Tips for Speeding up your PC

[TacoBelle]

Ok, so some of us aren't really all that tech-savvy. We do well to know how to install add-ons in our browsers of choice, run malware scans, and turn on a VPN.

However, we still have computer problems. You know when you get a new PC, and everything runs so quickly? But after a year or two, it starts kinda being slow/laggy?

What are your suggestions to keeping your computer running in tip-top shape? Do you physically open the cover and use compressed air to blow out the dust frequently? Do you defrag it periodically?Do you give offerings to the PC/Mac gods?


When answering, please try to refrain from using techie-jargon that some of us might not understand. Thanks in advance!

 

[JerryBoBerry]

General Cleanup and Maintenance

I'm going to assume people already have a Firewall and an Anti-Virus of their choice installed. There's many good free ones that can be had by a simple google search. This is also primarily for Windows software. I haven't delved into Mac stuff, but I'm sure there's versions of this stuff available.

Ccleaner.
Grab the free version. This is the main one that takes care of the majority of slow down issues. Literally. If I have a neighbor ask me to help with their computer issues, this is the first thing I install and run. I'd like to say run this about once every month or two, but the reality is I tend to run it when I notice stuff slowing down.
In it I would run Cleaner in the main section. But also under the Registry section I would scan for issues and let it correct them (I don't bother with the registry backup it offers to do).
Then also under the Tools section go to Startup and look at what all programs you have starting up every time your computer is turned on. Ccleaner itself will try to auto-run, so will any cloud service, keepass, graphic tablet drivers, printer monitors, the list is endless. Almost all of them are not actually needed. They are nice to have, but they take time time to start and resources to run. So disable or delete them if you want a zippier computer. With the disable option you can always enable them again easily if you make a mistake.

Cleaner, Registry, Startup Items. Check them all in here regularly.



Defrag.
I don't run this too often really. Maybe once a year or as I notice stuff running slower. And I should point out if you are running Windows 10 and you have a new SSD (solid state drive) hard drive you don't really need to run a defrag at all. I only run it on older regular [platter] hard disk drives. On SSD's Win 10 is doing what is called 'Optimize' on a regular basis by default now. You can check on that by right clicking on your drive letter in a file explorer, then under the Tools tab you'll see Optimize. That will show you if it's turned on for that drive, how long it's been since last run, and what its schedule is set for. Also you can click Change Settings there to change how often it runs.




Chrome itself.
Under Settings > Show Advanced Settings. Clear that stuff from the beginning of time. If I notice a slow down or anything odd happening in Chrome this is the FIRST thing I do. It clears up most of the problems right there.
Also look at your extensions. They are nice to have, but if you absolutely don't need them, get rid of them. If you look in task manager, every single one of those extensions are starting up with chrome. That not only uses memory but takes time to load. If you are having problems getting onto your camsite try running an incognito Chrome window (by default that doesn't load any extensions). If it loads fine then, you have a problem with an extension interfering with what you're doing.

(these are the settings I use)



Malwarebytes Anti-Malware free version.
I run this just occasionally to help clean up extra stuff that's missed by everything above. Maybe every few months, or when I remember. I don't keep it in the startup list of programs so it isn't always monitoring.

NOTE: When you first install this the box that lets you click the 'Finish' button also has a check box to enable a free trial of the premium version. Uncheck that sucker!!! You downloaded the free version, that is supposed to stay free. But with that option checked it disables the free version after 30 days and requires you to pay for the upgrade. (sneaky fucking bastards) If you don't uncheck it right then it becomes a pain in the ass to uninstall it and wipe it out of your registry entries to be able to reinstall the actual free version and get it right the next time. So uncheck that, don't just whiz by the installation without looking.

(that checked option for premium trial, get rid of that)



That's about it for general cleanup stuff. Now I'll mention some other ways of keeping an eye out for problems.


