users during their workday. Turning off computers every night can impede that."

However, I have a rebuttal: it's possible to use a Wake on LAN trigger, so the maintenance scripts will still be completed overnight. (My own company uses this, waking computers at 4 am to run maintenance scripts, so that they're ready to go by the time users start arriving at 6, and minimizing the time computers idly chew through the electric bill.)

Granted, for various reasons, not all computers respond correctly to that trigger, but still, for many companies, the electricity savings found by turning off several hundred (or even tens of) computers every night can be a big boost to their bottom line. Especially for large companies, the extra cost of making an occasional deskside visit to manually maintain those few computers that don't awaken is cheaper than leaving all of them on every night and weekend.

We do the same thing here at the office.

I've got a few scripts automating system, disks and registry cleanup. Usually last 1 hour so I wake all the PCs at 04:30 and every one of them are ready at 06:00 when the staff starts.

Makes my life a lot easier...

How much daily maintenance do you do? Run slowly "most of the time?"

Every night. Usually takes about 30 minutes to an hour for the virus scan to complete on the average machine here.

Bill

instead of letting them run all night

With today power compilant computers you can setup your power settings to leave your computers always ON at small power consumption. You can setup power settings in control pannel to turn off monitor at 10 minutes of no use, hard disk at one hour and suspend the pc after two hours of no use. A suspended pc have very very slow power consumption. You can buy a KillaWATT in amazon.com and check this by yourself.

We leave ours on. However, each computer goes into standby (ie min amount of power) about 2 hours after last mouse/kbd click and REBOOTS at 2am. This clears cache etc and loads certain updates. We don't defrag local disks as our users folders are on the servers. But all the above tips are good - I do them on my home PC's. And you know how bad techies are at looking after their own computers!

I've found that a fairly high number (well above 10%) of computers don't come out of Standby correctly. We advise our users to avoid using it, especially when they call to complain that their computer won't wake from it.

(Edited for clarity.)

Personally I have had better luck with newer operating systems, but I still tend to avoid standby where possible.

Bill

I have 100 pcs in the office, most of them have standby settings without issues. All are Dell computers.

I had standby issues with my Home dell computer with windows 7 but the problem was related with the upgraded HD Video card from ATI. Windows 7 do not have all the required drivers for this card (capture / export / hdmi).

Our office used to have a policy to leave machines on over the weekends, but too many would be dead come Monday morning.
Even in standby/hibernate modes, the failure rates were too large to be acceptable (power supplies mostly) - tech staff would have to do a mad rush to get people back to work.
Counter-intuitive I know, but technology can't always be predicted.

That sounds like bad power coming out of the wall plugs. Did you have UPS on the machines to smooth out the highs/lows and cover over the outages?

I have flaky power at home and have found a night and day difference since finally putting a UPS on the machine.

oh, five steps which I forgot... good to remmember actually.
I always was thinking about msconfig/update OS/check with antivirus, update it...

1-5 is a great start, but sometimes the problem is hardware related.
6. Check connectors, Yes you need to open the case for this. Sometimes, although this is rare any more, connector get corroded and loose contact. Pull cable out and reinsert them 2-3 times to clean them off. Use contact cleaner spray(not WD-40)

7. Reseat any cards in slots. The same principle applies with card as does cables. Memory modules may not give errors, but just function very slowly.

8. Clean or replace the fan. An overheating system may not crash just go slow. This is true especially in laptops.

My PC is slow to power up when on the network at work (I power up and shutdown daily). I'll confess up front that I don't defrag, etc. as often as I should.

However, I've noticed after using the notebook at home, that when I return back to work, the first power up back on the network is always significantly quicker than the subsequent one(s). Any explanations?

Thanks,
Anthony

Maybe your administrator put a login script , so during startup on your office network, your PC runs this script. It add few second to 30 second , depending the PC speed and script length. I use it to map network drives automatically in user's PC/laptop.

Another thing that may cause slow start up is automatic update of (corporate) anti virus that scheduled on start up.

Due to boot-up and shut-down scripts, our laptops bot up more slowly at home when the office.
We've put this down to the presence of a network, but no servers. The scripts time-out, then the logon carries on.
In these cases, we suggest to leave the broadband line out until you're rady to connect, abd unplug it before shutting down. This is for home-use only.

In your case, I assume your scripts are not run from th PC's side, but called from the servers. No servers = no scripts, so a faster boot up.

