Speeding up a Slow Computer
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Your computer is dying a slow death. You know better then to wait for your computer to be ready. You go and take a shower. When you come back the computer has just finished firing up. Great. Ready to go on line. You click your web browser and head to the kitchen to make yourself a cup of coffee. After your coffee the computer is finally ready to use.
You wonder, “where did I go wrong”? We had such a sweet, lovely little computer 8 months ago, lightening fast, the latest, the greatest. What happened?
Do not despair. Do not throw out your computer. Put that hammer away. And forget about looking to replace it. There is hope. As long as your computer makes some sort of noise there is hope. Even if your computer is completely still and silent after you press the power button there is still hope… but that’s another story for another day.
What Happened?
What happened to cause your computer to slow down? Usually it is one of three things, or more likely a combination.
It could be that you have visited web sites that have inadvertently installed garbage on your computer. With so many terms these days for various things (virus, Trojan, malware, blah blah blah…) I lump them all together as “garbage”. If you want to know how to avoid garbage, see the post I wrote about “Security/Protection” and pay particular attention to the program called “K9 Web Protection”.
A second cause of your computer slowing down is the fact that you’ve installed programs and more programs. They are not necessarily harmful, but they do slow things down, even AFTER you uninstall them. Why? Because when you uninstall a program, not everything is uninstalled.
A third cause is that you have installed programs that are too hard for your computer. Some are notoriously large. The chief among them is Norton Anti Virus. Adobe Acrobat Reader is a good runner up. There are others. Some of these programs are just way too large. You want to avoid some of these and get lighter versions of similar programs. For example, instead of Adobe Acrobat Reader (to open/read PDF files) I highly recommend Foxit Reader (as mentioned in my post on PDF FILES).
What Can You Do?
You can either nit pick at your computer, using registry editors, disk defragmenters, and removing some software. But in the end you are going to see very little, if any, noticeable difference. (Check out a report on PC World that asks Can Cleanup Utilities Speed Up Your Computer?).
A much better alternative is what is sometimes called a “nuke and pave”. It’s called that because it is a fairly destructive procedure in that everything that is on your computer will be wiped out. Kind of reminds me of 2 Corinthians 5:17. If you don’t know what I’m talking about there, go look it up!
Before you Nuke & Pave the first thing you want to do is make sure everything that is of any value on your computer is safely stored in a backup of some kind. If you don’t know how to back up your files, that too is another story for another day. For now, let’s assume (and hopefully it is not a wrong assumption) that you can back up your files.
To nuke and pave you will have to use one of the following procedures.
1. You can use a built-in hidden recovery partition to restore your computer to the way it was when it first came out of the store. You might not even know your computer has this capability, but if it is not too old, it likely does. Usually to start this procedure you need to press a certain key sequence when you first turn your computer on in order to bring up the option to restore to factory default. I do believe that on many Dell computers, the key sequence is CTRL-F11. But it varies from computer to computer.
2. You can use recovery disks that you (or the previous owner) made for that computer. In recent years computer manufacturers stopped giving out disks with new computers. Instead, when you turned your computer on you had the option of making recovery disks. Some computers only allow you to make one set of recovery disks. That’s fine. If you have the option of making recovery disks, you should. To use the recovery disk, put the disk in your optical drive (CD or DVD drive) and turn your computer on and hopefully the recovery program will start up. If it doesn’t, you’ll need to change something in your BIOS to tell the computer to look in the optical drive when starting up the computer.
3. A third thing you can do, assuming your computer has a license sticker on the back or bottom or somewhere, is use an operating system installation disk. This is what computer manufacturers used to send out with computers. If you have this disk you can start your computer with this disk in the optical drive and it will allow you to reinstall everything. How you do this is also another story for another day. Once this is complete you MIGHT have to install “drivers” for your computer. Hopefully your computer came with a drivers disk. If it came with an operating system disk it likely came with a drivers disk too.
Once you do either of these three options, you’ll need to update your operating system to the latest service pack (for XP it is service pack 3) and then you’ll need to do the various automatic updates as well. You’ll also need to reinstall your printer and any other software that you added after getting your computer. It will take a while, but when you are done, it will be worth it all.
Oh, and one more thing, once you have everything done the way you like, now would be a good time to install Macrium REFLECT and make a disk image of everything on your operating system drive (usually drive “c”) and back that image up onto an external hard drive. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see my post “Setting up a New Computer”.
