Speed up your PC.

A friend brought his laptop over and asked me to check it out because it was too slow.
His computer was 5-6 years old and was full of junk, unnecessary start-up items and other resource hungry things.

There are many things that you can do to speed up your PC.
The first thing you need to make sure is that you have a lot of memory, or DRAM, in your PC. The amount of memory is almost more important than the processor (CPU) speed when it comes to speed, because there is an immense amount of data the computer have to load into memory to process. If there is not enough of it than the data will be sent to an actual physical file on the hard disk (swap file) which acts as if it was PC's DRAM memory. The problem is that the file access of the hard disk is much slower than the DRAM in the box. Memory is cheap and easy to install.

Next, check what is loaded into memory when your computer starts up. I find that in most cases your system loads in a lot of programs that you really don't need to reside in memory, taking up precious processing place. Using Start > Run > type in "msconfig" > OK > select "Startup", you will see that a lot of Startup item are checked to be loaded in when the system starts up. Most likely many of them you will not need to load, such as media players, AOL, QuickTime, Java, etc. Just make sure that your virus protection is loaded and the rest you can experiment with.

Defragmenting your drive once every 1-2 months is a good idea. You can use Windows own defrag tool (Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Defragmenter) or download a free program (like Defraggler). This operation can take many hours depending on how much you have on your hard drive, so make sure you start it in the evening before you go to bed and let it rip overnight.

There are a few other things you can do, but starting with these will easy fixes will give your computer a nice speed boost.

Questions? Call or email peter@ligeti.com or 408-528-8422

“CLEAN” YOUR NEW (and old) COMPUTER

Unless you build your new computer from scratch (which is not all that difficult) or buy from a custom builder, you can't help but end up with a lot of junk software on your new PC. This is because a lot of 3rd party software makers and Internet service providers pay the PC makers to include their “Junkware” with their own software, hoping that you might buy their products when they are so readily available already pre-installed on your hard drive. Obviously this also applies if your computer is not new you and you still have the original junk on it.

This is of course a major nuisance for more than one reason.
First, these programs use up valuable space on your hard disk, some of their components may load into your working memory and many times they keep on giving you nagging reminders to sign up or buy the licensed version of the software that you don't even need.

Solution: Get rid of them!!!

First thing you can do is to open Control Panel and select Programs and Features (in Windows Vista) or Add/Remove Programs (Windows XP).
Uninstall everything that you are sure that you will not need, for example: AOL, EarthLink and other service providers, software trial versions of applications you will never use, etc.

Once this is done it is recommended to run a utility such as CCleaner (which is a wonderful free download) and another great free utility is PC DeCrapifier to flush out all the “C” from your system.

CCleaner also has a very functional Registry Cleaner built in which is very advisable to use after a major clean up, because your registry will still be full of traces of the old software that you just deleted.

The final step is a total disk defragmentation to finish up with a nice, clean and fast PC.

P.s.: If your computer is not new you may still have the original junk on it,

Questions? Call or email me: peter@ligeti.com