Preventative Measures

Speedfan.
I don't bother with looking inside my PC for dust build up on a regular basis. This is where I decide if it's time to do that. Don't just install this when you think you have a problem, install it now. The idea with this software is to get a baseline reading when your computer is acting good. So get use to the temperatures now. The big ones I look at are the Core and GPU temps. See where they are for your computer normally, if they start going up a lot over time you know the dust is building up, maybe you have a fan failing, something. Time to clean the heatsink and fans.
On mine I just cleaned it all out good a couple weeks ago. So I know 21 C to 25 C is a normal range. I have heat alarms that go off if I ever get to 60 C. But if I start normally operating anything above 40 C I clean it out. The temps will vary for every computer so I can't give you a definitive temp to hope for. That's why it's important to look 'before' you have a problem so you know what is bad for you.
Also if you click on the S.M.A.R.T. tab while you are in there you can select each of your hard drives. I then choose the 'Perform an in-depth online analysis of this hard disk' option. That will open a webpage detailing the health of your hard drive. Do that and see what it looks like now. If it ever starts saying you have major issues going on (especially if it says the overall fitness of that drive is low) you are most likely going to have a hard drive failure. Back up your data IMMEDIATELY! You will probably be replacing it soon.




Worst Case Scenario Alternatives

These aren't maintenance suggestions as more what you can do ahead of time to prevent issues from keeping you off cam.

Portable Apps
This is free software you can install into a folder of your choosing anywhere, especially on a USB stick. Then when you run this software you can install a whole bunch of other software that all runs out of it. The idea here is it's portable, it doesn't install to your PC. So it can't get hosed at the same time as your computer.
While there's a bunch of stuff to choose from the reason I mention it here is specific software that is handy to be able to have on hand.
ClamWin - a virus removal tool.
Hijack This - registry entry checker for corruption.
McAfee Stinger - on-demand fake virus alert remover.
Spybot - spyware remover.
BleachBit - very much like Ccleaner.
CPU-Z - lets you see information about your computer
UltraDefrag - defrag obviously
Wise Disk Cleaner - obvious reason

Those are all good things to have ahead of time and on a stick that can be run whenever you get a problem.






If you do run into a situation where you just can't get your browser to run, or load the cam site, there are other things you can do to get by immediately while you fix the problems tomorrow. Most everyone knows to have Chrome and Firefox installed so if one goes down they can try the other. But there are other browsers as well that are based on those two and work also.

Comodo Dragon Internet Browser
Chromodo Private Internet Browser
Those and Chrome itself are all based on Chromium browser, which also works great.

Chrome 'portable' This is Chrome itself, but it's a portable version. Meaning it does not use registry entries or the same folder for files as your normal chrome installation. What that means is it's a separate program. If your main Chrome hoses up you can run this just fine. You can also install it to a folder on a usb stick and run from any computer as is. So you can have it normally unplugged from your computer with zero chance of it getting corrupted at the same time as your regular installation.

Any browser that is based on Chromium and lets you sign into your google account will sync in all your bookmarks, extensions and saved login information.

Comodo IceDragon Browser Based on Firefox if you prefer to have a backup for that with all of those plugins.

Those are browsers. But in case you have a total hard drive failure or virus totally wipe out your stuff there's still an option for immediate camming. Linux (yes i know you're groaning, but just read on for the reasons).

If you want to have a total backup solution have and have a spare external hard drive, or even a usb stick laying around this is an option. Install Linux Mint 64 bit version to an external hard drive and you can run that any time you want. Don't do a dual boot or any other nonsense, just make it a separate OS that you tell your computer to boot from when needed. It's very easy to use, and you can have everything needed for camming ready to go. Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, Opera...they all run in linux and work fine with your logitech webcams. I routinely do skype and google hangout calls with mine. And I've tested turning on my cam on MFC, works fine with no additional setup.
So with that option your entire hard drive could fry and you could still boot from this external hard drive installation and be back camming in minutes (literally just the time it takes to start the computer) if you have it set up ahead of time.



TL-DR - Ccleaner, Ccleaner, Ccleaner, Ccleaner, Ccleaner!

 

[Sevrin]

I use an SSD as my boot drive, and for the games I'm currently playing. Along with sufficient memory and regular maintenance with CCleaner, my current computer is pretty speedy, especially when booting. I occasionally update a backup image of the SSD on a secondary hard drive.

 

[ramblin]

Jerry - Absolutely stellar post.

I do want to pick on this bit a little though...

