is your computer slow

Your computer is taking a long time to start or not even starting properly. What can I do about it?

When installing new programs there is often a little tick box that is selected by default which says “Run on startup“. Before you know it, you have 10 programs trying to start when you switch your computer on or reboot and all greedily trying to load first by using the computers memory or CPU. This can slow your computer down considerably.

Some of the worst offenders of this are and Chat clients such as Yahoo Messanger, Sharepoint, Drive, Lync, AOL chat etc etc

skype-iconBy stopping these programs from loading on startup (In Skype goto Tools – Options – General and “un-tick”, “Start Skype when I start Windows”) your computer will start much quicker.

Assuming you have done this for Skype and your various chat clients but your computer is still taking an age to start, then you need to look a little deeper into what is happening.

windows-task-manager

When your computer is starting up hit “Ctrl-Alt-Delete” buttons all at the same time and then select “Start Task Manager

The Task Manager shows you all the applications and processes being run by your computer at that very moment. You will see the amount of CPU Usage going up and down …on startup this can be very high but once settled down should be running at less than 50%. This will vary depending on how much memory or your computer has. Computers with 1GB of RAM will have a higher work rate than those with 4 or 8GB of RAM.

Make sure you have the tick box selected show processes from all users then click on the CPU and Memory column descriptors to reorder the list in terms of CPU usage and Memory Usage.

what-is-igfxsrvcIf you notice a program running that you do not recognise, does not appear to be associated with , your computer's manufacturer, anti- products etc… then take a note of the item and google-it as I did with the name igfxsrvc.exe which I was not familiar with so I google it. From the results I am confident it is harmless.

If you find a process you suspect of beig a virus or malware…simply highlight that process and click on “End Process” if this appears to your you now need to figure out what is causing that process to run as the next time you restart your computer the process will again be activated automatically.

Check and Cleanup your Startup processes

Ccleaner-startup

A simple tool for removing unwanted start-up processes can be found in the FREE CCleaner utility. Use this utility to identify start up processes, disable them and then uninstall them using the tools-> uninstall feature.

What else can I do to speed up my computer

The quickest and easiest way to increase the speed of your computers start-up and performance generally is to increase the amount of RAM memory it has. There are still many 's and out there with only 1GB of RAM. This was fine for Windows but if you are Running Windows Vista, 7 or 8 then you need a minimum 2GB memory and ideally 4GB or 8GB (but you may not have enough memory slots or your computer to accommodate this extra RAM) … check the specification of your computer online before buying or installing the extra memory.

Need more ?

If you live in Western , and you need any kind of , please bring your computer to us or call us out. You can contact us here.

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