One of the most annoying things about PCs is thier ability to become frustratingly slow or simply stop. Usually the main reason for this is that they just aren't looked after, you see once we've bought our nice shiny new toy we switch it on, install all sorts of junk, browse endless web sites, create and delete files and generally abuse the poor thing and expect it to keep on going regardless. Well that's were the trouble begins, you see a PC is just like a car, you can keep topping it up with petrol and drive it constantly but if you don't service it regularly and treat it nice it will soon breakdown. So to keep your PC operating smoothly you have to look after it and if you haven't been this article is intended to show you how to give a much needed service.
The Usual Suspects
A PC that runs slowly or is slow to react that used to operate fine is usually suffering from either:
1. A lack of system memory or CPU overload.
2. A full Hard Drive.
3. A fragmented Hard Drive.
4. A damaged Registry.
5. Too many programs running at the same time.
8. Virus or Spyware (Malware) infection.
System Memory and CPU Overload
One of the first things to check is your system memory and CPU usage, when you first bought your PC the amount of memory you had may have been fine but the more applications or programs you have running the more memory you'll need. For a Windows XP based machine you need a minimum of 512MB RAM but I'd recommend at least 1GB. For a Windows Vista Machine Microsoft recomend at least 1GB but 2GB would be better to ensure a smooth ride as the operating system itself is so resource hungry any less and you'll suffer. Another thing to check is whether your CPU is being overloaded
To check both of these you need to access the Task Manager, to do this press the Ctrl, Alt, Delete on the keyboard at the same time to open Windows Task Manager. Once the Task Manager window appears click on the "Performance" Tab.
The Performance Tab is the ultimate "dashboard" tab. If you know what to look for, this tab can tell you everything you need to know about the health of your PC.CPU usage This is one graph that needs no real explanation. It shows how hard the CPU is working. It will also show one graph per CPU, so it's a good way of verifying that your multiple CPU system is load sharing appropriately. If its constantly maxing out you may need a faster CPU (not for beginners), or it may simply be a problem with a program that is running.
Page File usage This is an area of the Hard Drive used as memory. Applications tend to request a lot of memory, more than they actualy need. The Operating System will trim the less frequently used memory by writing it to disk in the page file.
Page file usage is typically not a concern except in extraordinary cases; it's the commit charge you have to worry about.
Totals This area shows all of the resources in use on your PC - processes, threads, and handles, one key are covered later is the number of processes.
Physical Memory System Cache tells you how much memory is being used as a disk cache, eg, what amount of memory is being used to store frequently used files in memory to avoid accessing the physical hard drive. There's a fine balance between System Cache and Available Physical Memory. You want to maintain a reasonable amount of free memory, but not too much as it is an uneccessary waste.
Commit Charge Commit charge is the single most important section of the performance tab, this shows the total amount of memory in use by all applications, including memory that has been temporarily paged to disk. If the peak commit charge is greater than the physical memory in your PC, your PC is running out of actual memory and relying on the Hard Drive page file which will slow the sytem down immensly. If it happens rarely, you're OK, but if it's a frequent occurrence, it's time to get a memory upgrade, I.E. You need to increase the amount of memory in your PC.
Kernel Memory Every application has a certain amount of Operating Sytem housekeeping overhead, most of it can be paged to disk if necessary, but some has to be in memory at all time. These numbers are not really imporatant as they are so small compared to todays 512MB or 1GB of memory in a modern PC.
Full Hard Drive
If your Hard Drive is nearly full you will run into all sorts of system performance problems one reason is that there is
insufficent space to use for the Page File discussed earlier, and least of all the PC has no space to write any temporary data. If your PC ever get so full you will normally receive a warning however sometimes it can be an issue that you won't even know about. As a rule of thumb your system drive or C: Drive should never be more than 2/3 full if it is you need to uninstall some programs or free up some space by deleting or saving items to a secondary or backup Hard Drive. To identify how much free space you have open "My Computer" and right click on the C: Drive then from the drop down menu select "Properties", this will open a window that shows on the "General" tab a graphical representation of your Hard Drive capacity, the pink area is free space. Whilst in this window you may choose to click the "Disk Cleanup" button. Disk Cleanup will attempt to remove temporary files and the like to free up space, don't worry its pretty safe and will not remove any of your documents or pictures. If your Hard Drive has not been cleaned for a while it may take some time to carry out a check. Once it has finished searching you will the Disk Cleanup windows showing items available to be deleted, tick
the items you want to clean and click OK. There are several freeware programs available that do an even better job than Microsofts Disk Cleanup and I recommend using CCleaner or ATF Cleaner both excellent tools and should be used frequently to remove clutter caused by web browsing. Be sure to read the help files to see how to use the applications and understand what you are removing.If even after cleaning up temporary files and the like your Hard Drive is still full then first remove any unwanted programs. To do this use the "Add Remove Programs" in the control panel. It will list all of the installed programs on your PC and allow you to safely uninstal them, do not simply browse to the program folder and delete as you will not remove the program correctly, always use the programs Uninstall facility which can either be accessed from the Start/All Programs menu or from within "Add Remove Programs". Look for anything that you never use or do not want. If after removing unwanted programs you still have a full Hard Drive then you may wish to consider removing photos, music or movies and store them on CD's, DVD's or an external Hard Drive. You could also consider adding an extra internal Hard Drive to use as storage space.
