Hi there too!
Over the time since you bought your PC, you might have installed a lot of programs like Anti-virus/Firewall/office/photoshop/video-music players. Some of these eat up a lot of your RAM memory. And some programs like Real Player, Nero CD burning, download managers, and many others clutter around in your system tray which you can see by expanding the < button to show the hidden icons. Most such programs start up as your PC boots up and hence the long wait to boot up.
A much better option is to have 2 PCs...one for internet connectivity and another for work, if you can afford that :-D. But it makes sense.
1. It's possible that your computer may have so many background programs running that there is not enough main memory to run your main programs. All icons in your computer's system tray are background programs using memory.
To see and remove all running background programs:
a. Press the Ctrl + Alt + Delete keys at the same time.
b. Click any program or task except Explorer or Systray.
c. Then click End Task.
Repeat steps b and c to quit all programs except Explorer and Systray which are necessary components of Microsoft Windows.
You should now have a clean system, however you have just removed the programs from your computer's memory, they will all return the next time you start Windows.
If you don't want certain background programs starting when you boot, use the Start/Search function to find the program and either configure it not to run at startup, remove it from Programs/Startup, or delete it from your system.
2. Your hard drive could be too full of data to function efficiently. There should be at least 300MB-500MBs of free space to allow for disk file chores. Note that this mostly applies to the C: drive or whatever drive your Window's cache is on.
If your C: drive is too full, delete unused programs on the C: drive to make space.
3. Your computer could have a fragmented hard drive. This results from programs being loaded and deleted. Run the Window's hard drive defragmenter (Defrag) once a month.
4. If you have 256 MB of memory or less, or you like to play games, you may not have enough system memory to run your software efficiently. You should probably upgrade to 512 MB or more of system memory.
5. You could have old or conflicting Windows device drivers. An example would be you might actually have two entirely different video drivers on your system and Windows could actually be alternately using both of them.
To prevent this problem, First boot the computer in Safe Mode by pressing and holding the F8 key during startup, after the DOS memory check has completed.
While in Safe Mode select Start/Settings/Control Panel/System/Devices. Click on all the devices and see if the various drivers have any yellow or red exclamation marks (which indicates a driver conflict) and also determine if there are any duplicate drivers that can be eliminated.
You may have to delete and reload a driver to correct these problems. Duplicate drivers can and should be deleted.
6. As each new Windows program is installed and uninstalled, it leaves behind parts of itself that can slow down or crash your computer. These are mostly .dlls and other shared files.
It's also very possible when uninstalling a program that needed Windows system files can be deleted. When your computer asks if you want to uninstall shared files it's usually safest to say no -- even if your uninstall program claims the files are not being used.
Old Windows drivers can be found by booting into Safe Mode, then opening Control Panel/System/Devices and ridding your system of old drivers.
Another option is to use various system cleaning software, like Norton Utilities, Windoctor etc.
Otherwise, the only real answer to this problem is to reload Windows into a new directory which eliminates all old junk and leftover files. This is something to do last, as you will also have to reload all your Windows settings, drivers, and programs.
7. Your computer could be full of adware, spyware, viruses, or trojans. These are all nasty programs that literally take over the functioning of your computer so they can run their programs. You definitely don't want any of this junk on your computer. To get rid of these parasite programs, and to prevent them from installing in the first place, you need and up-to-date firewall, anti-virus, and spyware removal programs.
These are three separate software programs that must be running at all times except for when you are not plugged into the Internet. It is very important that these programs continuously update themselves or they will become out-dated and will no longer be useful. These programs can be purchased together or from separate manufacturers.
5 ways to speed up your PC
By following a few simple guidelines, you can maintain your computer and keep it running smoothly.
1. Free up disk space
By freeing disk space, you can improve the performance of your computer. The Disk Cleanup tool helps you free up space on your hard disk. The utility identifies files that you can safely delete, and then enables you to choose whether you want to delete some or all of the identified files.
Use Disk Cleanup to:
* Remove temporary Internet files.
* Remove downloaded program files (such as Microsoft ActiveX controls and Java applets).
* Empty the Recycle Bin.
* Remove Windows temporary files.
* Remove optional Windows components that you don't use.
* Remove installed programs that you no longer use.
Tip: Typically, temporary Internet files take the most amount of space because the browser caches each page you visit for faster access later.
To use Disk Cleanup
1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Cleanup. If several drives are available, you might be prompted to specify which drive you want to clean.
2. In the Disk Cleanup for dialog box, scroll through the content of the Files to delete list.
Choose the files that you want to delete.
3. Clear the check boxes for files that you don't want to delete, and then click OK.
4. When prompted to confirm that you want to delete the specified files, click Yes.
After a few minutes, the process completes and the Disk Cleanup dialog box closes, leaving your computer cleaner and performing better.
2. Speed up access to data
Disk fragmentation slows the overall performance of your system. When files are fragmented, the computer must search the hard disk when the file is opened to piece it back together. The response time can be significantly longer.
Disk Defragmenter is a Windows utility that consolidates fragmented files and folders on your computer's hard disk so that each occupies a single space on the disk. With your files stored neatly end-to-end, without fragmentation, reading and writing to the disk speeds up.
When to run Disk Defragmenter
In addition to running Disk Defragmenter at regular intervals—monthly is optimal—there are other times you should run it too, such as when:
* You add a large number of files.
* Your free disk space totals 15 percent or less.
* You install new programs or a new version of Windows.
To use Disk Defragmenter:
1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Defragmenter.
Click Analyze to start the Disk Defragmenter.
2. In the Disk Defragmenter dialog box, click the drives that you want to defragment, and then click the Analyze button. After the disk is analyzed, a dialog box appears, letting you know whether you should defragment the analyzed drives.
Tip: You should analyze a volume before defragmenting it to get an estimate of how long the defragmentation process will take.
3. To defragment the selected drive or drives, click the Defragment button. Note: In Windows Vista, there is no graphical user interface to demonstrate the progress—but your hard drive is still being defragmented.
After the defragmentation is complete, Disk Defragmenter displays the results.
4. To display detailed information about the defragmented disk or partition, click View Report.
5. To close the View Report dialog box, click Close.
6. To close the Disk Defragmenter utility, click the Close button on the title bar of the window.
3. Detect and repair disk errors
In addition to running Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter to optimize the performance of your computer, you can check the integrity of the files stored on your hard disk by running the Error Checking utility.
As you use your hard drive, it can develop bad sectors. Bad sectors slow down hard disk performance and sometimes make data writing (such as file saving) difficult, or even impossible. The Error Checking utility scans the hard drive for bad sectors, and scans for file system errors to see whether certain files or folders are misplaced.
If you use your computer daily, you should run this utility once a week to help prevent data loss.
To run the Error Checking utility:
1. Close all open files.
2. Click Start, and then click My Computer.
3. In the My Computer window, right-click the hard disk you want to search for bad sectors, and then click Properties.
4. In the Properties dialog box, click the Tools tab.
5. Click the Check Now button.
6. In the Check Disk dialog box, select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box, and then click Start.
7. If bad sectors are found, choose to fix them.
Tip: Only select the "Automatically fix file system errors" check box if you think that your disk contains bad sectors.
4. Protect your com