Computer Runs Slow? What To Do If Your Computer Runs Slow
Tips When Your Computer Runs Slow
If your computer runs slow then hopefully I can help.
About six months ago I bought a new PC. Now for the previous two years I had been using Macs and never thought I would own another PC. However some software that I needed was not available on the Mac so I had to dive back into the world of PCs!
All went well for about six months when I noticed that the performance of my computer was becoming very poor. It would take five to ten minutes to reboot. I used to dread having to restart it after an update, in the end I would just go for a walk while waiting for it to finish rebooting.
I did some research to try to find out what the problem might be if my computer runs slow. I went to Google and typed the following search term “PC running slow“. I read a lot about viruses and spyware – things I was not very familiar with having come from a Mac! However I did have anti virus and anti spyware software installed on the PC and when I ran the scans for both, it always came back saying no threats had been found. So I was a bit stumped at this point.
Computer Runs Slow – Registry Problems?
After a bit more searching I started reading about the potential problems you can have with the registry. This, I discovered, is a database in your PC that stores, amongst other things, low-level information about all the software that you have got installed. I learned that over time the registry can become a mess and make your computer runs slow especially if you are installing and uninstalling lots of software.
At this point a light came on in my head. Having been away from the PC scene for a few years I had indeed been trialling new software and uninstalling it at the end of the trials. Apparently the uninstaller software for some applications is not so good and can end up leaving traces in the registry that over time can result in a slow running computer.
I felt that this must be the cause of the performance issues. Also, it turns out that the registry should be cleaned an optimized on a fairly regular basis even if you are not installing and uninstalling lots of software. It seems the registry is a bit like your hard drive and after a while needs to be defragmented. If your computer runs slow, this could very well be the cause.
Is There A Good Product For When Your Computer Runs Slow?
So now I had a potential cause, I needed to find a solution. In the end after reading lots of reviews and trialing yet more software, I found a product called Registry Easy that totally solved the problem of my computer running slow.
After I installed it I ran a scan and it identified lots of areas where my registry contained redundant data. Well the other software I tried also said a similar thing so I did not consider all my problems to be solved just like that. I rebooted the computer when prompted to do so and went to make a cup of tea. I had not got as far as the kitchen when I heard the Windows start up chimes. When I returned to my office I saw that the computer had rebooted in less than a minute. This had not happened since the PC was new and the other registry cleaners I tried did not have this effect.
It really did make my computer speed up dramatically.
I then started Word and a few other applications and they all loaded very quickly. I went through a normal work day and did not experience a single slow down. When I ran the registry scan again it reported that there were no problems. This was pretty amazing, my slow running computer was restored to brand new performance levels after a single pass of the software.
Registry Easy comes with a bunch of other features for optimizing your PC performance but to be honest I have never used them, the Scan and Clean was enough for me but you may get some benefit from them. If my PC slows down again I may experiment with them to see if they help at all but for now the performance is more than good enough.
Hopefully you have found this helpful. Click here to learn more about Registry Easy . I use it whenever my computer runs slow.
Computer Runs Slow? Reasons Your Computer Runs Slow
Reasons a Computer Runs Slow
In this article we will look in more detail at why your computer runs slow.
With the proliferation of software that is available to download these days and the fact that many of us now have “always on” internet connections, our PCs are exposed to a huge number of external threats.
Viruses and spyware are two of the biggest threats to your PC. Where viruses can be very destructive and cause obvious damage, spyware and malware can be very insidious and not always easy to detect that you are infected other than a computer running slow.
Spyware is installed on your computer without your knowledge and collects information about your online habits. It often changes your computer settings which can result in slower performance, slower internet connections etc. Keyloggers once installed, will record you key strokes and send them to a third party. It is obvious, especially with lots of people doing their banking online these days why this is undesirable.
Your computer can also be turned into a zombie and used as part of a BotNet, a large network of collected computers that are sold to and by unscrupulous individuals in order to carry out things like Denial Of Service Attacks etc. If you computer runs slow then malware is a definite suspect.
Computer Runs Slow But No Malware?
These are all common reasons for your computer running very slow. However apart from malicious software like spyware and viruses, it is possible to have a slow computer without having any spyware or viruses whatsoever. It is for this reason that anti-spyware computer is usually not sufficient to speed up your computer if you have noticed a degradation in performance.
One of the main reasons your computer runs slow is that the registry is in a mess. I have talked about the registry in a bit more length here, but in a nutshell, the registry is a database in your computer that among other things, stores low-level information about the software that you have installed on your computer. Over time you will likely install lots of different applications and whether they are used every day or were downloaded as a free trial and then never uninstalled, they take up space in the registry. Over time, a poorly optimized registry will increase in inefficiency and will definitely cause you computer to slow down. This process is known as software rot and is particularly prevalent where software has been partially uninstalled (perhaps because of a lack of installer software).
In order to speed up windows, you will need to re-factor your registry. However this is difficult and dangerous unless you have strong technical skills. Because the registry entries are stored in binary format, fixing a bad edit can be very difficult and in extreme cases make your computer unusable. However there are software solutions that can come to your aid if your computer runs slow by re-factoring the registry and automatically cleaning it and optimizing it so that your slow computer performance can be reversed. In some cases you will notice a dramatic increase in performance from just performing a registry optimization alone.
Hopefully this article has given you some insight on the reasons if your computer runs slow, also, you can read in detail how I overcame these issues on my PC in other articles on this website.
Computer Runs Slow? Remedies If Your Computer Runs Slow
Computer Runs Slow – Registry Issue?
If you have noticed that your computer runs slow it may be that your registry requires cleaning. The registry is a Windows database that stores information about your different hardware and software components that you have on your computer. Windows uses this information while using each of your hardware or software components.
When you install, uninstall, and reinstall programs on your computer, registry keys are created, modified, or deleted. With time, your computer registry may begin gathering corrupted, unused, and unnecessary registry keys, especially if keys are not removed when you uninstall a program. Some signs of trouble include computer system crashes , stalls, or as in my case, the computer runs slow Editing the registry yourself by hand is not recommended because one wrong tweak could cause serious damage to your computer, resulting in loss of data and expensive repair bills. Using a reputable registry cleaner is necessary if cleaning is in fact what you want to do. These cleaners can scan your registry and find all the problems for you and automatically correct them. Registry cleaners are also good at removing duplicate, redundant files and can also be used to block malware, spyware and other undesirable things you may have lurking on your hard drive!
If Your Computer Runs Slow, What Can Be Done?
Good registry cleaners can also compact the registry, it means the size of the registry storage files are reduced without removing any data from them. It’s a bit like a disk defragmentor, the unused blocks of data are removed from the registry storage files and thus the files become smaller. This also increases efficiency and can result in a computer runs slow. When my computer started slowing down, this was the gist of the information I got back from my Google searches. It seemed like this is a problem that can affect every computer. I therefore started looking into registry cleaners and eventually found one that did the trick. After lots of research I found a product that not only scanned and fixed the registry but also had additional functionality to help in general when a computer runs slow such as fixing:
- IExplore and System32 Errors
- System Crashes
- Slow PC Performance
- Chkdsk Issues
- Computer Freezing
- Internet Explorer Errors
- Javascript Errors
- Dr Watson Errors
- Hardware Malfunction
- Blue Screen
- Vista, XP, 2000, 98 and ME Issues
If your computer runs slow then I urge you to look into getting a registry cleaner, it can make a huge difference in the performance of your PC.