Do you have any work network drives mapped on the laptop? You may not be connecting at first boot but may access the drive there after and subsequent reboots might try and re-connect during boot = slower boot up.

If I put my laptop in standby before I leave work and then boot it up at home, as soon as I flip the wireless switch Windows Explorer (aka Taskbar) locks up for maybe 10 minutes. I fired up wireshark once before turning on the radio and witnessed Windows trying to contact every DFS mount point in the list - which in my case is around 100. I have to believe there is some configuration option that would prevent this behavior, but I have not dug into it and even if I did find the answer it would be ignored by our client configuration team. So what I do is wait for it to lock up, then switch off the radio. This seems to abort the process and frees everything back up. When I again turn on the radio it doesn't seem to start back up.

Note that this only occurs if I were first connected to DFS shares, put it in standby, and then bring it out of standby while not connected to the Windows domain. Also note that it doesn't seem to help if I undock at work (disconnect from network) before I put it in standby.

Oh by the way... this lockup sometimes occurs randomly - it just happened as I was typing this. Same solution: shut off the radio and within 10 seconds it starts responding again.

If you are running Windows sometimes it is necessary to restart the computer twice a day! Don't forget to reinstall Windows once or twice a year too......

I believe that your are acting under the mistaken notion that stems from the tech support folks at many of the big equipment manufacturers whose solution to a problem that they can?t quickly diagnose is to ?reformat and reinstall.? Reformat and reinstall accomplishes three things:
1) It gets you off the phone,
2) It always works,
3) It doesn?t create a need for them to perform any real troubleshooting.

A major bone of contention between a former supervisor and myself was that he thought defragging a computer was a waste of time.

In fact, he went so far as to say it was a useless program. Luckily, I no longer work there, although I do feel sorry for the users he no doubt is still abusing with his ignorance.

The same thing applies to some so called repairs services, most notably in my experience, the Geek Squad, who have told several people that in order to fix their machine they need to use a recovery disk. Since these users hadn't made one they were basically screwed. I fixed their machines in less than an hour and made them a recovery disk for less than GS was going to charge them for using a pre-made disk.

they got that name right, but instead of geek it should be rip off!
No seriously I figure there are some good techs that work for them and hopefully skirt thier rules now and then.

As an independent repairman for the last 10 years, reinstalling the OS is generally the last thing I want to do if possible.

It dosen't take to long to figure out if that's going to be needed or not.

But what I really wanted to say is as an independent, competeing with the likes of the geeksqaud, make it work, etc. that my clients truly appreciate that if I say were gonna reload, that all your data will be preserved.
I don't make nearly as much as I could in this biz becuase of that, but my clients love me and would call no one else.
I've been scratching my head a lot lately watching ad's on TV for PC fix it systems ect. I know there raking in the dollars, but I just don;t have the fortitude to be a bad guy, not to mention I do not want to hear the complaints when this crap dosen't work.

I would agree and reiterate:
see this youtube link, one of many like it... LOL. Nutin' like good old fashioned hard work to do it right the first time, making the next time that much easier.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIJfuetJWSE

I had the misfortune of working for customer support for Stream who was acting as telephone support for a big PC manufacturer.

That was their solution to any problems that would take more than a few minutes to resolve. FDisk, Format, Re-Install the Operating System (or FFR as it was fondly referred to) using the System Restore Disks. "There! Just like new!"

I left after a month. When the number of phone calls is more important than actually helping the customer, it's not customer service, it's a scam.

Try a previous restore point if not try a repair before thinking of reinstalling backing up and reinstalling apps and data in stand alone systems. Remeber the backup can also have the problem.

Restoring from a "previous restore point" has never been successful for me (in Windows XP) not at least in my experience. But I've not done too many of these ...

or at least, my friends' collective bacon when I'm working on their machines, a number of times. I always set them after a good fix, you never know when they will come in handy.

maybe one out of 2 restores work. Viruses use system restore to come back & haunt you!

You're right, I have to routinely delete the restores as a part of virus cleanup. But on the problems where something has gone corrupt or a bad driver install, the restores work great.

And even after I've fixed a virus issue, I create a restore, because so many things can go wrong that may potentially be helped by it. Always a good option to have, just in case.

I never had good restore from system restore. The problem is always still there. I restore from Image backup instead

I have never been able to find any value in the restore points either. Never worked for me. But then I must admit that I never really took the time to understand what exactly was being restored using this utility. I guess since I don't understand it I don't use it much.