21 C to 25 C is a normal range

As you caution, normal numbers will vary per person. For me, 21C to 25C (71F to 77F) is a normal range for my room. It is definitely not a normal range for my cores under load. TjMax (maximum junction temperature, not the clothing discounter) for my GPU is 95C, and for the CPU 73C. CPU core temps can get up to about 110C before it self-throttles. So for my desktop, keeping package temps below 70C under max load is doing fine.

 

[weirdbr]

And for the lazy folks like me - every year or two, reinstall the computer from scratch if using windows. Odds are you will install fewer apps after the reinstall, you will get the latest drivers (without remains of the old versions lingering around), etc. For Mac I haven't needed to do that, as I've been unable to find any performance difference between my work laptop (reinstalled on every major OS X version) or my personal laptop (never reinstalled).

In terms of cleaning - I only do it every year or two, unless for some reason I need to open the case, but that's only because I live in a mild climate and performance isn't much of an issue for me. But if you live in a hot place and/or your game/cam stutters over time, clean the fans - that's a sign the processor isn't being cooled enough and their thermal protections are kicking in - they progressively slow down to reduce how much heat they generate so they don't burn up (and cleaning the fans has an extra benefit - most fans are controlled by the motherboard based on processor temperature so if the cooler is clean and working well the fans will spin slower and be quieter).

 

[Pandagrl]

this is all so very helpful i was looking for tips like this...thank you guys

 

[JerryBoBerry]

On SSD's Win 10 is doing what is called 'Optimize' on a regular basis by default now. You can check on that by right clicking on your drive letter in a file explorer, then under the Tools tab you'll see Optimize.

I just realized I forgot a step there. When you right click on the drive letter in file explorer, CLICK PROPERTIES. Then you'll see that box with the tools tab.

Oops.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

As you caution, normal numbers will vary per person. For me, 21C to 25C (71F to 77F) is a normal range for my room. It is definitely not a normal range for my cores under load. TjMax (maximum junction temperature, not the clothing discounter) for my GPU is 95C, and for the CPU 73C. CPU core temps can get up to about 110C before it self-throttles. So for my desktop, keeping package temps below 70C under max load is doing fine.

Absolutely. The temps can vary greatly for sure depending on conditions. Different CPU's, different heatsinks, ambient temperature of the room the pc is in. The CPU will never be lower than the temp of the room to begin with. So if you're living in the south, you have your AC off on a hot day, and the room is 32 C (90 F), then your CPU would be hotter than that just having it on and doing nothing.

People who turn the temp up in their house during the summer and lower in the winter to save money will need to adjust what they think is a normal operating temp for their CPU cores.

I normally keep my place around the same temp year round. So it should stay consistent if it's clean. Running a stress test on mine for 20 minutes gets the CPU up 35C. That's based on a fully cleaned out fan and heatsink. So that's why I just arbitrarily chose 40 C as the threshold for me to clean out mine. I know at that point it's dirty enough to make it run hotter than if it were running full out under normal conditions. Then I set my bios alarms to go off after that at 60 C just to alert me in case I missed it being above 40 C.

And yeah, even that stress test temperature number varies for everyone's build. Just seems like a good standard to use to me.

 

[Jesse0328]

If you check the memory usage in your computer's task manager or utility monitor and it is regularly at or near the maximum, a RAM upgrade, if possible, may help improve the efficiency of the system.

RAM isn't a cure all by any means. You may get a bigger speed perception boost by upgrading to a solid state drive.

 

[ramblin]

If you check the memory usage in your computer's task manager or utility monitor and the usage is regularly at or near the maximum, a RAM upgrade may help improve the efficiency of the system.

RAM is also dirt cheap right now, so this is well worth doing if 1) you currently have less than 16GB 2) your computer can take more and 3) it's not a Mac with their ludicrous soldered-on memory. Someone that just streams might be fine with 8GB. If you make clips, I'd get at least 16.

www.crucial.com is a great place to start looking at memory, as they have a very complete online memory advisor as well as a downloadable scanner. Their prices aren't bad at all and the quality is good, but of course you can also take their advice and then complete the purchase elsewhere.

