Computer Repair

It appears that the longer you own your pc, the slower it gets! Plenty of folks will maintain their pc until it gets so slow that they feel they want a newer, faster model. Some feel like the reason it is obtaining slower is because it is obtaining older, when that is just not the case. Your computer need to run just as quickly as the day you brought it home – in the event you follow these 10 Simple Actions to Speed Up Your Personal computer.
Empty the Temp directory frequently. Every time you launch a program, it creates a temporary file, until you either save or close the file. The reason it does this is in case your program crashes or gets turned off (just before saving the file), it’ll be achievable to recover the unsaved file you were working on. This is really a good concept, but rarely works. Each time your system crashes, locks up, or gets turned off although you have open files, these temp files get created and just sit there within the Temp directory. Then, every time you launch a program, it looks by means of all the temp files (to see if 1 wants to be recovered) and slows the open procedure, and in some rare instances, even locks up when attempting to launch. In any event, the launch process is slowed.Other ways of acquiring unneeded temp files is by installing programs. Most programs that get installed extract temp files (needed throughout the installation) to the temp directory, but plenty of times don’t get deleted when the installation is total.Windows also uses the temp directory for its temp files, for recovery purposes and ongoing use.Right after a short although, the temp directory fills up with hundreds (and I’ve even observed thousands) of temp files that always get scanned over when Windows starts up and when programs launch. This slows every thing down immensely.Rule of thumb for Temp Files: Should you do not have any programs open (and nothing minimized within the bar below), then you shouldn’t have ANY temp files in your temp directory. In the event you do, delete them.To delete Temp files, make sure NO programs are open, and…
In Windows 95, 98 or Me, go to C:\Windows\Temp and delete everything inside the Temp folder.In Windows 2000 or XP, it’s a bit trickier. Very first, make sure that you can see hidden folders. Double-click My Pc. Click on the Tools pull-down menu, and then on Folder Alternatives. Click on the View tab. Scroll down and click on Show Hidden Files and Folders. Click Ok. Now you are able to go to the C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp folder. Delete every thing here. Also, look in the C:\Windows(or Winnt)\Temp or Tmp folders. Delete every thing here, too. Note: this assumes that your logon ID is Administrator. If the principal account just isn’t Administrator, or if there are more than one account, substitute “Administrator” for the account names, and delete the temp files from all of the C:\Documents and Settings\(account name)\Local Settings\Temp folders.Empty the Temporary Web Files frequently. This is comparable to the Temp directory, but for images and cookies although browsing web sites. Each and every time you go to a web site, your browser will look through your list of temporary Internet files, to see when you have all the images required to view your requested web page. If it is a extremely lengthy list, it’ll delay your view time. Nonetheless, when you have a dial-up, this is the lesser of two evils. If you already have the necessary images, it is quicker (for a dial-up) to look through your temporary Internet files, than to download new images each time you go to a site.On the other hand, if you have a broadband Internet connection (highspeed CableModem, DSL, Wireless, etc.), and you need a bit more snap within your surfing, then you ought to delete your Temporary Internet Files on a regular basis, and select to Check for Newer Images on Each and every Visit to a internet page.To empty Temporary World wide web Files, go to your Control Panel, by click on the Start\Settings\Control Panel (or in Windows XP, just Start\Control Panel) and double-click the internet Options icon. Pick to Delete Cookies, and to Delete Files. This may clear all of your Temporary World wide web Files.To have Web Explorer usually check for new images and content on each pay a visit to to a web page, to the proper of the Delete Files button, is the Settings button. Click this button and choose Each Go to to the Internet Page. This alternative never has World wide web Explorer look via your Temporary Internet Files to see if you already have the images needed. This way, World wide web Explorer will just automatically download each image, every time, with out looking through a list. For those who have a good Web connection, this is the better way to go. Do not forget to delete your Temporary World wide web Files each once in a whilst (see above).Check your difficult disks for issues. You will find two various types of disk checks: 1 is really a file check, which checks the state of your operating system, checks all of your files, your file structure, as well as other software program checks. If there are software program issues (like a corrupt FAT (file allocation table), etc., this check will attempt to fix it. The other can be a physical hardware disk check. This checks the surface of your tough disks, to see if you’ll find poor sectors (sections) of your tough drive, to see if your drive is physically experiencing difficulties. This disk check will attempt to repair the bad sectors, but if it can’t, it will mark the sector as bad and attempt to move the file(s) or file “pieces” to a good sector(s) of the disk. By marking the sector as poor, it knows not to write any future files to this section of the difficult drive.To run a disk check (or scan disk), here are the steps:
For Windows 95, 98, or Me, double-click My Computer. Right-click the C-drive and click on Properties. Click on the Tools tab and pick to check the pc for problems. In the event you select to do a Thorough Scan, this will do the hardware check for physical disk damage or sector harm. Otherwise, the Regular Scan does the software file check. In either case, you can select to have the scan automatically fix any errors it finds. The Thorough Scan does take quite a bit longer. You might desire to let this run over night. Only do the Thorough Scan once you think there could be a difficulty with your drive itself, or in the event you haven’t run it in a few months, otherwise, run the Regular Scan once a week or so.For Windows 2000 and XP, double-click My Pc. Right-click the C-drive and click Properties. Click on the Tools tab and choose to check the pc for problems. Click on Check Now. You’ll then have two check boxes. The top choice is for the file check, and also the second alternative is for the hardware (physical disk) check. Check either 1, or both. At least check the leading one. Again, should you believe you might be having problems with the difficult disk itself, then check the second 1, as well. And just like the Windows 98 Thorough Scan, this will take quite a bit longer to run, so let it run over night. 1 factor, though: For Windows 2000 and XP, you will not have the ability to run the check right then. Right after clicking the Begin button (as soon as the check boxes are checked), you may must reboot to run the disk check. It’ll ask you if you would like the program to run the CHKDSK on reboot. Choose Yes and reboot. Just before obtaining back into Windows, the program will do its CHKDSK, and depending on which choices you chose, will take either a couple of minutes, and sometimes up to an hour or so, to run. Let it run.An even much more thorough disk check (and tune-up), could be to make use of a 3rd party utility (a stand-alone program outside of Windows) to check every thing for you, automatically. One of my favorites is TuneUp Utilities 2004. It costs $39.99, but they do supply a Totally free download trial of 15 days, to check it out to see if it speeds up your computer and/or fixes any problems. This program does a really great job of not only checking your computer’s file structure, master boot record, file allocation table, and files, but also an incredibly good job of detecting and fixing bad sectors of your physical disk drives. And not just that, it also tunes up your system for increased speed, checks and cleans your registry, adjusts memory for you, tweaks your Web settings for quicker downloads and browsing (whether or not you use a dial-up or broadband), and streamlines your operating program for peak performance. I highly recommend this program. If you don’t have it, you are able to download it HERE.In the event you do not wish to get the TuneUp Utilities 2004, you can do a couple of of the performance tweaks your self, for those who have Windows XP. By default, Everything is turned on in Windows XP. It isn’t extremely streamlined for performance, but rather for appearance. You’ll be able to turn off several of the unnecessary attributes, and Windows will still work just fine, and maybe a little faster.To do this, right-click on My Pc and click on Properties. Click on the Advanced tab. Under the Performance section, click on the Settings button. On the Visual Effects tab, you may see a list of check boxes. By default, these are all on. You truly don’t need any of them. Should you choose one of the radio buttons at the top, say, Adjust for Best Performance, then all the check boxes will turn off. This can noticeably speed up your personal computer. You are able to go via the check boxes 1 by 1, and decide which ones you are able to and cannot live without having. The 1 which will make the greatest effect is the extremely last one within the list. This is the Themes. In the event you turn it off, it’ll free of charge up plenty of system resources and give you really a bit much more memory to work with, but Windows XP will look a lot more like Windows 2000. For a lot of people, this isn’t a issue. It really is all eye-candy, anyway. Your fairly green pasture picture will disappear your fairly green and blue buttons and task bar will go to a gray. Should you can live with these things, then you’ll have a lot a lot more performance. You will find that menus open up significantly much more rapidly and everything responds a lot more immediately.Turn off Active Desktop. Active Desktop turns your desktop into a internet page, and allows you to have points like a real-time calendar, and up-to-the-minute weather or stocks. These issues are truly neat, but your program takes a performance hit when they’re running in the background all of the time. And even if you do not use Active Desktop for anything, just having it active can trigger a performance decrease. Turn it off.