On one occasion I uninstalled an essential program by mistake. My client didn't have access to a replacement, and couldn't operate without it. Restore fixed the problem like magic and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. And yes, it was a well maintained system, if I do say so myself.

System restore can be a great time saver when it works. I've found that it seems to work better on systems that were well maintained to begin with. On systems that have tons of junk running on start-up it's not very reliable. And for any type of malware damage no matter how minor forget it.

I think restore has worked once in 4 years on 25 machines

On PC's that are running slowly I have been having good luck running chkdsk /R on PC's running Windows XP.

You need to be more proactive when looking for early hard drive failure, if you want to avoid data loss.

If you have episodic slowdowns where keystrokes are delayed and the mouse pointer stops moving, you should suspect hard drive retries on failing sectors. Generally, this pattern of slowdown results when code is delayed within a section where interrupts are disabled, which is usually only within tight and critical bits of driver code.

When the hard drive gets a checksum mis-match, it will retry the operation until it works, or fail after X retries. If "too many" failures, it will mark that sector as bad, and map its address to a spare one; if this is during a read operation, it should try to relocate the contents from the bad sector, but this may fail. All of this happens within the drive itself, and is invisible to the rest of the PC.

If the OS detects a read failure, it will only be if the above mechanisms have failed. If the file system is NTFS, it will retry the operation in much the same way the drive's firmware did, though this time the results may be visible in the depths of the file system. Each retry attempt will likely spawn X retry attempts within the firmware, and could beat a sick drive to death; this is how those seconds-long stuck-mouse pauses arise.

When you format a volume, the same process occurs except presumably without attempts to preserve the disk contents. At least the number of OS-visible bad clusters are reported.

When you do a ChkDsk /R, it's the same sort of thing; nested retries, defects hidden if the drive's firmware "fixes" the problem, etc.

You can see into the firmware's activities via a SMART reporting tool. If enabled in BIOS, POST can tell you if SMART is "bad"; the OS seems to have no awareness of SMAT at all.

SMART tolerates a LOT of defects before it flags a value as "bad", so don't wait for a "bad" SMART status! The critical SMART attributes to watch are Reallocated Sectors, Reallocation Events, Pending Sectors and Offline Uncorrectable. Look at the raw data counters for these, which should all be zero, not just the Value or Worst columns, and least of all the Status column.

Here's how each SMART attribute is reported and logged. Raw events are counted up from zero in the raw Data column, and if these reach a certain number, the Value is reduced by one. Periodically, both raw Data and Value counters are reset, but the lowest-ever Value is retained in Worst. If Value or Worst every reach Threshold, the Status then changes from "OK" to "Bad".

But if the counters are reset before Data ever causes Value to be reduced, everything stays "OK" forever. As it is, several loops of raw Data and steps downwards of Value mean thousands of flaws are considered "OK", as far as Status is concerned.

So... don't wait for bad drives to find you, and don't use ChkDsk /R to paper over the cracks. Use a SMAT reporting tool to look into the raw data details, and act on what you see - first, file-copy the crucials, then file-copy all files, then image the C: partition, then run surface scan diagnostics.

A failing drive may die within an hour, and you don't want to be left only with diagnostic reports, or an unusable part of a failed partition image - that is why I'd do those steps in that particular order.

Oh, there is nothing that ticks me off more than someone suggesting I reinstall (or at work, "restage"). When I tell them just what I think of their "solution" they act surprised. That is what they do to everyone. Why do I have a problem with it?

I have a problem with it because I have several non-standard programs that I use to perform my job. It sometimes takes quite a bit of configuration of these programs and systems configured correctly. I tweak the um... "whizzed" up settings that come with the standard install to get the thing performing correctly. When I move into a new laptop I insist that I keep both the old and the new for at least 2 weeks until I get the new one where I want and need it to be.

I once had a sound card go out in a home PC that I bought from a major manufacturer (won't say the name but it has 3 letters in it). The PC came with a standalone diagnostic CD that also told me the sound card had failed. When I called to get it replaced the tech told me he couldn't send one out without my reinstalling windows first. When I pointed out that when I booted from the standalone diagnostic CD it also reported a failed sound card his reasoning was, well, maybe it is a bad diagnostic CD. You need to reinstall Windows. I immediately asked to speak to a supervisor who promptly sent me the new card.