Do pay attention to how many slots you have and how many are full. e.g. if you have four slots, and two 4GB DIMMs in two of those slots, you could buy a 2x4GB kit for $36 to fill up to 16. If you've only got two slots with two 4GB DIMMs in them, you'd need to buy a 2x8GB kit for $66 and use those to replace the old ones. There are advantages to having all your memory match, but for most users having a variety of matching pairs will be fine unless crucial's site says otherwise.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

They are nice to have, but they take time time to start and resources to run.

You ever reread stuff you posted much later and only then realize a grammatical error? That 'time time' is making my eye twitch.

 

[justjoinedtopost]

I read 8 gb was the sweet spot for RAM a while back, who knows, maybe dated info. I have 8 gb, rarely uses more than 50%.

And you would think this is a no-brainer, but if you need to open your case and clean, for God's sakes, take that shit outside. Had to evacuate for about a half hour once.

 

[Shutterbuck]

Wicked good post there, @JerryBoBerry
I'm not the tech-iest dude out there. I know enough to get by but not so much as to get me in trouble
My old man used to dabble in building his own computers a few years back and it was always pretty evident to me that the more shit he fucked with improve his machine, the more time he spent fixing shit. I called this his Greg Brady phase... seemed like he was always in the back yard fixing his bike but you never saw him riding it.

Honestly, I'm pretty damned lazy when it comes to maintaining my computer, really. I remove the case and dust it out when I can audibly hear a difference in how frequently or long the cooling fans are running. Though in the past, I have used Speedfan which Jerry recommended above to monitor temperature and was quite happy with it.
I have most "regular maintenance" actions like defrag/tune-ups/etc. set on a schedule and I'm not even certain how often that occurs (I know I could look but as I said, I'm lazy).

Speed is essential in my world so here are a couple simple things I do to keep my machine from bogging down:
1) I keep next to nothing on my hard drive except programs crucial to my existence. I have a 2TB internal drive with pretty much nothing on it but my operating system and a shit pile of Adobe products. I keep all of my content catalogs on a triplet of LaCie Porsche 8TB external drives which are blazing fast as far as transfer rates go and fairly energy efficient.
2) RAM! 32 gigs of it. Between photo editing/cataloging/retouching and video editing/grading/exporting, this is crucial to me. 32G may be excessive for some but I often have a couple videos in export while I'm still editing another or retouching photos and have noticed a marked improvement since upgrading from 16G.
I would like to upgrade my graphics card one of these days but haven't chosen one as of yet... And I really don't have a problem with my current card.

Other than that, I really don't do anything else to keep my machine running "fast". Of course, I don't upstream a video feed through a plethora of webcam programs and extensions while streaming music for hours at a time like some folks around here.
I occasionally clear my cache on Chrome but rarely notice problems with it. I hear murmurings of some of the issues members and models alike have experienced with Chrome but I don't spend more than a few minutes a month or so on MFC so I'm honestly not experienced in a lot of those issues specifically.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

Speed is essential in my world so here are a couple simple things I do to keep my machine from bogging down:
1) I keep next to nothing on my hard drive except programs crucial to my existence. I have a 2TB internal drive with pretty much nothing on it but my operating system and a shit pile of Adobe products.

If you think you can take the plunge and reinstall your OS I would suggest you look into SSD's. I had never had one until April of last year when I decided to finally upgrade to Win 10. I bought a Samsung 850 EVO 250GB when it was on sale (it's now a little lower than what I paid then). It was by far the best upgrade I've ever done. The speed difference is astounding. With a fresh install my pc booted up in 14 seconds. All the programs run way faster. Microsoft Word popped up in less than a second. I have not regretted that purchase for a second.

These are the benchmarks for my SSD and my regular 2TB internal platter drive I use for file storage. You can see how much better it is now.

 

[LadyLuna]

So, right now, the CPU on my computer is what's holding it back. My ram is fine, but the CPU is going full-tilt most of the time. x.x And my partner recently upgraded everything except his video card and hard drive. The old hard drive is too slow, so that's holding his back. Basically, RAM isn't the only thing that determines the speed of your computer.

Anyway, here's what I try to do once a month. I fail, usually, and end up doing it every few months:

First I back everything up. Then I delete any files I'm not currently using. Then I run a couple things.