In Windows 95, 98 and Me, right-click on the desktop and inside the pop-up menu, pick Active Desktop. Inside that choice, uncheck Active Desktop. If there is certainly no check next to it, then it is not on. Don’t choose it. Instead, just click the desktop again to obtain out of the menu.In Windows 2000, right-click on the desktop and in the pop-up menu, pick Active Desktop. Inside that alternative, uncheck Show Internet Content. Again, if there’s no check next to it, then it is not on. Do not check it.In Windows XP, right-click on the desktop and in the pop-up menu, pick Properties. On the Desktop tab, pick Customize Desktop. Now, on the Web tab, make sure that you will find no internet sites chosen here. If there aren’t any, then Active Desktop is not on. Cancel and go back to the desktop.Install and run a good AntiVirus program (frequently) to keep out viruses and Trojan horses that can take over your program. If you have a virus(s), your program performance could be dramatically decreased. Viruses can do all kinds of nasty issues to your pc. They are able to take over your pc, erase your tough drive, use your pc as a server, provide you with a bunch of illegal music or programs and tell all of their pals to download it all from you – leaving you holding the bag and supplying the computer space and bandwidth for their hobby. So, defend your self having a great AntiVirus program. One of my favorites is AVG. It is not only a truly great AntiVirus program, but it is also Free of charge! In the event you do not have any AntiVirus software on your pc, get AVG AntiVirus NOW by downloading HERE. Should you already have an AntiVirus program, and you would like to use AVG instead, do not install AVG. First, uninstall your existing AntiVirus program, reboot and install AVG. You do not wish to have two AntiVirus programs installed at the very same time. They are going to work against one another and can cause issues.Get rid of Spyware. Plenty of pc users have Spyware and do not even know they’ve it, a lot less how you can get rid of it. If your computer has been taking you to websites that you do not wish to go to, or should you get pop-ups once you are not even on the internet, or if your computer has been running incredibly slowly lately, for no reason, you most likely have Spyware.On all the computers that I setup, I install two different AntiSpyware programs: AdAware SE and SpyBot. These two programs are extremely advised by TechTV (G4) as well as other computer authorities (including my own analysis on Spyware) and work very well together. They compliment one another and catch Spyware that the other misses, but together, do a very excellent job.SpyBot is not only an excellent program for getting rid of Spyware, but also as a preventative Spyware-catcher. It sits there and looks for identified Spyware coming into your program, along with suspicious-looking content. In the event you use the Tea-Timer feature, it may be a little annoying, but ANY suspicious-looking program, trying to be installed on your program, is flagged and your permission is asked for it to be installed (now and usually). In the event you don’t have this program installed on your pc, get it NOW by downloading HERE. Download all updates and run the Immunize choice a couple of times (for preventative purposes). Scan with it each and every day should you can.AdAware SE has a little much better Spyware database in it, but is not setup as a preventative AntiSpyware program. It does do a great job once you maintain up on the updates and manually scan your program with AdAware. Should you do not have this program on your computer, get it NOW by downloading HERE. Download all updates and run the Smart Scan every day (if not, a minimum of weekly).If, right after downloading and installing, updating, and running both of these AntiSpyware program, you still cannot get rid of your Spyware, you might have to enlist the services of a expert. Some Spyware is so intelligent that it looks to see if AntiSpyware programs delete the Spyware part of its programming and, if it is gone, reinserts it back in place. This may be extremely frustrating for the user (and in some instances, even for the professional). You’ll find stronger measures that will be taken to get rid of the Spyware, in cases like this, but may be really devastating to the user’s pc, if not handled perfectly. At this point, leave it to the professional. Call a local computer repair business and have them come out to your residence or enterprise and get rid of the Spyware for you.In some instances, when the Spyware has become too entwined into your program, even a computer repair technician can’t get rid of the Spyware. At this point, it really is far better to just backup only what you need and have the operating program reinstalled. Think me, when your personal computer gets to this point, you do not desire to just put a “band-aid” on it. Just start from scratch having a clean program. It’s the very best approach to go.Streamline MSCONFIG. 1 factor that truly causes a Huge performance decrease is to have unnecessary programs running in the background. Some of these programs can be observed in your Program Tray (situated next to the clock, in the lower-right corner of your screen). These are tiny programs that are robbing you of memory and processing power. Some of them you’ll need, although most you do not. A number of the programs you Do not want are printer icons, CD burning icons, shortcuts to programs (for example video settings), AOL, any Instant Messaging Programs, etc. Just simply because these programs are not always running, does not mean that you still can’t print, burn CDs or Instant Message. They are able to be run when you require them, from a shortcut.You can use a utility, called MSCONFIG, to turn OFF unnecessary Commence Up items.
