14 Ways To Speed Up A Slow Computer

14 Ways To Speed Up A Slow Computer

If you have a slow computer or are suffering from a lag in any of your programs or games, below are tips on how to speed up the performance of your slow windows 10 computer.

There are a lot of tips out there on how to improve the running speed and performance of your PC which include; upgrading your RAM, changing your Hard Disk Drive (HDD) to a Solid State Drive (SSD), or even getting yourself a new and better computer. All these are great ways to improve the performance of your PC.

However, our focus here will be on solutions that do not require you to remove or change any of your PC hardware. The steps here will be a general order and how they appear in your PC’s settings, control panel, and other places on your computer.

Turn off tips and tricks notifications

Let’s start by turning off the window’s tips, tricks, and suggestions notifications in the setting.

If you are new to windows follow the following step;

Left-click the start menu
Select the settings icon
Click System, then notifications and actions.
On the right hand, scroll down to the notifications section, then uncheck or click the toggle to turn it off and get tips, tricks, and suggestions as you use windows.

This, when turned off, goes a long way in improving system performance.

You can also turn off the other notifications too if you want. The only ones we recommend to be left on are;

Show me the Windows welcome experience after updates and occasionally when I sign in to highlight what’s new and suggested
Get notifications from apps and other senders.

Turn on Storage sense

Storage sense when turned on keeps clusters away from your PC. It automatically frees up storage space on your PC by deleting temporary files and contents in your recycle bin.

If your drives are filled up with a file that you no longer need, cleaning them up could give your PC a speed boost. Follow the following steps to remove files that you no longer require. Still in the system settings;

Go to storage
Click on the Storage sense toggle to turn it on.

To clean up your PC manually, follow the steps above to turn on storage sense, then select configure storage sense or run it now. Here too you can choose the frequency in which storage sense can clean up your PC. You can also change how often your file is deleted in your recycle bin, downloads folder, etc.

Set Internet to Metered Connection

Processes downloading updates in the background can have a major impact on the speed and performance of your PC. One way to reduce that impact is to set your internet connection to Metered. Follow the following step to set your internet connection to Metered;

From the settings home screen, that is windows setting;

Go to Network and internet
Select Ethernet or Wi-Fi, depending on your internet connection.
Click on the network you are connected to
Scroll down to Metered connection
Click on the toggle to turn it on.

Doing this will reduce the number of processes downloading files and updates in the background.

Turn Off Transparency Effects

In addition to animations, windows 10 uses transparency effects in the tasks bar, actions center, and start menu. These use up system resources and the resultant effect is a slow system. Follow the steps below to turn those off. From windows settings

Go to personalization
Click on the colors tab, scroll down to more options
Switch off transparency effects to free up more of your system resources

Note: you need to activate your PC’s windows before you can personalize your PC.

Turn on Game Mode

If you play games on your computer, turning on the feature can help to reduce your system slag. Follow the steps below to turn on Gaming Mode.

From windows settings;

Go to gaming
Select game mode
Click the toggle to switch it on. This will reduce the number of background apps running and prevent windows updates from performing driver installations and sending notifications to restart. Game mode can also help out with any other program such as Adobe Premiere Pro which reduces GPU acceleration. If your PC is new, you may see little or no effects with the game mode turned on, but on older PCs, the game mode may give the boost your system need. Either way, there is no harm in turning it on.

Change Active Hours

When windows update is running in the background, installing updates can sap your PC’s resources. To free up resources when you are using your computer, follow the steps below.

From windows settings;

Go to update and security
On the right-hand side, select Change active hours
Click on the toggle to turn it on
Chose a start and end time. This is the time when windows can perform actions and automatically restart your PC.

For the next two tips, go to the control panel. The control panel can be found by going to search and typing control and selecting the Control panel.

Change Power Settings

One area that can have a huge impact on the performance of your PC is the power settings. Follow the steps below to change your PC’s power options.

From the control panel;

Select power options. Depending on the manufacturer of your PC, you may have all the power options listed. If your select a power saver, you will save the run time of your PC at the expense of your PC’s overall performance. If you want the biggest performance boost, change your system power option or plan to High Performance. On the other hand, if you want to strike a perfect balance between how long the battery of your PC can last and performance, select Balance which is still a performance upgrade when compared with Power saver.

Turn Off Visual Effects

This tip is especially important if you have an older computer. Switching off all or some of your PC’s visual effects can cause a big performance boost. Follow the step below to turn off the visual effect of your PC.

From the control panel;

Go to System. From the penal on the left-hand side, select
For advanced system settings, in the advanced tab, click on
Performance settings
Select Adjust to Best Performance.

After making the change, it may require some tweaking on your part to get it right for you. You can always come back here to make adjustments as needed. Enabling smooth edges of screen fonts is a good place to start.

Uninstall Programs You Don’t Need

Your PC may have software that you installed but you no longer need it. To boost the performance of your PC, you can uninstall these applications. Some of these applications take up valuable drive space while others load processes on PC startup using resourcing, thereby increasing the time it takes your PC to boot up. To uninstall programs from your PC, follow the steps below.

From your PC’s control panel;

Go to Programs and Features
Click on any program you no longer need
Select Uninstall

Some programs or applications may not show up on the control panel, especially those you have installed from the Microsoft store. For those, let’s go back to the settings

Click on Apps and find the programs or apps that you no longer need and would like to remove.
Click on it and select uninstall.

Note, do not uninstall system programs and applications. That is applications from your system manufacturers.

Disable Startup Programs

If you have too many programs being launched and running in the background on system startup, this can give your PC sluggish booting. To improve boot time and free up your system resources, follow the step below.

On your home screen;

Right-click the taskbar
Select task manager
Go to the start-up tab, right-click any of the programs that you do not want to launch on startup, and click Disable.
Or the type of task manager on the search box,
Click on more detail
Click on startup, click any of the programs that you do not want to launch on startup, and click Disable

Note; only disable those services and programs you know you wouldn’t need when your computer starts up.

Turn Off Search Indexing

If you have your PC’s indexing turned on, this makes searching your drives quick but at the same time it uses up a lot of system resources. This slows down your PC’s speed. Turning off indexing especially on low-power and old PCs enhance system performance. To turn off search indexing, follow the steps below.

Go to the search bar and type index
Select indexing options, near the bottom of the window
Click on Modify
Uncheck all boxes listed and okay when you are done.

Run Disk Cleanup

A handy utility that has been in the window for a very long time is the disk cleanup tool. To run disk cleanup follow the steps below.

In the search box type disk cleanup
Click on it and pick the drive you would like to clean up and click okay
Check all the files you want to delete. When you are ready
Click Cleanup system files.

Disable Schedule Maintenance

By default, Windows will run scheduled maintenance of your drives in the background weekly. During maintenance, people have reported that the performance of their PCs is reduced. To disable scheduled system maintenance, follow the steps below.

In the search box, type optimize
Select defragment and optimize drives. From here you can see the status of your drive. If your hard drive crosses a certain level of fragmentation, it will defrag the operation. On SSD, TREM is used instead.
Click on change settings
For the next step, only do this if you have serious performance issues as a result of the scheduled maintenance. Uncheck the box on run on scheduled maintenance and click ok

Note; remember to come here periodically to manually optimize your drives.

Reset Your PC

If all the steps above fail to give your computer the needed performance boost, then resetting your PC might just be the best option for you. To reset your PC, follow the steps below.

On the windows settings home screen;

Go to updates and security
On the left, select recovery
You will see the option to reset this PC. You have the option to keep or move your files.

Hopefully, these tips on 14 Ways To Speed Up A Slow Computer did help you out. Please share this article.

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