How to Make your PC RUN Faster Part 2

Top 5 tips : How to Make your PC RUN Faster Part 2 (contd)

Tips to make your PC run Faster. This is my second post on this Topic. If you have not than check out last post I listed 5 tips to make your PC run faster.

Make your PC run Faster tip number 6:
Find and turn off all unnecessary start up programs.

By default when windows starts, many programs starts  and runs in the background even when they are not being used,this makes your computer a long time to boot since these start up programs eats up your system resources and memory. A great example is the MSN messenger,when you download and install such IM software’s,these automatically starts when your system boots. Another example is the Task scheduler, if you are not in the habit of scheduling specific task to be performed at a predefined time, windows task scheduler is pointless to run in the background.

You can easily turn off programs that starts automatically and make your computer boot faster and perform better.You can do that with windows MSCONFIG command or use a third party software to control which programs are allowed to start at boot time.How to access MSCONFIG.

step 1. click on start button-than on RUN – Type MSCONFIG in the box that appears-than press enter.

Step 2: On the tabs menu click on “Start up” tab you will see a number of programs listed in the start up menu.You will find there are quite a number of programs that starts when your system boots.You can disable any program by removing the check mark,but again do it only  if you know that you don’t need it,if in doubt just leave it.Don’t disable your Anti virus and firewall ,since it is important these programs need to start during the boot for your system security point of view.

Click the OK button and you will be prompted to restart your computer for the changes to take place,restart your computer, you will definitely notice that your computer boots up faster and your PC will run faster now without those programs running in the background.

There is a free software called Ccleaner through which you can easily disable installed programs from the start up menu.You can find a detail post about this HERE.

Make your PC run Faster tip number 7 tip:

ADD RAM TO YOUR SYSTEM

There is no question to doubt this fact that “More RAM, faster will be your computer”

Adding more RAM(random access memory) will make your computer faster, specially when run memory intensive tasks like photo editing,video editing,opening multiple web pages etc.You may not notice any visible difference during your normal activities like web surfing or running your word processor program.When you run a program e.g. word processor or Excel, the microprocessor in your computer pulls the executable file from your hard disk and loads it in to RAM, which may consume about 5MB of RAM.The microprocessor also pulls in a number of shared DLLs(dynamic link library),shared pieces of code.These processes happens in the background very fast and may consume about 10 to 30 megabytes of RAM, this will increase depending on the number pages open.Depending upon the number of programs open and running simultaneously, consumption of RAM will increase. If your physical RAM is low obviously your computer will run slowly, since it has to allocate the memory to the active program.

Besides your Application, the operating system itself reserves memory for its own functions, which depends which operating system you have installed for example you can not install windows 7 if your system RAM is only 512 MB, minimum requirement is 1GB RAM even for the most basic functions.

Basically every program you open is using your installed RAM, so if you have installed RAM of say 256MB on your system but your open programs uses 300MB, your system is going to be dead slow.Now a days RAM is inexpensive so invest on it,you wont regret. How much RAM ? will be on the individual preference and usage pattern to decide.

Make your PC run Faster tip number TIP 8:-

USE OF EXTERNAL HARD DISK

If you have a lot of collections of Music,Videos,Pictures etc. it will be wise on your part to invest on a external hard disk.Now a days external HDD with capacity up to 1TB is affordable and doesn’t cost you a fortune. The Idea behind ? Transfer all your above mentioned files on to your external HDD, which will not only free up your main HDD space but also make your PC run faster.You will notice that your system performance reduces as soon as you use over half of your hard disk space.An external HDD not only helps you to store your files but is also portable and you can plug on to any PC to share your files easily.You can check how much free disk space by clicking on – my computer on your desktop and than right click in your hard disk icon than click properties- select the General tab which will show you a Pie chart of your hard drive, and show you how much free space you have.If you have more than one partition you can check all other partitions in similar way.If you are anywhere over half you may want to consider an External hard disk, to transfer you files to the external HDD freeing up space. This will do wonders for your computer and is one of the best ways to make a Computer run faster.

Make your PC run Faster tip number TIP no.9:-

OPTIMIZE WINDOWS.

You can optimize your computer in several ways.The visual effects that comes loaded with windows XP,Windows vista,windows 7 does make your desktop look pretty, but at the cost of your system resources.By disabling these effects you can regain a lot of system resources to make your computer faster.

Here are some couple of ways you can do:

1. In windows XP –go to Control panel, switch your panel to classic view (if not already done).

2.Than click on the SYSTEM icon in the control panel

3. Click on the ADVANCED tab at the top , then select settings in the performance section.Disable the following effects.

• Show shadows under menus
• Show shadows under mouse pointer
• Show translucent selection rectangle
• Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop
• Use visual styles on windows and buttons

These are some of the visual effects which are unnecessary and consumes your precious system resources. You can also set your desktop background to none, If you have a colorful desktop wall paper, windows takes sometime to redraw the picture on your desktop, which in turn can prolong your system boot time and use up resources.

In Windows 7 also you can do the same

1. Go to control panel- click on System- than click on the Advanced system setting- than system properties- Advanced tab.

Under Performances – settings- and than disable the following options, as shown below pic

• Uncheck:- Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing
• Animations in the taskbar and start menu
• Enable Aero peek
• Enable transparent glass
• Fade or slide menus in to view
• Fade out menu items after clicking
• Show shadows under mouse pointer
• Show shadows under windows

There are other items also which can be safely disabled to save system resources and there by making your system run faster.

NOTE: These options are optional.Kindly note,all newer machines are quite powerful, comes with dedicated graphic cards for display and plenty of RAM.So depending on your system configuration, and if you wish to enjoy windows 7 GUI you can keep all options at default (that is enabled).

Make your PC run Faster tip number TIP no. 10

Install Anti Virus

Install a Good Anti virus program and scan your system periodically to detect and weed out all the viruses you may have.

This tip is quite obvious, but still there are many out there who run around the internet unprotected. Even though this is one of the most known thing to every internet user, still I thought I will put this too in this tip anyway.

The advantages of installing an Anti-Virus is, it not only scan and remove viruses from your computer, but it will also block them from coming onboard.If you have a good anti-virus installed, you shouldn’t have to worry about any pesky or potentially serious virus infecting your computer.

There are many Anti- viruses available for you to choose both paid ones and free ones.One thing I can confidently tell you is that not a single Anti-virus can give you 100% protection.New viruses are released almost everyday, so its very important to keep your anti-Virus program updated up-to-date to get the full protection. Besides Anti-virus , you must also install Firewall,Spyware and Adware removal tools, to be on the safer side.

There are both paid and free Anti-virus available to choose.A detail post on this and download site link can be found HERE.

There !! you have the top 10 tips to Make your Computer run Faster. Did you enjoy reading this post and the earlier one?Is there any other point you know and like to share ? Just leave a comment.You can subscribe to my free E-mail notification and FEED

Would you like to share your tips?

Suggested Reading : How to make your PC run Faster Part-1.

Posted By: Ben Jamir