General Maintenance

General computer maintenance, and how to speed up your computer

There are various things that can cause your computer to run slowly. Here are a few things that you can do to try and speed it up, or just to keep it running smoothly.

Delete some files
Delete Internet files and temporary files (disk cleanup)
Check your Start-up options
Check for Viruses or Spyware
Disk Defragmenter
Buy some more memory

Delete some files

Hard disks are at their happiest when they are at least a quarter empty. The empty section is used by your computer in everyday use. If your computer has not got much free space, this can slow it down.

To check how much space you have on your hard disk, go to Open My Computer (usually in the Start Menu) and right click on the Hard Disk with the name ending (C:).

This will bring up a window showing how big your hard disk is, and, most importantly, how much free space you have.

If the amount of free space is less than a quarter, you might want to think about deleting some files (you can back them up first - see Backing up your Computer. A quick way to free up some space is shown below.

Deleting temporary files and Internet files

If you use your computer on the Internet, your computer stores all of the files that were used to look at web pages, and these can fill up your hard disk. If you have a small hard disk, or one with little free space, these files (known as temporary Internet files) can take up valuable space. To delete these:

• load up Internet explorer. If you use dial up Internet, there’s no need to connect - just click Cancel on any connection window and, if asked, say you’re happy to work off line;
• click on the Tools menu along the top of the screen, and then on Internet Options;

• In the window which appears, click on Delete Files;

• click OK to delete the temporary files. If you have lots of temporary files, the computer may look as if it has crashed and nothing is working. If this happens, go and make a cup of tea! Hopefully, by the time you’ve come back it’ll all be sorted out. If you look at your hard disk free space before and after deleting these files, you should notice a difference in the free space.

Your computer also creates all kinds of temporary files in every day use. To delete these, load Disk Cleanup from System Tools in Accessories in the Start Menu.

You should see the following window.

This might take a few minutes to calculate. When it has, you’ll get the following window.

By scrolling down, you will see which files are on the computer and can be deleted. Clicking on each item will tell you a little more about it in the Description box. It’s not always worth deleting everything. We’d recommend deleting Temporary Internet files (if you’ve not already done this), temporary files, temporary offline files and emptying the recycle bin (check first there’s nothing in it that you want to keep).

Once you are sure that you have ticked the items that you want to delete, click OK. A box will appear, asking "Are you sure you want to perform these actions?" Click OK, and wait while the computer deletes everything. It might seem to freeze, as before. If it does, just wait!

Check your Start-up options

When your computer boots up, it usually loads lots of small programs, mostly related to things that have been installed. These can slow down your computer if lots are running at once.

If this is the case, an easy way to stop some programs loading is to remove them from the Startup folder in All Programs in the Start Menu.

If there are programs in the Startup folder that you never use, or don’t need to load with the computer, delete them by clicking the right mouse button on the item and left clicking on Delete. This won’t delete the program, just the link to it stored here, which will stop it from loading up when the computer is switched on.

Check for viruses or spyware

Viruses and spyware can slow down your computer. Removing these can speed it up again - read our guides to anti-virus and spyware.

Disk Defragmenter

Disk Defragmenter is a program found on all Windows computers, which enables you to speed up your hard disk.

The way that Windows stores files means that they can become fragmented (split up). Instead of a file being stored in one place on the hard disk, it becomes split up and stored in different places all over the disk. This makes the file take longer to open, as the disk has to move all over the place to open the different segments.

Disk Defragmenter reorganises your files so that each is in a single place on the disk (known as contiguous by Windows). This means that they will be loaded faster.

As far as you are concerned, Disk Defragmenter won’t change where any of your files are stored within My Computer and My Documents. They’ll be in exactly the same place they were in before running it.

It is best to use Disk Defragmenter when you are not using the computer for anything else, as it will finish much faster.

To load Disk Defragmenter, click on Start, then All Programs - System Tools - Disk Defragmenter. The following window will load.

The first thing you need to do is analyse your system. To do this, click the Analyze button. The following window will appear after a short while, along with some lines in the Estimated disk usage before defragmentation area.

If your disk doesn’t need defragmenting, you’ll be told.

If you do get the message above, your computer needs defragmenting. The red lines show files which are split up and can be moved together.

To start defragmenting, click on Defragment. The lines in the Estimated disk usage after defragmentation area will start to move around, and eventually you’ll be left with something like this.

As you can see, the before and after ‘graphs’ are very different - after defragmentation nearly all of the red lines have gone and the blue area (contiguous files) has all been shifted to the left, the beginning of the disk. If you want, you can defragment the computer again to tidy this up a bit more, but this is not really necessary.

Buy some more memory

Another way to speed up you computer is to buy some more memory. Extra memory is usually easy to install, and can make your computer run faster.

A good place to buy memory is Crucial. It is cheap, and it has the Crucial Memory Advisor Tool on its home page, which will help you find the right type of memory for your particular computer.