So you started playing your favorite game, and you found it lagging. Your player barely moved across the area, and then you got stuck for what felt like forever. As a result, your character died because of the lag. Imagine if that was the case for a work project that wouldn’t save and was ultimately lost thanks to a slow device.
It’s one of the worst feelings when you’re doing something important, sometimes putting in hard work, and your computer just refuses to catch up with your thoughts. If you are wondering why your laptop is so slow lately, we’re here to help you figure out why.
What’s Causing the Slowness?
Here are a few reasons why your computer might be slow:
- Corrupted Programs or Viruses – There are many ways in which a virus can enter your computer and corrupt your files. Opening unverified email attachments or clicking on unauthorized links and websites can download unwanted viruses that can affect your files and data. Viruses often steal your resources and work in the background, which is why you might find your computer laggy or drained of battery.
- Programs that run in the background – When your laptop first turns on, there are usually too many programs running in the background and collecting your resources. This makes your computer slow since it can’t handle so many different applications at once.
- Too many temporary files – Whenever you visit websites or open programs, temporary data is stored in your hard drive, which affects your computer’s performance in the long run. These files lower the laptop’s memory, which is needed to run things smoothly.
- Fragmented Hard drive – As you continue to use your computer, the data stored in the system moves into fragments or different places on a hard drive. In fragmentation, data is stored in different areas, so it takes longer to search or perform any task since it uses plenty of resources to complete it. It also slows down your virtual environment in the process.
- Overheating – Although computers are becoming more advanced, it comes at a price. Better processors and graphic cards are what people use to support their large screens and higher resolutions. However, this causes overheating, and the only way to tell is when your laptop starts to get too hot, or you can hear the fan struggling to keep it cool.
How to Speed it Back Up
- Get anti-virus software – When you think that you have a virus on your computer, the best thing would be to get good anti-virus software. Anti-virus software does a thorough scan of your computer, finds possible threats, and removes the virus before it can cause permanent damage.
- Stop background programs – Running programs can deplete resources, and once you’ve caught on to this, you need to end any programs that you aren’t using. To do this, you need to open Task Manager through the Windows menu or by pressing CTRL+ALT+DELETE keys at the same time. Once the window opens up, you need to end tasks that you don’t need to speed up your computer’s performance.
- Remove temporary files – To speed up your computer when it’s being slowed down by temporary files, use the Windows Disk Cleanup Utility. This will clean up temporary files that you don’t need, but it won’t clean up all of them. It would be best if you did this manually by going to the Start menu, search bar, and type %temp%. This will bring up the Temp Folder, where you can delete files that you don’t require. You will not be able to delete all of them, so you can also skip a few that are being used.
- Perform defragmentation – Even if you’re not sure if your computer is fragmented, you can run a defragmentation program. Do this by going to the Start Menu, searching for the word ‘Defragment,’ and opening the program that shows up. Click on the defragment option and click on the optimize drive option. Once you click on this, the process will start, and when it shows zero percent fragmented, the process is complete.
- Stop the overheating – To stop your laptop from overheating, give it some rest. Once you’ve let it cool off, use a stand to keep it off surfaces that encourage heat. Some stands come with built-in fans to help cool your laptop down. If it’s your fan that’s giving trouble, you might want to change it altogether.
Keep Your Computer Clean
The best way to keep your computer working up-to-speed is to keep it clean. This means that you need to keep it physically clean by keeping away any dust and also removing any unnecessary junk or files that you don’t use. Disk cleaners are a good way of cleaning out temporary files, but it’s better to put the time and effort to keep it clean manually.