So don't tell me to reinstall because you don't have a clue what you are doing!!! I don't let them get anywhere near my PC anymore.

On another note, I have noticed that people who have only ever known Windows tend to think the same "solutions" apply to all systems. I once had a site admin go around and reboot all the ethernet switches at the site because he couldn't connect to some service somewhere. This was probably a couple of dozen switches and a router! Hey - control-alt-delete always works (if not, reinstall!). Those of you who have been around long enough to remember mainframes - can you imagine rebooting the system to fix a problem?!?!? And if that doesn't work, reinstall MVS? You betcha.

==flame off==... whew. sorry.

In my experience, it seems that a lot of techs like to do the really hard stuff first and ignore or are ignorant of the simple fixes. I've had a number of issues fixed very easily by dropping in a good copy of a .dll or some other easy fix instead of overhauling the entire system. I am sometimes ridiculed until I fix the system with an easy method, and then they shut up...

If you have access to run non-standard programs then you can probably get permission to take or have IT take a fresh system image after a clean install plus your additional programs. Reinstall would then just be a drive image restore including your addons.

I'm spoiled in the *nix world, I can rebuild an install in about the same time it takes a drive image restore to run. Long as the user data is backed up; the machine can be rebuilt on a whim. (not that this stops me from trying to identify and solve issues before resorting to reinstall)

I am constantly adding and removing things, either in response to a unique one-time requirements or simply to evaluate a tool. And my corp. client team doesn't cater to the individual user by doing things like taking a system image. It is a cookie cutter approach where you are provided with a PC with MS office on it and maybe a few other standard tools like terminal emulation programs. Their attitude is if they don't offer it, you don't need it! It is the same mentality that leads them to believe that the correct solution to every issue is to restage the client.

The hard party might be getting approval for a second license to install inside the VM but it would give you a simple way to run your custom apps on top of the stock image. Then you just have to keep your own backup of the VM and manually install the VM app in the event of a host OS re-image.

Not sure if it'd work for you but it may help if your rebuilding that often. Especially with restore points for the VM if it's your extra apps that cause the issue.

Lazy OEMs leverage "restore" disks (that wipe and re-build the PC) to attain 1-call and zero-call support loads, despite selling on the basis of "excellent support". The "1-call" version goes like this:
- "just" wipe and rebuild
- only if that fails, consider bad hardware
- the adverse impact will prevent the user ever calling again

A refinement is the 0-call version:
- advise the user on the phone to "just" wipe and rebuild
- if they refuse, end of call (zero call load)
- if the rebuild fails, issue RMA and consider bad hardware
- adverse impact assures they will never call again

"Just" wipe and rebuild doesn't keep the PC malware-free either; as soon as "data" is restored, or the unpatched PC connects to the 'net, it's likely to be re-infected just as it was originally.

Restoring "data" isn't safe when apps default to "My Documents" for downloads and other incoming crud (e.g. "My Recieved Files").

This is not always true. My home pc is restarted once a month. I use this pc daily at night and suspend / Hibernate the pc only every single day. I restart only when new updates, required or after software install, etc.

In the other side, my office PC needs to be restarted twice a day, sometimes more.

My home pc is Windows 7 64bits. Office pc is XP pro.

Only get rebooted after kernel updates.

I've been using Ubuntu Linux exclusively at home since 2006.

At work they still insist on wasting money on proprietary software that doesn't work any better - and often is less functional than it's open source counterpart.

On the other hand, licensing fees are a large part of our budget. . .

"Microsoft delenda est!"

... when servers ran for 18 months without the need for a reboot (fond sigh...)

I have fond memories of Novell Netware 3 -- a couple of years between reboots was normal. Then we had one server that we lost when it was "temporarily" moved to a new location when the server closet was part of a rebuild program. For some reason or another, it was left on a shelf in the janitor's room plugged into it's UPS and a network node. Took over two years before someone asked where it was. I seem to remember that it was when we were moving to Netware 4 and going from bindery to NDS that we finally realized it had never been moved back to the server closet.

I have Server 2003 HP Proliant servers working without restarting for more than one year. I had a Server 2000 server with Cisco Call Manager working for 3 years without a single restart.

That may be fine where you work, but what about where there are several hundred PC's per tech or if there are apps installed locally that are time intensive? THe tech would be dedicated to this.

