Why is my computer so slow?

Why is my computer so slow?

Hi Yonisitbon,

Here could be several reasons why your computer slows down or hangs up. One of them will be viruses and/or other mal wares like a worm or it may just be the disk space in your PC. With regards to Windows Vista, well, a good number of people actually prefer Windows XP or Windows 7 over Windows Vista. If you have the money, then feel free to buy another one but if your PC’s specs are good then, you could always change your Operating system and save a lot of money.  

Here are 10 things you can do to improve the performance of your Vista.

1. Virtual Memory – If your PC doesn’t have enough memory that it needs to perform, either Windows or the program you are running or both will stop running. Windows uses Virtual memory to help in running programs. Increasing the Virtual Memory helps your computer store more information for processing.

• Click Start>Control Panel
• Open System
• Click on “Advanced system settings” at the left pane. If prompted, click “Allow” to proceed.
• In System Properties window, go to the “Advanced” tab
• Under “Performance”, click “Settings”
• Performance Options dialog box will pop up, go to the “Advanced” tab
• Under “Virtual Memory”, click “Change”
• Remove the check mark on “Automatically manage paging file size for all drives”
• Choose the Drive where you want your Virtual Disk to be at.
• Select “Custom Size” and put in your desired size.
• Press Set
• Restart

Note: The recommended size is 2-3 times your physical RAM size. However, it still depends on your normal usage. In your case it would be better if it’s bigger than 3 times the RAM size.

2. Defrag your PC – A good analogy for fragmentation would be the filing cabinet. Imagine you had your employees’ files in different manila folders scattered amongst 7 filing cabinets. You’d have to go from cabinet to cabinet to find the folder that you need. It’s the same way with your computer. This occurs normally since you use the computer for different processes all at the same time. Defragging your computer arranges the manila folders in the filing cabinet according to frequency of use, putting the ones which are always used in front.

• Click Start
• Type “defrag” in the search box and press Enter

3. Viruses and other Malware – There could be viruses doing some damage in your PC. If not, then it could be a Trojan, a worm, spyware or other malicious software that is wreaking havoc in your PC. These malicious programs are known to use huge memory resources and destroy system files. So make sure you have a good antivirus or anti malware securing your PC.

4. Start Up – When logging on to Windows, there are Programs which are programmed to run right away too. If there are many programs trying to run altogether, this would cause the PC to slow down. You can prevent these programs from running since you don’t really need most of them to run at start up.

To disable the programs to run at start up:

• Click Start
• In the Search bar, type msconfig and press Enter.
• Go to the Startup tab
• Remove the check on any Startup Item you don’t want.

5. Remove a feature – Vista has all kinds of feature and applications that are needed for whatever kind of work you will do on your PC. However, for home users, you don’t really need most of them.

• To turn off a feature:
• Click Start
• Go to Control Panel
• Click Uninstall a Program
• In the “Uninstall or Change a Program” click the “Turn Windows Features On or Off”
• Uncheck any feature you don't need running
• If you hover the mouse over a feature, a tool tip tells you what it is.

For gaming, You can remove everything else except:

• The games
• XPS Viewer (under .NET Framework 3.0)
• Remote Differential Compression
• Windows Ultimate Extras

However, still check if you might need other features if you use your PC other than games.

6. Windows Services – Services are programs that are continuously running in the background of Windows. They do different tasks that Windows needs to be done. There are a lot of these services and they can also use a lot of memory/resources. However, not all of these Services are actually needed and can be turned off without any problems. Follow these steps on how to turn off some services:

• Click Start
• In the Search bar, type “msconfig” and press Enter
• Here are some services that could be disabled in a gaming computer:
• DFS Replication
• Computer Browser
• Distributed Link Tracking Client
• IKE and AuthIP IPsec Keying Modules
• IP Helper
• IPsec Policy Agent
• KtmRm for Distributed Transaction Coordinator
• Offline Files
• Remote Registry
• Secondary Logon
• Security Center (Use caution if you disable security services!)
• SSDP Discovery
• Tablet PC Input Service
• Terminal Services
• Windows Defender (Ditto the above warning!)
• Windows Error Reporting Service

7. Cannot connect to the Internet? – There can be several reasons why you could not connect to the internet. Check your:

• Modem
• Router
• LAN Cable
• Are you using a Proxy Server?
• Ask your ISP
• Check Firewall of Antivirus.

Check the Firewall settings in Vista:

• Click Start.
• Go to Control Panel
• Click “Security”, and choose “Security Center”.
• Click the “Windows Firewall” link on the left side and choose “Change Settings”.
• Go to the “Exceptions” tab
• Click Add Program button and select the program (or Browse to locate the program), and click OK.

8. Sidebar – If you can live without the Sidebar, then just remove it. Even though it has a small task, if still uses memory resources which can be used to other things. Why not just remove it to help your PC have a little boost.

• To disable the sidebar:
• Right click on the sidebar or sidebar the icon, select Properties
• Remove the check from “Start Sidebar when Windows starts”
• Then right-click on the icon, and choose Exit to close the sidebar:

9. Disable Search Indexing – Although the search option is good, it still hogs a lot of resources. The Windows Indexing Service is always running in the background and can slow down your PC a little. Turning this feature off will make searching for files and folders slower –who uses windows search feature everyday anyway?

• To disable the Windows Indexing Service:
• Right click the C: drive and select Properties
• Remove the check mark of "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching"
• Hit OK.

10. Install a new OS – If you’re still not satisfied after having done all of this and more, you can always just install a new Operating System.

 Hopefully, your PC is running much faster now. Good Luck!