How to Make Your Laptop Go Faster

There may be times when your laptop feels like its taking years to respond when you hit that "enter" key! Speed is a word that we all appreciate when it comes to laptops. How do you make it go faster?

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Delete any files you no longer need. Uninstall any program that you don't use by going to Start > Control Panel > Add Remove Programs

2. Erase your browsing history. Delete files left by browsers and programs by going to Tools > Clear Recent History ( for Firefox) or If you are using Internet Explorer 5 and above, open Internet Explorer > Tools > Internet Options > general > Browser History and then delete.

3. Defragment your hard drive. This procedure compresses the data and files in your laptop and the end result is a larger space in your hard drive. Go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter

4. Do a disk clean up. This utility first searches and analyzes the hard drive for files that are no longer of any use, and then removes the unnecessary files. Go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk cleanup

5. Fix invalid shortcuts. Shortcuts are links to files stored in different folders and drives on your PC. The Windows Start Menu is made of shortcuts pointing to various files elsewhere on your hard drive. Often, the 'targets' of these shortcuts are moved or deleted, leaving the shortcut pointing to a file or location that no longer exists. I would suggest that you download a registry cleaner to perform this procedure if you are not really a tech savvy person. It would save a lot of time and effort since these programs have been designed to do the job efficiently. There are freeware products that you can get by searching for "free registry cleaner downloads" or go you can go to http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html .

6. Remove unnecessary programs that run on start-up. A lot of applications run behind your back when you start your PC and they increase the boot time and consume valuable resources. This process considerably slows down your PC. Again, I would recommend that you get a free or paid version of a registry cleaner software to do this job, it would save you a lot of time and effort.

7. Fix registry errors. Over time, the registry grows and can become corrupted as software and hardware is added and removed from your computer. This corruption can occur for many reasons including being left-behind after uninstalling a software, by corrupt or missing hardware drivers, or orphaned startup programs. Once again, I would suggest that you use the registry cleaner software to perform this procedure.

8. Finally, Scan your computer for spyware and other malware then
   run your anti virus to do a full or deep scan of your whole computer
   If it is still slow, you may want to consider adding more memory (RAM) to your computer.

Tips & Warnings

• For a paid system optimizer software, I would recommend Ace Utilities. It has a comprehensive program that is very efficient and easy to use!

Resources

• Laptops on sale

[lucindaroth]

on 1/3/2010 Slow computers can be such a pain thanks for the tips

[smoot27ryan]

on 12/31/2009 good

[besesitos]

on 11/29/2009 Thanks for the article on How to Make Your Laptop Go Faster! Hugs