Whether you think of your computer as a tool, a companion, or a portal that connects you to the rest of the world and your interests, it’s likely it plays a huge role in your day to day life. If you cycle or drive every day, chances are you understand the importance of regular maintenance for your bike or car – the same should be applied to your computer. This is especially true if your computer is something of a senior citizen.
In this blog we’ll cover how to speed up an old computer, and the tips and tricks that can help you retain the speed you’ve worked hard to recover.
Why is My Old Computer Slowing Down?
Here are some of the common culprits known to contribute to the decline of a computer’s speed:
- Your hard drive is almost at capacity, leaving little to no space for virtual memory.
- You have too many tabs open and/or too many programs running, competing for processing power and RAM.
- Dust and other buildup are causing your computer to overheat and slow down.
- Somewhere within your computer, a vital part of the hardware is damaged.
- A virus is present and draining your computer’s processing power without your knowledge.
- Automatic actions – such as scheduled scans, updates, and apps opening at startup – are overloading your computer from the moment it is booted up.
If you’ve noticed a serious reduction in your computer’s speed, any one of these reasons might be behind the lag – you might even be suffering from a combination of all of the above. Thankfully, these are problems with straightforward solutions, and issues that can be avoided altogether through regular maintenance.
Optimizing Your Software
Before you start budgeting for a brand new computer, take a look at the ways in which you can optimize the performance of your existing software.
Clean up unnecessary programs and files
How often do you clean up your computer? And no, we don’t just mean wiping your monitor and keyboard. Take a good look at your desktop and think about what apps, files and other software you use regularly. Chances are, there will be lots of things that are no longer relevant to you, or that you realistically don’t use. By leaving these things on your computer you’re allowing them to take up valuable space and slow down your system. A declutter will help to speed up your computer, and could leave you with more headspace as well as disk space.
Manage startup programs
In your settings you’ll be able to manage the apps that you want to launch as soon as your computer starts up. While it might sound efficient to have all of your most-used apps getting ready to go as your computer turns on, realistically, having too many startup programs will slow your computer down and possibly prevent you from using any of them effectively. Prioritize a few apps, or – better yet – disable startup apps entirely. This will ensure that only the programs you need are on and running.
Keep your software and operating system updated
It’s important to keep both your operating system and your software up to date with the latest updates and patches. Not only are these updates vital to security, but they often include performance improvements that can make a big difference to the way your computer runs.
Simple Maintenance to Improve PC Performance
For cost-effectiveness and sustainability, most computer users want to prolong the life of their devices for as long as practically possible. All electronics degrade over time, but there are things that can be done to help postpone the inevitable.
Defragging your hard drive
For devices that use traditional hard disk drives (HDDs), defragmentation is an essential part of computer maintenance. Defragmentation, also known as defragging, is the process of organizing the data stored on your hard drive to ensure that it’s being stored as efficiently as possible, in what’s known as a contiguous pattern. While this isn’t relevant to people running on modern solid-state drives (SSDs), if your computer is on the older side, a good defrag could likely make a big difference to its speed.
Scan for malware
Viruses and other malware are great at loitering on computers undetected, all while sapping your device’s processing power and consuming memory. By using software such as our Malware Killer to scan for any hidden viruses wreaking havoc on your computer, you can make sure that your computer’s resources aren’t being depleted without your knowledge.
Advanced Tips for Optimizing Older Computers
If you’re making computer maintenance your mission and looking to get to grips with some more advanced methods, we have some places that you can start.
Virtual memory adjustments
Adjusting virtual memory on an older computer can help to improve its overall performance. Virtual memory acts as an extension of your RAM by using some of your hard drive as additional memory, allowing your computer to still handle tasks when RAM is fully utilized.
In your settings, under performance options, there will likely be an option for you to manually configure your virtual memory, instead of relying on automatic management. When carrying out your manual configuration, you’ll want to:
- Choose your preferred drive.
- Customize your initial and maximum sizes.
We would recommend setting your initial size to at least 1.5 times the amount of your physical RAM, and your maximum size to 3 times your physical RAM. Once you save your changes and restart your computer, you should see a boost in performance.
Disable unnecessary visual effects
Adjusting visual settings on an older computer can also help. There are settings you can change to ensure that your visual effects are adjusted to enable your computer to prioritize performance over appearance, reducing the workload on the system’s memory and CPU.
In your device’s settings, be it Windows or Mac, make sure that all visual settings are toggled to give the best performance, instead of the best visual effects. It’s likely that you can manually uncheck specific features such as shadows and window animations, and disable any effects you deem unnecessary.
You can teach an old computer new tricks
There’s no need to give up on your computer as soon as it starts to slow down. By understanding how to speed up an old computer you’ll not only be saving yourself money on not needing to buy a new one, but also the time spent being frustrated with your PC’s crawling pace.
For more tips and tricks from the experts at iolo, check out our other blogs.
