Slow PC StartUp

So why does your computer slow down over time? That is the million dollar question. There are several reasons that a computer slows down over time and there is no way to avoid it! Your computer will slow down the only thing you can do is try to fix it. The most common reasons that a computer becomes slow are as follows.

> To many programs running during your computers startup process
> Lots of junk and temporary files taking up space on your hard disk
> Fragments on your disk out of order and not optimized
> Your registry becoming out of order through daily use of your system
> out of date or corrupted drivers on your computer
> spyware, adware, and other junk compiling on your computer.
> Useless programs installed on your computer that just sit and take up space.

All of these things will cause your computer to run slower and just get worse over time. If you dont address these issues then they just continue to become worse until your computer is little more than a paper weight!

Addressing all of these issues will make your computer much happier, and a happy system is a fast system^_^. Most of these problems have a simple fix for them. Some are free to fix and some may take a little money but if you use your computer at all it is more than worth it!

I have outlined the best and fastest way to fix each of these problems below. If you follow this guide word for word your computer will be the fastest it has ever been and best of all you will never have to worry about a slow computer again!

Probably the most annoying problem you can have with a computer is when it takes a decade to startup. Have you been staring at that darn Microsoft logo for 20 minuets everyday waiting, anticipating, crying?
The good news is that this is one of the easiest problems to fix.

So to do this you need to use your computers MSCONFIG tool. Go to Start then click on run. Type MSCONFIG into the text box and hit enter. This will open the MSCONFIG utility. Once open click on the startup tab at the top of the screen.

This will give you a long list of programs that automatically startup with your system. Some of these are essential to your system while some aren't.
You need to turn off all of the non esential programs.

Now a good rule of thumb is to only uncheck the programs that you recognize. For example, I use itunes to listen to my digital music. For some reason or another itunes decided that I want it to startup every time my computer does. This is not true and I would prefer it didn't so I simply unchecked any box next to a program with apple or itunes in the name and bang, no more auto itunes start. Now it only runs when I am actually using it. I did the same for all my office programs and my messaging programs...ect.

If you don't know if a program is essential or not there is a large database over at www.sysinfo.org that will tell you which programs are necessary and which aren't. So if your hell bent on turning something off and you don't know if you need it or not then check that list out and it will give you all the info you could ever need.

Turn off as many of the startup programs as you can so that only system required ones startup with your computer. This will speed up your computers startup and shut down time drastically as well as make regular computer use a little faster as well!

Step one down....only 6 more to go, bear with me^_^

O.k. So you take out the garbage every week right? You don't want a big pile of trash in your house do you? Well neither does your computer! Cleaning all the junk and temporary files on your computer is one of the best things you can do for it and it will no doubt make your computer run much faster!

To get started you need to download CCleaner from this website(dont worry it is free and safe^_^)
CCleaner.com

Once CCleane is done downloading then install it on your system and run it. Now that you have ccleaner this part is easy. Simply open ccleaner and click on the cleaner tab.(please ignore the other tabs, they all suck!!) This should bring up a list of places that CCleaner will clean up.
The only thing you will want to uncheck is the cookies tab! This is what holds all your passwords and user names on the internet, so unless you want to type all those in again then don't clean out your cookies!

Once you uncheck cookies then click clean and let it run! When its done you will have many gigabytes freed up on your computer and a much faster system. Plus it wont smell like garbage anymore!^_^

Pressing on.....

Have you ever gone to the library to try to find a book only to realize its not where its supposed to be. Becomes difficult to find it right. Well this is the same for your registry. If your registry becomes jumbled it takes your computer much longer to find the operation it is supposed to be doing. This leads to programs running VERY slow and also makes some programs not work at all.

This is one of those fixes that will cost you a little money. Ccleaner does have a registry cleaning tool but it will do little to nothing for your computer. You will need a professional registry cleaner. Im not going to go into detail about what registry cleaner you should use as I did a whole other lens on the subject.

For A Full Lens On Registry Cleaners Click Here

Once you have decided what cleaner is right for you then just use it.

Many people skip this step. Let me tell you straight up cleaning your registry is one of the most important parts of system maintenance and if you skip this you will beat yourself up later. Registry cleaners aren't expensive and are just important as a virus program and a firewall! So just get one! Your computer will thank you^_^

Onward and forward

So I am going to assume that you have heard of these before. Adware, viruses and spyware are attributed automatically to most computer problems. Most people see that their computer is running slow or freezing and automatically assume that they have a virus. I am going to tell you right now that this is not the case. Where viruses and spyware do cause problems they are not responsible for the majority of computer issues!(Which if you have been reading this whole lens you know that already!)