Fragmented Hard Drive
Once you have cleaned up your Hard Drive it will be a good ide to De-Frangemt it, even if your Hard Drive was not full it may still need to be De-Fragged. Basically a fragmented Hard Drive means that much of the data on the drive is fragmented I.E. pieces of data belonging to the same file is split into several parts across the Hard Drive causing delays is retreiving it which affects system performance.
Damaged Registry
Basically the registry is a list of everything installed on your PC (the file structure) and an address of how to find it, a damaged registry can impact on system performance. So to prevent registry associated problems it always a good idea to clean up the registry. CCleaner mentioned above comes with a built in registry cleaner or another good one that I have tried is Eusing Free Registry Cleaner. Just run the registry cleaner program and follow the onscreen prompts, if your given to option to backup the registry then do so. Registry cleaners will remove broken links and shortcuts to uninstalled programs amongst other things.
Too Many Programs
Another culprit associated to a slow PC may be that you simply have far too much going on at the same time, apart from any programs that you have physically started yourself you need to find out what's going on in the background.
The way to do this is re-start or switch on your PC and don't open any programs manually, let your PC finish booting up, this may take a while especially if you are short on memory or have a lot of autostart programs running, more on this in a mo.
Once your PC has finished booting up the first place to look is the System Tray of the Task Bar, the System Tray is the area at the bottom right hand side of your desktop that contains a number of different icons, as well as the clock if its enabled. All of the little icons represent some of the main auto starting programs, those that are running in the background while you are using your PC. These programmes start automatically when you switch on your PC, some are essential and some are not, its just a question of sorting the good from the bad.
Once your PC has finished booting up the first place to look is the System Tray of the Task Bar, the System Tray is the area at the bottom right hand side of your desktop that contains a number of different icons, as well as the clock if its enabled. All of the little icons represent some of the main auto starting programs, those that are running in the background while you are using your PC. These programmes start automatically when you switch on your PC, some are essential and some are not, its just a question of sorting the good from the bad.
I always recommend opening the "Windows Task Manager" as shown above, take a look at the number of processes, as a rule of thumb with minimum memory there should be no more than 47-49 processes running when you have no other applications open, so if your up to 57 then you will see a noticeable drop in performance.
To identify what they all are you can choose to painstakingly search each on using Google this will give you an indication of what each process is and which program it belongs, the best thing to do is click on the Process Tab and then sort by Memory Usage by clicking on the memory bar and sorting them into amount of memory being used. Once sorted look at some of the real hogs and start with them, if its something you really do not need uninstall the parent program or stop it running automatically.
Apart from the essential ones such as a Virus Scanner, Firewall and any realtime anti Spyware programs most are probably unnecessary unless you have loads of memory. These might be Digital Camera or Printer Software which are not normally needed until you use the Camera or Printer. Check each one in turn and ask yourself "Do I really need it at all, or do I really need to have it running all of the time". You then need to identify the associated program and look at its preferences and stop it starting at Logon, or Windows Startup. It maybe that its a program that you don't even use anymore, if so find it in Add Remove Programs in the Control Panel and uninstall it.
Before you start to make any changes set a "System Restore Point" available in Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools in Windows XP and remember if in doubt leave it alone.
Another excellent program is autoruns by sysinternals, you can find an article at MicrosoftTechNet here where you can also download the program, its not really aimed at the beginner but all changes are reversible. If you follow the instructions the program gives you the option to switch on and off any programs that start automatically when you switch on the PC. Using it I managed to get most of my PCs down to about 44 processes and they still operate normally, you do have to know what you are doing though.
Virus or Spyware (Malware) Infection
Malware infection can be another cause of system perfomance drop however how to deal with malware issues will be covered in a separate blog.
Summary
Well if you made it to the bottom your doing well, either that or you scrolled here hoping to find the answer to all your problems at the end!! If you have managed to follow all the steps above I hope that you have been able to cleanup your PC and its now operating at something like an acceptable speed.
