Computer Pc Medic, is a computer repair, Fort Collins Colorado business. This helpful article, “Why is My Computer Running so Slowly”, came as a result of questions from our loyal customers. We get many calls from home and business clients, who are frustrated with their slow computer. “Please fix my slow computer”, is the common plea! They remember when their computer use to be fast, and now it is practically unusable. It is important to note that there are many causes of why a computer has slowed down. Some of the major causes can be because of an aging or defective hard drive, a computer virus infection, corrupt device drivers, corrupt operating system files, a fragmented hard drive, a corrupt file system, a full hard drive and too much software running at the same time. In this article we will only address the “too much software running” causation. A new computer is similar to moving into a new home, were the house initially empty and there is plenty of room to store your stuff. Years later when you move out, you can’t believe how much stuff is now occupying those spaces. The computer’s hard drive is similar to the storage spaces in your home. When you first buy a new computer, the hard drive is mostly empty, except for the Windows operating system and some “bloatware”. Considering that a computer’s hard drive capacity doesn’t change, the problem is that software that has been added. So where does this software come from? What is slowly eating away at the hard drives capacity? Here is a list of hard drive space consumers.
- Daily or weekly Windows security and bug fix updates
- JAVA and .NET
- Temporary files that are created by the operating system and Internet browsers
- Software that you download, such as down-loaders, music and video players, Flash players
- Fun things like, free games, free music and educational software
- Important things like antivirus software and it’s ever-growing database, Internet browsers, PDF readers and writers
- Work related software like MS Office, Quick Books, Quicken, webpage development and maintenance, point of sale software
- How about all of those pictures from your iPhone and your iTunes music
- Things you didn’t ask for, like, useless browser tool bars, coupon programs and other garbage that got installed, without your consent, when you installed some important software
- Software that is installed to allow your printer to work properly
So you are probably getting the idea of how your computer hard drive got so full. So how does that affect computer performance? The more software that is installed on your computer, the more processes(applications and services) that are running and vying for limited computer processing time (CPU) time. Services, can be running even if the associated application is not running. For example, iTunes (the application) installs a service called Bonjour (a CPU hog). Bonjour is always running even if you aren’t using iTunes. Eventually, the CPU and hard drive are overwhelmed with all of the processing needs, and the important application software does not get enough CPU time to operate properly. In addition, a mostly full hard drive lacks room for the operating system to create its temporary files. Computer Pc Medic technicians, have seen hard drives so full, that the operating system cannot function and comes to a halt. One way you can get a little more computer speed is to uninstall all unnecessary software, being careful not to remove any important operating system components. If you are like most people, you find it scary at the thought of removing software from you computer. Our Computer Pc Medic computer repair technicians are trained to carefully remove and disable software that is no longer used or shouldn’t be on your computer in the first place. Our technicians can detect bad hard drives and computer viruses (and safely remove them). Call (970)372-1231 for questions and to get help for your slow computer.