In Windows 98, Me, and XP, click on Start\Run and kind msconfig. Click on the Startup tab. This is a list of everything which is running inside the background, some of which show up in the System Tray. Now, be careful, some of these you do need. Some items to maintain are Ctfmon.exe (XP), Scan Registry (Win98, Me), Task Monitor (Win98, Me), System Tray (Win98, Me), LoadPowerProfile (Win98, Me), Rundll.32, any AntiVirus programs (for example McAfee, Norton, or AVG). Other people, you can uncheck, like NeroCheck, ypager, qttask, AOL, and any other Instant Messaging programs, or printing programs. Keep in mind, if one thing does not work, simply because you turned it off, it can often be turned back on. You just have to reboot each and every time you make a alter here. But, as you uncheck the unnecessary programs that run in the background, you may see that Windows loads significantly quicker, that you’ll find less icons inside the System Tray, and that your system is much a lot more “snappy” and fast to respond.In Windows 2000, MSCONFIG wasn’t supplied. You truly need to download and run an MSCONFIG utility. Here can be a website which will let you download the MSCONFIG utility. Click HERE to Download. And in the event you copy it into your C:\Windows(or Winnt)\System32 folder, you are able to access it the same way as Windows 98 or XP (by the Run command within the Start menu). Or, you’ll be able to just double-click it and use it that way, too. See above for what to leave checked and unchecked.After you reboot, you’ll have a window that says that the configuration utility was edited. Just check not to show that inside the future, a check box at the bottom.This just indicates that there was a change created to the MSCONFIG.Defragment your tough drives. If you have by no means done this, or it has been a couple of months since the last time, this step is among the most crucial things which will provide you with much more performance. As you use your pc, your drives grow to be fragmented, by making and deleting files. Just because a file is 10mb in size, does not mean that it’s sitting there on the drive (all 10mb) all in 1 spot on the drive. It fills in from the inside of the drive, outward, as the drive finds room. So your one file could be in pieces, in several spots on the hard drive. Do not worry, your file allocation table keeps track of where the pieces are, nonetheless, it takes longer to access a file that is in pieces (fragmented), than a file that is all in 1 spot on the tough drive. This is where defragmenting comes in. Once you defragment your tough drive, this method copies all the pieces to temporary spots on the difficult drive, and then fills in all the files (in their entirety) from the inside, out, so that no files are split into pieces. This dramatically speeds up the seek time, in addition to speeds up the use of your files and programs. NOTE: to efficiently defragment a difficult drive, it likes to have 25% free of charge space. It can still do the defragmentation with only 15% free space, but it takes very a bit longer. In the event you can, delete any unnecessary files just before degramenting your drives.
To defragment your hard drives (in any Windows operating system), double-click on My Computer. Right-click on the c-drive and click on Properties. Click on the Tools tab and choose the bottom button, to Defragment Now… Click on the suitable drive, and then on Defragment. This can take some time. Depending on your processing power, the amount of RAM you have accessible, the size and speed of your drive, as well as a few other things, this procedure can take 20 minutes, or hours. It really is greatest to let this one run over night, too, but it is well worth it.