While this -may- have been an acceptable practice prior to Windows 2000 (and with Vista), MS Windows has been a stable OS since Win2000 sp3 onward. Usually the problem is a clueless sys-admin or a hack.

If you are running quirky programs, games, and/or quirky (proprietary) hardware such as Gateway or Compaq, then this might be true.

More often, the problem can be traced to the 'failsafe' system services which MS enables by default to cover all possible scenarios. Again, this goes back to -knowledge- of the OS... there are plenty of sites/blogs with excellent articles on what to enable/disable.

Select standardized hardware, configure only the services you need, follow these five tips, and your system will be rock solid.

With over 2000 computers to manage, I'm going to have to disagree. We still run mostly Windows XP SP3 and re-image at least once per year. The users notice the newly imaged machines seem faster and have fewer issues than one that has been in use for any length of time. Yes, we could visit each machine and have fun but it's just faster to re-image. 40 minutes for the imaging session compared to however long for the manual degunking. And remember that 40 minutes is for however many computers we stuff into one session.

Re-imaging is pretty easy -- just select the machine and configure it to wake up and re-image at some hour when it's unlikely to be in use. If the machine has been previously configured, just make any changes to the software packages to be deployed as part of the re-image. If not, spend 30 seconds more selecting the correct packages for the machine location.

With multicasting, we've done up to 120 computers at the same site/time with pretty decent success -- between 1 and 3 machines will require some manual work.

have some form of toolbars/unauthorized games/RAM devourers/iResourcehog/Skype etc. and I will show you a perfect human being.

The only ones I know of are those with completely locked-down systems. For those who have to live and work in reality, a once-a-week reboot is a sensible piece of advice.

When I setup new laptops for users in the office (personal use), I now create an admin account for me and setup the user account with limited permissions. This has prooved the machine works longer without issues because avoid spyware, malware, virus and software install. When they need to install something, they call me and I do it remotely via logmein.

Locking down a system in some form is the only way to ensure users don't put potentially dangerous, at worst, and speed-draining (at best) items.

Even on my own systems at home, I reboot once a week.

I've found that unchecking "Automatically search for network folders and printers" on home machines speeds up startup times on WinXP. Wouldn't do this on work place pc's but home users usually don't need to find or connect to a server on boot. (I'm confident someone will have a rebuttal.)

Thanks for the suggestions, free utilities, tweaks and hard learned lessons. The premise of this article may have been posted numerous times in different places on the web, but the comments here are (usually) as/more useful than the article.

I agree with you, srbryan (our shop regularly disables this option), and I have a few more.

1) Check swap file size. This is especially true for computers that have very little physical memory. Raising this is an easy, inexpensive way to boost performance - provided that the hard drive has enough space to accommodate the swap file.

2) This is especially true for computers that seem to lock up when the user tries to save: check for drive letters mapped to nonexistent shares. This usually occurs for old shares that were mapped locally, with the 'Reconnect at logon' box checked. Of course, if it's a login script doing this, a script edit would be in order.

3) Make sure the user doesn't have a large number of files on their desktop. Too many users save EVERYTHING there. A large desktop folder can slow boot time, and if there is enough data there, it also affects performance.

I've seen users with several large folders on their desktop. In those cases, the fix is easy, and completely transparent to the user: move the folder to a different location on the drive, then create a desktop shortcut to it. (Granted, this bypasses the opportunity for training, but many users don't seem to believe me when I explain the issue of large desktop folders.)

and affect performance?
just wondering about this...is this true?

Yes. if a user have a desktop with lot of shortcuts and icons, the bootup proccess is slower. At start up, windows needs to reach all the locations on the shortcuts to open the proper icon and update status of desktop.ini

The Desktop folder is what is displayed on your desktop (icons, files, etc...)

The things that appear on your desktop are located in a folder on your system drive.

Since the contents of this folder are displayed everytime you load up your system, it is plausible that having many things loading could hamper performance... It's a good adjustment.

Although I hardly use my desktop for anything but a nice picture from time to time, I disable viewing desktop icons. That way, I don't have to worry about it at all...

If you really need the things that are on your desktop, just make a toolbar that shortcuts to the desktop and your convenience will remain while improving your start up time...:-)

.

-Open Windows Explorer
-Tools menu - Folder Options
-View tab

'Automatically search for network folders and printers' is the first check box on this tab.

I didn't realize that was checked on my home PC. Is that Win XP only, or Win 2000 also (work PC?)

