My Gaming Laptop

Understanding how to fix a slow computer can often be tricky to do as it is hard to know where to start when no exceptions or errors are being displayed. This article takes a broader view to fixing a slow computer by highlighting some of the main causes of poor PC performance.

Prior to starting into any changes it is worthwhile backing up your data first.

• Disk Space: It is common knowledge that Windows recommends having 10% of your disk space kept free for use by the operating system for caching and virtual memory. Once it goes below 5% then your computer will grind to a halt. Remove cached files and any applications that you don’t use any more if you want to free up space quickly.
• Applications: Open the Task Manager on the Processes tab and observe which applications use the most memory (mem usage column). You can see here how to fix a slow computer by choosing which applications to either close or investigate. They may have performance issues so research known issues and updates that may speed things up.
• Reboot: This may seem like the catch all approach to every computer issue but in this case it has some validity. A reboot will clear the RAM memory cache of any application data it is holding onto erroneously. Sometimes closing applications (e.g. browsers) clears the RAM but some software have faults/threading issues which may hog the memory even after closing.
• Fragmentation: A fragmented hard drive basically results from the operating system storing your documents as thousands of small data clusters/fragments. This makes great use of free data sectors, but increases disk access times and RAM usage in the long term. Use the free Windows Disk Defragmenter (or any of the commercially available tools) to reassemble fragments into a more easily readable manner. It is worth doing this as part of regular computer repair and maintenance activities on a monthly basis.