How To Make Your Computer or Laptop faster with these cool tricks

Computers occupy a significant place in our day to day lives without them life is unimaginable and very complex as they help us in performing any task, simple or complex easily. But, what should be done if they are lagging now and then & their slowness is resulting in a decrease of our efficiency?

You can’t buy a new piece of hardware whenever your PC is slowing down, instead, we have segregated 15 steps through which you can renew the speed of your slow PC, which is both slowing you down and at times irritating you the maximum.

The 15 steps are logically arranged in such a way that you can perform one after the other to regain the speed of your computer & even after completing the 15 steps if your PC is still slow then it is a good time to change your PC & bring in a new one. :/

1) Check out your Task Manager

limit or end the hogging & lagging processes to speed up your PC instantly

If you can open the Task Manager, by clicking on the Ctrl + Alt + Delete (for Windows), then you can find the processes which are consuming the highest memory, huge amount of CPU, Disk, and Network. Once you find out which process is the culprit causing the slowness to your system, then you can end that particular process and continue rest of your work easily.

Google Chrome Case study:

Google chrome is one of the best browsers in the market and there are PC’s which run with the name of Chrome i.e, chrome books. Hence, you can notice how powerful is the Chrome browser. You can notice that all the modern browsers are occupying huge system resources in order to function in a full-fledged manner.

So, we can’t live without a browser in this modern world, but we can live without a browser if our activities are offline and switch on to the browser whenever it is necessary. In addition, close all the unused browser tabs instead of leaving them as such, because, every browser tab is considered as a single browser instance. That means that if you have 10 browser tabs opened, then that is equivalent to almost 10 browsers opened.

And, if you intend to save anything which you have browsed, you can use light weight applications like notepad or notepad ++ or MS word to save your data temporarily. This trick can reduce lag considerately during internet browsing on your PC & even modern laptops.

Developer Software Case Study

Everyone is turning towards app and software development now, and they are downloading, using development software like eclipse and visual studio which can occupy huge system resources. So try to manage your resources properly when you are working on a low power PC (The reason for the lag is because there is a difference between minimum RAM required to install a software and recommended RAM required for the software).If you have recommended amount of RAM, then no problem arises, but if you have minimum RAM, then you need to take care of certain tasks. This applies to high-end adobe software like photoshop, illustrator etc which occupy a lot of system resources.

2) Install best RAM / Memory cleaner software

Whenever you open an application or a software, many temporary and junk files get created which are of no use!  After closing the application,  they (junk files) don’t get automatically removed, instead, they have to be removed manually by us.
Finding the temporary files using the temp command through the Windows RUN doesn’t always guarantee removal of all the temporary and junk files! You need a software for that and the best software for this purpose is Piriform CCleaner, you have to pay a very few bugs to use their Premium version.
But, the lag in your machine is completely removed after installing and using the software, if you don’t want to buy the software before buying, then you can use their trial version for a limited period or use a free application with limited features.
Junk files are considered as one of the major reasons why a PC is lagging.  So, don’t just install CCleaner & leave it as such, but regularly run to remove the junk files which obstruct your user experience.

3) Remove Unnecessary Visual FX & Animations

 We generally tend to have a lot of Visual FX or animations on our PC, home screen etc. For example, an animated HD, GIF or normal animation wallpaper instead of Static Wallpaper! And this results in the load on your processor to accommodate the animation changes regularly as it doesn’t stop the moment you switch from Home screen to the other application, but the animation wallpaper gets loaded even during the other processes. :/The themes and color schemes after windows 7 are causing the delay if advanced among them are used! And you can use basic color scheme & theme for the maximum increase in the performance of your Pc.

Try to minimize or remove the unnecessary animations, visual FX on your PC to make it run at a faster pace than it is running now.

4) Remove Unnecessary Gadgets & Softwares

There are many gadgets occupying your desktop like fancy clock, calendar, Yahoo or Gmail notification bar and some other heavy gadgets. Try to remove them on your desktop and you can automatically notice the increase of the speed in your PC.