Start -> Programs -> Windows Administration Tools

Disk Cleanup then Disk Defragmenter

Disk Cleanup is first. Towards the bottom of it is an option to Clean Up System Files. Click on that.

You definitely want to select the temp folders. I select everything, because there's nothing on there that will break the computer if it's selected.

As mentioned, Windows 10 has it scheduled to Defrag regularly. You can change when that happens.

The more full your hard drive is, the slower your computer will run. Think of it this way- it takes a lot longer to find a specific piece of paper in a stack of 5,000 of them than it does to find it in a stack of 20. I keep all the files of content that I sell, and any documents I'm not currently working with, on an external drive.

So using the built-in disk cleanup keeps you from installing another program that takes up more hard drive space.

Now, something I do when I first set up my computer, that you might not realize you can do. Change what programs run at startup.

In task manager, go to the startup tab. Anything that has update in the name, leave on. Also, leave on the logitech utilities if you want the controller to be able to pop up automatically when you start using your webcam. Leave alone anything connected to hardware. Leave alone anything connected to security. But making it so Steam, Skype, and other such applications don't turn on until you specifically tell them to will make booting up your computer a hell of a lot faster, and they'll open up faster if you wait for the bootup sequences to be completely over before opening them.

If you're in Windows 10, go through your settings. Turning off notifications can speed up your computer (Under System).

 

[mutantdonut]

Necro'ing this thread cuz i got questions for @JerryBoBerry or other computer experts here...

How much does the aging process or wear & tear of hardware causes the computer to slow down?

I hear that wear & tear on the hard drive is a factor, although just want to confirm it with anyone here who knows. What about CPU, mobo, PSU, GPU, RAM, etc?

 

[Sevrin]

Almost all problems with computers slowing down are software related. Physical wear & tear used to be a lot bigger issue with hard drives than it is now. With hard disks fragmentation can occur, but then you can just run a good defragmentation program to solve the problem. The electronic components can be affected by heat over time, but then they'd be more likely to get glitchy or fail altogether than just slow down. It's a good idea to give the innards of your computers a good dusting, because dust reduces cooling and can contribute to heat damage.

 

[mutantdonut]

Almost all problems with computers slowing down are software related. Physical wear & tear used to be a lot bigger issue with hard drives than it is now. With hard disks fragmentation can occur, but then you can just run a good defragmentation program to solve the problem. The electronic components can be affected by heat over time, but then they'd be more likely to get glitchy or fail altogether than just slow down. It's a good idea to give the innards of your computers a good dusting, because dust reduces cooling and can contribute to heat damage.

I recently restored a 7 y/o laptop by doing a clean install of Win 7. I made sure to dust it off from the inside. Problem is that it's still running rather sluggishly after the clean install which kind of baffles me. My only guesses are either the hard drive is wearing out, or the 7 year gap in updated software is a little too advanced for an aged laptop.

Thoughts???

 

[Sevrin]

How much RAM do you have on it? With less than 4 Gb, it won't run Windows 7 with much zip. Your average laptop will always run slower than your average desktop of the same age. With a laptop, performance has to be balanced against energy consumption, which is not a priority with desktops.

 

[DFT]

Mutant, need to know more about the specs. Did it start with Win7?

Ran Windows for 20 years, never used a virus scanner. Best way to slow your system down is to have one, worse two - if you must, use Microsoft Security Essentials (I think they changed the name back to Windows Defender in 10). On the upside it's free. On the upside it's updated when you get your regular Windows updates. On the upside it's the least system slowing of AV. On the downside every 3rd party AV sellers say it's not as good as theirs. /tinyviolin for the bloodsuckers

Or get off the Merry-go-round of updating, fighting and paying Microsoft, install a Linux variant and have a safe, secure PC that can barely find a way to use up 4 gigs of ram. All the browsers are there, except IE, and work with MFC/web exactly the same as they do on any other OS. Yeah, big step. I have one Windows box left and it's what I spend the most time fixing, my Mint box is three years and two dist-upgrades old, no problems. Great place to start.

Like Jerry said no need to run defrag on a SSD. Just increases the wear. If you're running 7 or later the wear leveling should be active if you've kept updated. Samsung 830 here, 5 years old and nary a hiccup.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

All the browsers are there, except IE, and work with MFC/web exactly the same as they do on any other OS.

