Looking for advices - How can I make my computer faster?

[Peter White]

How can I make my computer faster without spending a lot of cash i have a 5 Meg cable internet connection

 

[meorman]

Make sure you clean the temp files regularly, clear the cookies,offline webpages once you finished browsing, dont overload software which needs higher configuration, especially don't load any pc games.Install software which are necessary make sure you shutdown all the processes and switch on the shut down button for your pc. If you follow these steps im sure that your computer will be faster. Hope this helps!

 

[donaldsmith]

Make sure you clean the temp files regularly, clear the cookies,offline webpages once you finished browsing, dont overload software which needs higher configuration, especially don't load any pc games.Install software which are necessary make sure you shutdown all the processes and switch on the shut down button for your pc. If you follow these steps im sure that your computer will be faster. Hope this helps!

I agree with meorman and would like to recommend you to clean system's registry often; It will be beneficial for you to improve the performance of your personal computer.

 

[salikkhan]

yeah, sometimes, our system registry values are not set to defaults, and thus create problems.

 

[infoteam]

Backup your data then delete everything on your hard drive partition a couple of times to really make sure its all gone, re-install windows (or alt. Operating System) reinstall your programs and load your docs.

Make sure you have antivirus and firewall activated and install plenty of ram I make sure all my computers have 8gb - nothing more annoying than a laggy computer.

 

[pollostar]

You have to first need a good antivirus who is able to delete all kind of viruses like trojan and you need to disk clean up process and delete all temporary files and registeries and remove unwanted software.

 

[OkiTech]

Hi, an SSD hard drive will make your computer rock! They kind of on expensive side but makes computer superfast. Let's say an 80GB is more than enough. I set it as drive "C" and install operation system, Adobe suite on it and put another regular hdd as drive D for storage, etc. You can buy one today for $100 give or take 20 it is worth it. Clean system comes to ready state in like 10 sec, load photoshop / illustrator just 5-10 seconds

 

[printgirl]

Defragment the harddrive.

 

[Jeff]

I agree with UnlimitedBT. Even though they're still pricey compared to spinning drives on a capacity basis, an SSD for your boot & program drive is the way to go. A year ago I actually went with four Vertex2 ssds in a RAID and the throughput is better than I have ever gotten from a spinning disk array (comparing it with an 8-drive RAID array) and the low latency is phenomenal. There is no comparison in system or program load time, and I can't go back to spinning disks now for the boot / program directories. (I went with the OCZ Vertex2 ssds because at that time the intel x25e drives with the fast write as well as fast read speeds were quite expensive; now intel has the 5xx series but I'm not sure how they are in the real world; I'm tempted to get one.)

 

[OkiTech]

Yeah Jeff, we have recently bought a Intel I7 based dell and I haven't had a chance to put an SSD in it yet. It is feeeeeels reeeeeeeeeeallllllly sloooooooooooooow.

 

[Jeff]

Yes, I backup my workstations by cloning them using Acronis True Image. When I clone I actually clone the SSD array over to a 7200 rpm hard drive. Then I boot to make sure it comes up fine and the backup is ok. When the workstation boots from the 7200 rpm hard drive, it's incredible and very noticable how sluggish it is to launch programs, etc. in comparison to running off the ssd array. Once you get used to the quickness of the SSD, you can't go back.

 

[TCC]

Have you got any sort of budget at all? You can upgrade your computer for around £200 if you have the cash, get a decent processor, Intels are normally the best rather than AMD, decent amount of RAM about 8GB should normally be ok, but make sure you are running with 64 bit OS, and also I have just bought a Solid State hard drive, and saved my operating system and other programs I use regularly to this Hard drive, It runs so much faster!

 

[mtlprint]

1. Use versions of OS and software that match the hardware on your machine. Most of the new versions require better hardware, but have little differences in functionality.
2. Keep your OS clean. Do not use effects, desktop backgrounds and so on. Clean up all unneeded programs.
3. Keep your HDD clean.

 

[Uimeas]

Regularly delete any unwanted applications and files on your computer! Even simple stuff like cleaning the dust in the tower makes a huge difference!

 

[PPCRC]

I am glad this is a printing forums and not a PC support forums

No idea what PC you have, or what you have on it, but this is aimed at all of you here.

SSD will increase the speed of your PC if you are using it as the boot drive. Having an SSD in your PC as a second hard will increase transfer speeds, and increase the load up of some apps. However if it is not your main hard drive then it will be bottle necked by your main hard drive.

Having your PC full of programs and/or data (files) will not really effect the speed of your PC. However having loads of programs load up when you switch your PC on will effect the speed of your PC. Many programs such as Java, Google Chrome, mobile phone software load up when you turn your PC on. They load up so that IF you do use that program it can load up faster. 70% of the time you will not use these programs, so they are sat around using up your PC resources.
The best way to speed up a slow PC is to disable these programs. Disabling the programs from loading up WILL NOT remove the program from your PC. To disable programs from starting up when you turn on your PC you just need to follow this simple guide. http://www.netsquirrel.com/msconfig/

Defragging or repairing your registry WILL NOT make your PC faster. However if it dose increase the speed of your PC then then speed difference would be around 0.000001%...

Defragging the hard drive is a great way to speed up your PC.

Not installing paid for over the top anti virus is also a good way to speed up your PC. Having Norton or MacAfee on your PC may cause it to be slow as it is always monitoring your PC. Microsoft's free anti virus program dose the same as the paid for programs but uses a lot less resources.

Scanning your PC for Malware using http://www.malwarebytes.org/ might find problems that your anti virus dose not find.

ccleaner www.ccleaner.com is a great program for cleaning out any rubbish in your pc.

All the above links are free programs and direct links to the website.
If you need more in-depth help drop me an email Jamie@ppcrc.com

Hope this helps.

 

[tamponprint]

dear,you can install a 500G Removable Hard Disk to make you computer move faster.

 

[OkiTech]

SSD rocks!

 

[Jeff]

I'm still running a set of 4 ocz vertex2 ssds. I haven't had a chance to measure if performance has gone down after 2 years of use. They're still very fast and I have no complaints to date. (I'm running them off the intel controller on board.)
I thought I would try the intel 520 series next, but instead for a second workstation I gave 4 samsung 830 ssds a try in raid10 on an lsi controller and that also is running really well for me (the controller firmware booting is the slowest part. The ssds are really quick and windows loads almost immediately from the ssds. No comparison with spinning drives. I was worried about failures so I did raid-10 as I would for spinning drives; I'm not sure if that's necessary or not now, but the piece of mind was worth it for me at the cost of an extra 2 drives.) The samsung 840 pro is out now which is even faster.