 Coming to Software thing, we install many softwares and forget to uninstall them which we are not using now! Due to this, there would be a lot of disk space occupied by them and causing the other imp softwares to adjust the available space only!Though you need all softwares, try to remove some softwares for which a substitute exists on the internet and whenever you need that application, you can simply use the browser instead of a software from your PC.

5) Use a proper Antivirus software

Prevention is better than cure in the case of any virus especially computer virus!

If you already have an Anti-Virus software, please do a system test in order to check if any virus is causing the issue. And, if you don’t have any Anti-Virus software, then you need to get one because, the virus is a program which can make your system slow as it takes the rights which are available only for OS and starts using for itself. There is a wide range of viruses which can harm your computer and some of them would actually irritate you by doing many activities by themselves without your intervention either!

So always use an AntiVirus which is trusted by the whole world and which upgrades its security with the increase in the viruses. There are many Anti-Virus providers who provide excellent protection to your machine like Avast, Mc Afee, Norton, Kaspersky etc. If you can’t afford the premium versions of them, at least, go for the basic or trial version which they offer for free, to at least prevent some Viruses from entering into your machine.

6) Restart your computer

 Whenever you feel that your computer is running slow then you can simply shut all the operations and run your Ccleaner once, so that it can erase the data which is stuck up in your PC’s RAM and obstructing it and then simply Restart your machine.

You might wonder how a simple restart of the computer would work, but there is a technical point here – starting a computer or laptop is considered as booting and during boot, a small program runs which would initiate the hardware parts to function along with the operating system, so that the process which the user requires are functioning properly.

While sometimes, if any technical glitches arise and due to some issue, the operating system is unable to utilize the hardware available effectively, then the operation which relies on that particular hardware would result in waiting for that hardware and result in lagging of the machine. Restarting the machine would reboot the machine and try to re-initialize all the existing connections between hardware and operating system software from beginning. This way, as all the hardware is in sync with the OS, it will not lag your system anymore and start to function normally.

So, this is the trick which every one of us follows, but not everyone is aware of the reason behind it. So If your PC is not regaining its shape after restarting, then you have to use some of the other techniques which we have discussed.

7) Reduce the App launches during the Start of PC

You can reduce the load time even by reducing the number of applications which load during the start of your PC, this can be done with the help of msconfig, you can open your Microsoft configuration with help of Run (Windows button + R) or type run in Search to open and then give the msconfig command & then click enter.

A dialog box opens where you can see options like General, Boot, Services, Startup, Tools. By navigating to the Startup tab, you can choose which apps to be opened during the start of your PC and which are the apps to be disabled. You can disable some of the apps based on their impact to the machine.



8) Speed up your browser by clearing Cache

Whenever your browser is working, it saves some amount of data within its pocket (memory) to get the results which you have most recently searched, used. This is one of the coolest features of the browser, but it can result in adverse effects if you don’t check you Browser Cache & cookies frequently.

They are a little amount of information, but they sit in a very demanded place called cache. So, you can clear them. Mostly running your CCleaner would clean them, or you can do them manually directly through your browser.

9) Shutdown your Computer regularly

Many of us don’t consider it important to shut down our machine regularly and instead, we turn into sleep mode or hibernate!

sometimes this doesn’t switch off the processes or hardware on your machine and it can lead to the failure. So, try to close all your processes and shut down your PC regularly instead of keeping it in Hibernate or sleep mode.

10) Your Computer’s Updates should be Up to date

 Most of the times, when you fail to shut down or restart your computer or due to unavailability of the internet, the system updates won’t be regularly updated though they are sent by the OS manufacturing company! This can cause the delay because updates sometimes carry fixes for the bugs available in the previous versions of software and if your PC isn’t up to date, then that might be a good reason for this slowness in the machine.So update your computer regularly to avoid the slow function!