Oracle VirtualBox out of Linux Mint. You can download various Windows OS's for free. So you can have Edge and IE6 through IE 11 installed in Linux if you want, as well as any other Windows program running right out of a Windows environment.

Microsoft gives free Windows VirtualBox images specifically for using all their web browsers here.
http://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/windows/

 

[LadyLuna]

How much does the aging process or wear & tear of hardware causes the computer to slow down?

Wear and tear won't slow down the computer's speed. Wear and tear means the parts will physically break at some point.

I recently restored a 7 y/o laptop by doing a clean install of Win 7. I made sure to dust it off from the inside. Problem is that it's still running rather sluggishly after the clean install which kind of baffles me. My only guesses are either the hard drive is wearing out, or the 7 year gap in updated software is a little too advanced for an aged laptop.

Thoughts???

It's almost certainly the second one. Newer software is expecting the computer to have the newer hardware, and older software updates to fix holes and stuff, which makes it more bloated and needing the newer hardware to run.

 

[MrSwoob]

Great input but I i will add one thing.

I do IT for my job, I work from home, I make my living on the internet. I never have just one PC to get my work done, I have at least two, one desktop and one laptop. If one dies I can grab the other. I also have a macbook. I use all of them all the time. If one dies I have another, it is maintained and ready to go. I will not miss a beat.

Redundancy is very important. I would just add a second pc, laptop or whatever so I could keep work flowing. It is not a free option but oh so wise. The issue is not if your pc/mac will die it is when. I would also keep a large drive for files that I backed up to and a online service that i also back up to.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Bocefish]

If I recall correctly, malwarebytes, AVG, adaware, and bitdefender... all have free 30 day trials with simplified one click optimization options. Methinks bitdefender is currently rated the best, could be wrong, but that is what I currentlyprefer. Some people think the more free anti-malware programs you have running, the safer you are. Not true, running more than one can cause conflicts along with slowing everything down. It would also be a good idea to back things up and set a restore point prior to doing any of those one-click optimizations. .02

 

[penfold_43]

Defragmenting shouldn't be necessary these days unless the partition is very near to full (over 90%), as NTFS isn't affected by fragmentation nearly as badly as FAT based filesystems. It was a good move on Windows 3.1 / 95 / 98, but for anything from XP onwards, not so much. Don't let your drives get over 90% full.

Turn off autorun so when you plug in a USB memory stick or other USB device with storage, so it doesn't just install what's in the autorun (ditto for CDs/ DVDs). It should default to off in newer versions of Windows as Microsoft finally realised it was a Really Bad Idea.

The majority of slowdowns come from installing lots of rubbish, or "freeware" that comes with potentially unwanted programs as part of the installation that you have to go out of your way to deselect (video codec installers are particularly bad for this I've noticed). As the person that is on the receiving end of "oh, you work with computers, can you help me out with mine?" on a fairly regular basis, the cause of Windows slowing down is pretty much always the user installing tons of rubbish (note, OSX is equally vulnerable to this). When installing software, read every screen and make sure you're not agreeing to install some random thing you don't want that will run on boot and get in the way / slow things down forever after.

Antivirus programs are resource hungry. MSE / Windows defender is the best of the bunch in this regard, though as DFT said above, its competitors say it's the worst at detecting viruses. The free ones made by organisations that want to sell you a paid licence tend to be really intrusive as well, for my sins I have to compatibility test our stuff against some of them, a process that makes me want to gouge my own eyes out.


If you think your computer is playing up due to software issues, download, install and run malwarebytes, as well as removing viruses, it can remove "potentially unwanted programs" (stuff like adware, browser helper objects and other things that generally add nothing but get in the way and slow things down).

 

[MrSwoob]

I forgot to share one of my fav sites to download from
https://ninite.com/
NiNite provides clean downloads with out alot of extra's that you do not need. Any of the security software they have are all good and free

 

[QuietLurker69]

If your looking for ssd
check r/buildapcsales

SSD tend to hover around a certain price, once in a while they will dip.
Plus you can read peoples comments on how good a particular SSD is.