I just bought a new computer and I don’t want to have to replace it soon or get any viruses on it. I purchased an anti-virus program but what do I do about the speed of my computer? I have the highest internet connection speed from comcast but I’m afraid I’m downloading too much on my computer that is making it go slower than wen I first bought it. Will watching videos from UTUBE and other videos on the internet take up space on my computer and make it go slower? Does downloading music and videos to my computer use up a lot of space? And does adding pictures to my photo gallery use a lot of space? What should I avoid doing on my computer to ensure that it lasts a long time with me?
Related posts:
8 responses so far ↓
1 Samuel Adams // Sep 16, 2008
Filling up your hard drive does not affect performance. Routine maintenance will keep your computer in good condition. There are several things you can do to increase the "speed" of your computer.
1) Clean up the disk. Uninstall unneeded programs (especially those that run at startup and/or put something in the system tray), run Disk Cleanup, and defragment the drive. This is a good first step that will almost always take a few seconds off boot time and application loads for any computer.
2) Stomp auto-starting programs. Click Start > Run and type "msconfig" at the prompt. Click the Startup tab and look at all that junk that loads when you launch your PC. Do you really need "Adobe Reader Speed Launch"? Probably not. Turn off anything else that looks useless, but be careful not to disable your anti-virus and important system components.
3) Run a full anti-virus and anti-spyware scan. I would recommend using AVG Free Anti-virus, Spybot - Search and Destroy spyware remover and SUPERAntiSpyware remover. These programs are all free.
4) Clean up the registry. CCleaner, available at http://www.ccleaner.com is free and worth running. It will also remove unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space.
2 Buffy // Sep 16, 2008
I know how you feel. The things that will take up the m ost room on your computer is your music and pictures. Software barley takes up anyroom. And watching videos online doesnt do that at all because it is not actually a file on your computer. Just make sure you get rid of anything you do not need. Go through it every now & then and clean it up. Sometimes computers are just slow. I have a emachines computer and it runs so slow on the interent and my boyfriend has a Cannon(we both have the same amount of music and pictures) and his runs perfectly!
3 sentner // Sep 16, 2008
Installing a lot of programs will slow it down. Also, the anti-virus software can slow it down if it’s not a decent one. I personally use Avast (it’s free) because it uses very little processor time and does a good job of catching viruses.
Avoid installing things like toolbars and such. NEVER click on a pop-up that says something like “Your computer is going slow, do you want to diagnose” or “Would you like to scan your computer for spyware”. These are things that actually install spyware on your computer.
The other thing that slows computers down over time is hard drive fragmentation. That is when files are spread out over all different parts of your disk. Kind of like a book when the pages got mixed up, and you have to search through it for the next page number. You can run a defrag program like PerfectDisk to help keep things running smoothly.
4 Luke // Sep 16, 2008
lol u stressed out, first off the only thing that will make it slower r viruses and repeadetly installing and uninstalling programs on ur computer. if u want to make it work good as new then reformat ur computer. Just may sure u backup the files u want.
5 Gregg J // Sep 16, 2008
I agree with Sam Adams there, save for a few things.
For starters, loading up your harddrive with a ton of files WILL affect system performance. However, unless you have over 80% of your drive full, it generally won't be noticable. Just be careful if you download way too much. An easy way to check is to go to My Computer, right-click on your harddrive (usually C:), then hit Properties. There's a nice little pie chart there that will tell you how full your harddrive is.
Second, when he talks about going into MSConfig and disabling startup services, BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL!! There are a lot of startup programs that are required by Windows to run, but they don't have any lables telling you what they are. Unless you're 100% sure about what one of the startup processes is, do NOT disable it.
6 Maurice P // Sep 16, 2008
it is very possible that by downloading some songs you may gotten hold of a corrupt file try to defrag your system then close all the programs your not using on your desk tray.( right bottom by the clock) to many open programs will cause it to run slower. hope this works for you.
7 cen // Sep 16, 2008
Don't worry about using space on your computer. For the most part, having a lot of data stored on your hard disk will not slow down your computer. You should leave ~10% of your hard disk space empty. Up to that point, however, you should not notice any difference in speed whether you have 75% of your HD space free or if you have only 15% of your HD space free.
What really slows your machine down is unnecessary processes that are running. Some of these may be malware, but most are probably legitimate programs that you simply don't need. Or maybe, if you're like me, you installed them at some point when you needed them, but only used them a few times. Unfortunately, many programs these days install processes that will load on startup, or even their own drivers for `virtual hardware`. If you want, you can check what processes are loading on boot by executing the following command:
Go to Start->Run and enter:
`msconfig`
Press [Enter] and look at the `Startup` tab. If you see any processes on this list that you know are unnecessary, disable them. Just be sure that you do not disable anything if you do not know what it is, since it could actually be something important. Also, don't be afraid to look up a process if you don't know it's function. If you are not sure if a process is necessary or not, type it's name into Google and you should be able to find out what program it belongs to relatively easily. Then, you can decide for yourself if you need it enabled or not.
You said that the machine you are using is new, and that you are using an antivirus, so it is unlikely that you have a great deal of malware running on your system. Nevertheless, this does not mean that it is impossible. Do a full system scan with your antivirus, rather than a `quick scan`, `smart scan`, `memory scan` or any of the other non-exhaustive options that your specific antivirus may have. You should also use some of the popular free tools for clearing out unnecessary files and spyware, such as CCleaner and Spybot. These tools will not interfere with the antivirus that you already have.
8 buddy // Sep 16, 2008
After you purchase an Anti-Virus software, your computer will be slow until you get rid of this software, but it stops your computer from common everyday computer viruses that you will get constantly, in return, will make your computer even slower. It’s best that you keep this Anti-Virus software.
Leave a Comment