Busting those slow running Windows Machines Myth's

Busting those slow running Windows Machines Myth's

Most of the time it's unlikely to be a hardware problem.

However a failing hard drive with bad sectors can also cause major problems

There are many reasons why a computer would start to run slower
over time.

The most obvious would be a virus slowly filling your hard drive space
or removing some system files, a virus could have taken charge of your machine when online.

A windows machine is basically centrally run by a registry file system,
this could be getting clogged with old or redundant files.

Not all the programs you remove are removed, many remain slowing the processes.

This reg file takes longer to process with the old files lying around with some still issuing
instructions. The reg file over time becomes fragmented also.

Windows itself may have destroyed some systems files when updating it's not fool proof.

Some backup programs don't recognise the new hard drive structures, ( GPT) ( GPT provides a more flexible mechanism for partitioning disks than the older Master Boot Record (MBR) partitioning scheme that was common to PCs. ) and can duplicate system files which will still run along side the designated system files duplicating the processes.

Other programs may start themselves at start up taking up processor time these programs
you may not be requiring on the day.

Windows self cleaning, file organising, background windows updates processes,and
defragging can all use resources.

Some of your bells, and whistles ( personalisation programs ) use processor time.

I am sure that some of our more professionally trained members will wish to add to this brief
article.

 

These are all good things and true, Something Back. A lot of times the default of how everything is set in the registry and the bloatware that new systems are sold with can literally drag a system down on its speed and performance, or drag it to a halt the more it continues with it on there. People usually want to have an antivirus on their computer, but they don't realize how much it slows the whole system down especially if you don't have a lot of ram or a fast hard drive to keep up with the demands of it.

There are ways to tweak the registry and make it more efficient, to shut off background programs and services that are constantly running, and other programs that start up with the PC that slow it down by using msconfig from the run box. The same way that viruses and malware slow down a computer and bloat things, the services and programs that normally run but are not needed will, too. For example, Microsoft has defaults to where they leave "Parental Controls" on. Do you really need parental controls on your own computer as an adult? More than likely not, but that takes up ram and runs as a process which can be turned off. If you're not trying to control your laptop or desktop remotely through Microsoft's remote networking module (different from any other remote networking service which works fine without it like LogMeIn, PCAnywhere, or TeamViewer), then you can turn that off as well. If you're not running a web server or DNS server, you can turn off the DNS services. If there are no smart cards used on the system, the service for that can be disabled and speed up the system and reduce the amount of slowdown in the background. If you don't have or use a CD or DVD burner on a system or plan to use one externally, then you can turn off the CD/DVD burning service. All of these things add up and slow down the computer significantly. Whether it's a newer or older computer, you can often shut these off and have a much faster windows system. If you find that you need them later on, you can always go back and reenable them again.

I agree that you should only use maintenance programs when they are needed, and not keep them running in the background when they are not. Manually run programs for upkeep are always best, because you usually don't have to run them that often and it's just a few mouse clicks when or if you do. Having the program to monitor it running in the background does slow down the PC a lot. So do any other programs that run constantly only to check for updates to a web browser or something like that.

There's other things that run in the background from Microsoft even if you shut off the services you don't need, like indexing. This eats up CPU power and slows down hard drive access constantly every time it tries to index new data added to a system or organize it for you that you may not need. Turning that off still lets you search the desktop and other locations, just not as quickly when you do. If it's not something that you use all the time, then it's safe to turn off, and saves you a lot of hits on speed and performance later whenever you're not using it.

Another bottle neck is slow internet. You can increase the TTL and packet sizes of what you send and receive for much better throughput of your data with your ISP. If your computer has to wait for data to be received or sent back, then that too will slow down the system if the browser or other internet-enabled programs have to use wait states and slow down a program or other network-enabled programs on the system when they do.

These are just a few small things, but they all count and can make a system faster or slower by default. Faster RAM helps some, too. If the bus speed can support 1666MHZ ram and a person is only using 1333MHZ or 1066MHZ, the difference in latency time will become noticed with the larger and more demanding programs that need to move data to and from ram in large amounts. It won't be as noteworthy on smaller programs or if you have an SSD drive, but if you try to run many small programs at once, it will become noticed that way too.

I seldom use Windows on a machine anymore unless it is virtualized, but even in a virtual system I make sure I optimize it as much as possible so that it taxes the virtual environment less and still performs better than it would be by default. Whether you are configuring it for a bare metal machine or to run in a VM, you should always go about optimizing it and keeping it in good shape, while making sure you only have the programs you need running at startup and in the background.

 

Useful post, thanks a lot. Some weeks ago my fairly new laptop was starting to run slowly, thankfully I could find the solution to it. I disabled a lot programs from starting automatically every single time I started Windows! Problem solved.

 

Very good, and detailed article.



Thanks IBMPC8088

 

Thank you everyone for this thread, as I now understand why my laptop ran so slow. Here I thought by using CCleaner so much that it has something to do with it, and those survey sites that I worked on also did damage to it.

I wish I have more knowledge on how to figure out what is on my computer and how to turn it off.