Unless you have a small workplace, this option isn't going to come into play. Joining a domain automatically disables this option and if your computer finds more than 32 shared resources (not sure off the top of my head if that is 32 computers sharing resources or 32 shared resources). As usual, you can also use group policy or registry edits if the spirit moves you.

I don't use Windows much anymore, but I recall the following (or have heard from others):

- take advantage of a fast USB stick for accelerating Windows (can't remember the feature name that the marketing dept came up with for this)

- optimize at the hardware level - e.g., RAID your hd, or move your swap to a 2nd hard drive separate from your Windows programs

- a RAM disk; no, I'm not phoning this in from 1997, if you have plenty of memory, there are still some situations where a RAM disk can actually speed things up considerably

Note that none of these are Windows specific, really -- you can use a fast USB stick for your Linux swapfile, you can obviously RAID your drives, etc.

But that will restart my uptime timer. I'm going for a record.

1. Go to the MY PC icon, right button, properties and select the performance tab. Select optimise for maximum performance and apply.

2. From there proceed to the advanced settings and find the virtual memory settings. Select Allow system to choose optimum setting and apply.

3. Check what antivirus you are using. Some products are badly compiled and use a huge resource footprint, while others which are just as, if not more effective, run in a fraction of the ram and slow down your pc much less. (note to av programmers, your compiler has an option called "model" which allows you to scale resources to your real needs)

4. Programs like msn messenger like to open automaticaaly when your pc boots, but this slows down the boot process a lot. You can go into tools, options, general settings, and unmark the option that tells msn to open when windows starts.

5. Check you have your disk transfer set up correctly for IDE drives. In device manager select primary IDE controller, advanced setting and make sure it's allowed to and using DMA. If it's only running PIO you may need to download a driver for your chipset controller, also check that UDMA is enabled in the bios. This really makes them crawl if it's wrong.

6. RAM, even a Pentium 3 will still run quite nicely if you give it enough RAM. Anything less than 512 nowadays is a really slow coach. A miniumum of 1gb will probably get you through another 6 to 12 months before your av program grows again.

7. Check you are using the right operating system for your hardware. AMD processors have been supporting 64 bits for several years now. If you are a ubuntu fan you can download the 64 bit version. XP64 wasn't a great success however if the rest of your system is up to it consider windows 7 64 bit.

8. Hard disk cables. Really goes with the note above on UDMA. If you have an older pc make sure it fitted with an UDMA cable if the disk is IDE. IF you have sata disks, make sure the cables have no knots or bundles in them, clean the contacts with electrical contact cleaner (without grease), and anchour the cable in such a way it won't move around too much and break contact at either end.

9. Take out all CD and DVD media ! Often a defective CD will cause the reader to seek endlessly and slow don the whole windows explorer enviornment and all it's dependent threads.

10. Check the fans. An overheating CPU will crawl. Typically if you go into Task Manager and look at the graphic you may see the CPU is at 100% all the time.

7th step is also necessary for the system to work proper, and 6th one should be adopted in the organizations(Like institutes) where multiple users logs in the single computer and want system start up quick, in emergence they input number of clicks and esc key strikes which disturbs the regular startup of the system which causes hang! So, avoid start up programs like messengers.

1. Cleanup disk
2. Cleanup registry (may include reg defrag)
3. Run anti-malware
4. Checkdisk (before defrag to ensure only good disk space is used)
5. Defrag disk

For the first 3 steps I typically use more than one freeware for each category. Each package finds slightly different intersecting sets of results.

Granted, some people with badly fragged disks should defrag before anti-malware to speed up the am, but since I defrag regularly I'm not too concerned about fractional improvement.

You could always empty your start up file.Maybe this has undesired effects in Windows? Start up speed is not that important. Removing ALL temp. files might clear things up, from a script.

Fred.

Thanks for your tips. But for me this is all to complicated. I have used a tool which i have found at: http://www.pc-speed.co.uk/
It cleaned the pc for me and after that my pc was running ver fast.

So for people who are not computer experts this is great solution!!

Cheers!

It might buy you a second or two across a days operations, but that's it. And it's not safe. I frequently see ccleaner trying to remove registries that are still valid, often file extensions as well. For a novice users, the risks out-weight the unlikely gains.

Also, a backup of the registry, that's a nice thing, but how can you restore it if your registry becomes ruined. Windows won't boot and not many people have a recovery console or know how to use it.

