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Do computers get tired?

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by jasonmcc68 1 view

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I am a Network Admin at a church with about 45 computers. I have heard a few people say throughout my year and a half here, that they feel like their computers are getting slower as the day goes by? Is this possible for a computer to react slower from simply working? or better yet and more likely, what are some things that can cause network slugishness to increase as the day goes by? Or is it that the people are simply more tired and wanting their computer to react faster and it seems slower to them. Personally I have not noticed any increase or decrease on system or network performance. Any ideas?

7 replies

by ez58

When a user complains that their system seems to get slower and slower with age it inevitably comes down to SPYWARE running on the user's machine. 99% of the time the machines run like new once I clean the malware off of them.

by jamesrl

But over the life of a computer, hard disks become fragmented, slowing things down. The registry becomes cluttered with junk, slowing things down. We keep adding items to the start up menu, slowing things down. We upgrade software, with newer software which has more features and needs more memory slowing things down.

The solution that many of us use is - back up the computer's data files, then wipe it clean(format it) and install a fresh copy of the OS(plus updates). Then install just the applications you need. This often shows a speed improvement.

If your computers were updated with an OS Upgrade rather than a clean install, this will make a big difference.

James

by thechas

Yes, it is very possible for computers to operate slower as the day goes on. It's not so much a case of the computer being tired as it is a slow reduction in available resources.

As you open and close programs and files, portions of real and virtual memory are not cleared. This is referred to as a memory leak.
You can run a resource monitor and compare the amount of free RAM and free virtual memory over the course of the day.

If your users have multiple programs open, and close and re-open them during the day, RAM and virtual memory become fragmented.

If the problem is serious, you can install a memory manager to reduce both leaks and fragmentation. Unfortunately, the memory managers also use resources, and slow the PC down.

Depending how often you install software and patches, Windows will slow down over time.
The primary culprit here, is the size of the registry files. Once the registry reaches a certain percentage of available resources, Windows will run slower, and crash more.

The best way to deal with these slowdowns, is to provide your users with adequate resources.

For Windows 9X, 196 to 384 MB of RAM will go a long way to keeping things running clean.

For Windows 2000 and XP, a bare minimum of 256MB of RAM is recommended.

For all Windows systems, I recommend a small (2GB - 4GB) secondary hard drive that is dedicated to virtual memory (swap / page file).
This helps keep both system files and the page file from becoming fragmented.

Chas

by black panther

Agree with this statement - I had a similiar problem ( many moons ago ) -- until we could afford to upgrade the RAM - I got the users to re-boot their machines half way through the day ie lunch-time which helped in the meantime.

by ravie_ch3

Sometime at the biginning of installation of any progam, we feel that it is necesaary but after sometime its became a white elephante to our computer.Such program(s) will slow down our computer, so you may go to Control Panel and select the "Add/Remove Programs" icon, than highlight unwanted program and press "Add/Remove" button to uninstall it from your computer. I also suggest to run "scandisk" and "defragment" atleast once a month and if possible run it weekly.

by jkaras

The technical solutions our peers are valid however did you count on human nature? Our society is all about what's new, new and improved, faster, more options, ect... People are inundated through commercials ect.. that things are obsolite and the Jones' have a faster or better computer. The truth is nobody needs a really fast computer is business, you need a dependable one. Their complaints are just to get something new. I bet if you bought the same model computer and told everyone that it has more ram, more hdd, and a faster processor they would claim they see the improvement.

by selma

If you are running XP, you need to use chkdsk instead of scandisk. Someone I know at work was having trouble at home with her slow computer. Ad-aware cleaning out spyware definitely helped but not enough. It took 4 hours for chkdsk to finish running after we rebooted XP but it apparently fixed a lot of problems. Her computer is working fast now and she has been very happy.

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