11) Run a Disk Fragment

The speed of a device depends on the speed of the disk and if the disk is poorly fragmented, then this aspect gives rise to an inefficient load of the disk and thus the system lags. You can manually fragment the disk through default approach, but that is not always advisable as it won’t provide a permanent solution.

You can make use of Diskeeper to solve this fragmentation issue as they are one of the best in the market to solve the disk fragmentation problems.

12) Dust up your Hardware

 Brushing up your hardware means cleaning your computer and its parts. because, sometimes external dust might cause some of the lag in the performance of the computer. This might not be easy with a laptop, but can be easily possible with your PC, this doesn’t require you to be a computer geek or a hardware expert, it just requires a brush and screwdriver. You can clean your computer in the following two steps,1) Open your CPU dome or the external covering which allows you to have a look at the existing

2) Take a brush and just dust your computer so that you can find if anything is looking abnormal, if there is any hardware issue like any wire is miss plugged or unplugged, then those can be too rectified and most of the times, the airflow is obstructed due to the dust. This obstruction would definitely result in the slowness of your PC.

13) Reinstall your windows or OS

The lag in your system can be a result of your OS also, Operating system is an integral part of your PC and every activity in your PC is decided by your OS based on the inputs which you give it and if the system is lagging even after trying to rectify the problem through the tricks which we have mentioned before, then you can go for an OS re-installation or Formatting your machine.
Many geeks run away from formatting the PC (including me) as it involves a lot of rework!

  But, don’t forget to take backup of your files into your cloud or hard drive before you begin to re-install your PC to make it fast.

btw, don’t forget to take backup of your files into your cloud or hard drive before you begin to re-install your PC to make it fast.

If you are 100% confident that your PC’s hardware is good and the problem is with the OS alone, then only go for this step, else, don’t go for it, because even after your reinstall your OS into PC, there won’t be much difference found!

14) Use an external Hard drive or an SSD

 By freeing up the existing system storage and transferring the whole data into a portable device, it gives your computer a lot of room & even your data is also always available at your disposal. By this, space or memory availability puts a very less pressure on your CPU as it has to manage both space and speed at the same time during their outage. If you can take care of space with the help of external hard disk or SSD (Solid State Drive) then you can easily speed up your computer.

<> Other benefits of external Hard drive:

This is not in scope, but I want to give you other uses of external Hard Drives. The external hard drives are not very costly, you can get them very easily & the best feature of them is, your data is portable with the external hard drive. With some new type of external hard drives, it becomes extremely easy to connect, even you can connect external hard drive to your smartphone also. So with this feature, you don’t have to switch on your PC for entertainment purpose, you can simply connect it to the mobile or even smart TV’s easily for using the data in the drive.
So, investing on buying an external hard drive would make your life comfortable at both times while using your PC and when you want to access data anywhere without using the computer.

15) Boost your RAM physically by increasing

 Even after taking the above measures your PC isn’t performing well, then it is considered that you have to increase the capacity of your system RAM physically, in other words – up gradation (say, from 2 GB to 4 GB RAM). Don’t worry, nowadays electronic spare parts are available at very low cost due to the increase in technological inventions.You can buy the RAM which you intend to replace and do the up gradation part yourself, many free tutorials are offering on the net, but a word of caution, take the help of an expert nearby your town. Because, this can safeguard & avoid you screwing up something else in order to upgrade your RAM which might eat some more dollars from your pocket.

If you don’t want to buy an original RAM, then you can buy refurbished parts from trusted partners like eBay who can guarantee even the used products.

 <> Final words: 

Mostly, the above tricks can solve your PC speed problems, if they don’t solve the speed issue still, then it is better to take your PC to a nearby hardware expert or replace it if it is old enough.
If you have any doubts, then please ask it in the comments. Also, if you have any personal tips to increase computer/laptop speed, then please share it here!