I strongly suggest you give it a try. It’s better to try and mess up then not do anything (as long as your data is first backed up safe and sound). It’s the only way to learn.
You wonder, “where did I go wrong”? We had such a sweet, lovely little computer 8 months ago, lightening fast, the latest, the greatest. What happened?
Do not despair. Do not throw out your computer. Put that hammer away. And forget about looking to replace it. There is hope. As long as your computer makes some sort of noise there is hope. Even if your computer is completely still and silent after you press the power button there is still hope… but that’s another story for another day.
What Happened?
What happened to cause your computer to slow down? Usually it is one of three things, or more likely a combination.
It could be that you have visited web sites that have inadvertently installed garbage on your computer. With so many terms these days for various things (virus, Trojan, malware, blah blah blah…) I lump them all together as “garbage”. If you want to know how to avoid garbage, see the post I wrote about “Security/Protection” and pay particular attention to the program called “K9 Web Protection”.
A second cause of your computer slowing down is the fact that you’ve installed programs and more programs. They are not necessarily harmful, but they do slow things down, even AFTER you uninstall them. Why? Because when you uninstall a program, not everything is uninstalled.
A third cause is that you have installed programs that are too hard for your computer. Some are notoriously large. The chief among them is Norton Anti Virus. Adobe Acrobat Reader is a good runner up. There are others. Some of these programs are just way too large. You want to avoid some of these and get lighter versions of similar programs. For example, instead of Adobe Acrobat Reader (to open/read PDF files) I highly recommend Foxit Reader (as mentioned in my post on PDF FILES).
What Can You Do?
You can either nit pick at your computer, using registry editors, disk defragmenters, and removing some software. But in the end you are going to see very little, if any, noticeable difference. (Check out a report on PC World that asks Can Cleanup Utilities Speed Up Your Computer?).
A much better alternative is what is sometimes called a “nuke and pave”. It’s called that because it is a fairly destructive procedure in that everything that is on your computer will be wiped out. Kind of reminds me of 2 Corinthians 5:17. If you don’t know what I’m talking about there, go look it up!
Before you Nuke & Pave the first thing you want to do is make sure everything that is of any value on your computer is safely stored in a backup of some kind. If you don’t know how to back up your files, that too is another story for another day. For now, let’s assume (and hopefully it is not a wrong assumption) that you can back up your files.
To nuke and pave you will have to use one of the following procedures.
1. You can use a built-in hidden recovery partition to restore your computer to the way it was when it first came out of the store. You might not even know your computer has this capability, but if it is not too old, it likely does. Usually to start this procedure you need to press a certain key sequence when you first turn your computer on in order to bring up the option to restore to factory default. I do believe that on many Dell computers, the key sequence is CTRL-F11. But it varies from computer to computer.
2. You can use recovery disks that you (or the previous owner) made for that computer. In recent years computer manufacturers stopped giving out disks with new computers. Instead, when you turned your computer on you had the option of making recovery disks. Some computers only allow you to make one set of recovery disks. That’s fine. If you have the option of making recovery disks, you should. To use the recovery disk, put the disk in your optical drive (CD or DVD drive) and turn your computer on and hopefully the recovery program will start up. If it doesn’t, you’ll need to change something in your BIOS to tell the computer to look in the optical drive when starting up the computer.
3. A third thing you can do, assuming your computer has a license sticker on the back or bottom or somewhere, is use an operating system installation disk. This is what computer manufacturers used to send out with computers. If you have this disk you can start your computer with this disk in the optical drive and it will allow you to reinstall everything. How you do this is also another story for another day. Once this is complete you MIGHT have to install “drivers” for your computer. Hopefully your computer came with a drivers disk. If it came with an operating system disk it likely came with a drivers disk too.
Once you do either of these three options, you’ll need to update your operating system to the latest service pack (for XP it is service pack 3) and then you’ll need to do the various automatic updates as well. You’ll also need to reinstall your printer and any other software that you added after getting your computer. It will take a while, but when you are done, it will be worth it all.
Oh, and one more thing, once you have everything done the way you like, now would be a good time to install Macrium REFLECT and make a disk image of everything on your operating system drive (usually drive “c”) and back that image up onto an external hard drive. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see my post “Setting up a New Computer”.
I strongly suggest you give it a try. It’s better to try and mess up then not do anything (as long as your data is first backed up safe and sound). It’s the only way to learn.