Registry backup, that is.
My registry wasn't wrecked though, just messed up by an AV program failing to uninstall it's low-level safeguards properly, big mess.
Somehow I got it working though.

Word for the wise... do not try a new AV without first finding and downloading the "forced uninstall app" or "AVPROG cleaner app" that may very well listed on the company website, even if somewhat oddly placed.

Those safeguards can do as much harm as can a virus, AND - an AV program won't find them. Nor can you count on fixing them in any reliable way.

stuff your just trying out or run a VM(virtual machine) or sandbox.

no sense scrambling a perfectly good machine on something like try outs. Some AV are hard to get rid of. Thank you norton removal tool.

At least not if you want to see how they work out.
But I could be wrong.

Some say the AV safeguards are akin to a root kit.

Sandbox sounds too small for a AV

a Virtual Machine.

I would like to know which AV Program you used so that I can be sure to steer clear of it...

I've used CCleaner registry cleaning on a fifty or so computers safely and without a hiccup.

In several cases it has improved boot times on old laptops 5+ minutes, and left them running acceptable instead of crippled.

Two days ago it scrubbed the remains of old CAD software off and allowed a reinstall to work.

If you feel insecure using it then set a restore point. Its simple and easy to do a last known good boot instead of using the recovery console in depth.

Save the registry changes so that if it has broken something you can reload the original.

Neither has been needed in several years of using it.

In the past I used spy bots registry checking feature and broke a machine.
Guess one bad reaction was not enough to break me of cleaning machines.

I never see CCleaner trying to remove registry entries that are still valid.
Wonderful free application.

Everytimes when we get a call on "My computer is very slow, could you please take a look?", CClearner is one of my tools.
I always run Windows/Applications Cleaner, till it cann't find any more Junk. Then Run Registry Clerner, always run save first backup regstry file. I never run into a problem with CClearner and it is free, thanks to the developer team! Also under Tools Cclearner has Startup feature that you can shorten the startup time. Certian programs don't need to be loaded at the startup as you all know. This last feature is quite faster that doing "msconfig". In certain suspicious cases of virus/malware, Malwarebyte does a pretty impressive job of getting rid of those, the license is worthed to pay for. Process Explore is another one that is free by systemternal now Microsoft. It is free and is a must to have to find the culplit for your system.

I have not used Ccleaner enough to venture an opinion, but I do like Glary Utilities. It's free, effective, safe -- at least it hasn't bricked any machines for me yet -- and it has lots of useful tools. Pretty easy to use, too.

I don't trust registry cleaners either. I've tried a few and they'd cause problems. It will kill user settings from one app or everything from another [re-install time]. Don't remember if I tested CCleaner.

Unsure about Norton Utilities now but it did a nice job 5-6 years ago.

always give me problems. in time to time I tested this apps new versions, I always see issues after run registry cleanining apps.

In my job role we clean up and repair about 15-30 home and small office computers a day.

Registry cleaners are not worth the potential trouble they could cause. Especially Vista+, with XP the are more potential benefits for cleaning the registry. Still in my option not worth the risks.

Hi Hazclan13, please tell me what you use if you don't use a registry cleaner? (I backup reg & use ccleaner)
Registry 'bloat' seems to cause a lot of performance issues with XP & I have not found anything better than ccleaner - used to use Advanced Windows/ System Care, but not as easy as ccleaner.

That's Win98 stuff, really.

The WinXP registry self-"cleans", not perfectly, but safely, and well enough.

Registry fragmentation may be a problem, but that's a different bottle of lard.

He has come.

the fact remains that the always registry grows (& never shrinks) in size.
I have seen the growth (by checking the backup copies of the registry in the system restore snapshots in C:\System Volume Information).
My registry has grown from 23mb to 49mb in 8mths.

The windows registry is a random access database with which, size shouldn't noticably affect sear/read times. registry bloat does affect other things but not read times so much.

Deselect "Unused File Extensions", "Fonts" and others from Registry cleaning part of CCleaner.
Also deselect "Last Download Location", "Recent Documents" and/or anything else what you like preserved - in cleaner part of it.

CCleaner is costomizable enough to satisfy most of users.

I have burned my fingers using other registry cleaners, but not yet with this program.

I agree. I've seen registry cleaners hose the registry so badly that not even a repair installation could recover the PC.

It could be the virus scan, so using Clamwin could help.

Also, when all else fails, reformat and defrag.