Now how do you know if your computer has a virus or spyware. Well it will tell you of course. If you have been infected with a virus you will start to see popups that tell you that you have been infected! likewise with spyware and adware you will just get a bunch of random popups and probably a lot of other noticable symptoms as well such as icons saving them selves to your desktop and your background changing.

Now what do you do about all of this!? There are 2 ways to go about this but let me just first say that if you get a popup that says something like "click here to scan your computer" Or "delete virus now" or any thing like that DO NOT CLICK ON IT!! I can not stress this enough. If you click anything other than the x on these popups you are just setting yourself up for more problems!

Now how to go about removeing spyware and viruses. Spyware is usually a program running on your computer in the bacground. So you can just go into your taskmanager with ctrl+alt+delete, click on the processes tab and you will get a long list of programs running. You may not understand the list but all you have to do is look for the program that is taking up 50-99% of your cpu memory and simply highlight it and click end program. This will shut down the spyware application.

Some spyware programs shield themselves from this tecnique and you cant kill a virus this way so the better option is to get an antivirus and anti spyware program! There are several free ones on the net but I allways stand by the logic that if it is free there is a reason. I reccomend Norton Internet Security for all you antivirus and spyware needs. It is the industry standard in antivirus programs and a watered down version probably came on your computer. The full version is sweet and will most definatly get rid of all your viruses and spyware and keep them off! This program is one of the best investments you can make for your computer and I highly recomend you do it.

You can get Norton Internet Security at Norton.com

And now we delve deeper..;.

Dont you hate it when you house is filled with junk you bought but never use. I mean seriously look around I bet you could find 100 things to take to good will right now and you would never miss any of them!!! Well your computer is the same way. Over time all those programs you have downloaded and the ones that are installed with updates add up. The average computer user only needs 5-10 programs on their computer, howerver, most computers have well over 100 installed. See the problem here?

Now this is a really simple fix. All you have to do is click on start/window depending on whether your using vista or xp, then click the controll pannel button. Once in the controll pannel go to add or remove programs. This will bring up another list (bet your sick and tired of long lists right about now but please bear with me i promise it is worth it^_^).

Now just remove any program that says used rarely. These are the ones that you never use and are just taking up space on your hard disk. This process could take a while since you have to uninstall each program individually and you probably have a ton of them. Simply uninstall one program then the next then the next and so on till you have only the programs you actually use left.

Ok... Just a little more.... You done? O.K. good Well on we go....

Drivers are literaly the driveing force of your computer. The drivers tell all your computers hardware i.e video card, sound card, monitor, processor, and everything else in your computer what to do. If you have ever had jumbled sound or fuzzy picture on your screen then you can bet that a driver issue is to blame. Out of date driver issues are the cause of more problems than any 2 of the above issues i have already mentioned!

Now there are 2 ways to update drivers. Manually which involves you going to all your hardware manufactures websites and searching for the drivers yourself and installing them yourself which could take hours!

Now for the good way....And this is where that Uniblue Powersuite comes in handy. It has a program called Driver Scanner built into it. This program goes into your computer and identafies all your hardware then goes to the net and automatically downloads all the drivers for all the componants of your computer! This is emensly faster than doing it yourself and you dont run the chance of downloading the wrong driver. If you are not very techie then this is probably the best bet for you.

Just one more step.......and its a big one!

Oh no......!!!! Defrag, crap this is going to take all night!!! Yep it is. If you use the built in defrag tool on your computer. But if you took my advice and downloaded that uniblue powersuite you will be thanking me about right now. The uniblue defrag tool built into speed up my pc is about 1000% faster than the one built into your computer. If your using uniblue then Go and open speed up my pc and click the defrag button and press start. Thats it!

If you want to use the disk defragmenter built into windows then go to start and click run. Type in dfrg.msc and this will pull up the defrag tool. simply click on the drive you want to defrag (probably local c. drive) adn click the defrag button at the bottom, then wait..........still waiting.........still waiting!!!
The windows version of the defrag tool really does take forever and has several limitations. I recommend you get a professional disk defrager for better results! The windows version dose little for your computer where as a pro defrager will add several gigabytes to your hard drive and also make your computer programs run a heck of a lot faster. If you bought my recommended uniblue product then your good^_^ (see i told you it would come in handy!) other wise you can check out disk keeper. that is an awesome program and the industry standard for disk maintenance!

Well if you took my advice and went all the way through this guide in order then your computer should be restarted nowand you should have seen a huge diffrence. Ya did didnt ya?! Enjoy it because your computer is now faster than ever and will stay that way forever. I told you the work was worth it^_^
Be sure to leave me some feedback below and let me know exactly what you thought of the lens!^_^