If you have ever felt frustrated
with your laptop’s slow speed, know that it’s only natural and nearly everyone
has been there; you might have faced the same with a newer laptop bought just a
few months ago. But before you go about upgrading to a higher performance
laptop, try out the following methods to improve the speed and performance of
your laptop or notebook.
1. Scan
for Viruses and/or Malware
Malware,
adware, and viruses can seriously hamper the performance of your laptop because
they run in the background and use up essential system resources. They can even
cause certain applications from starting and running properly. Download good
antivirus software and an antimalware program to get rid of unwanted viruses,
Trojans, and malware. Remember to keep these programs updated on a regular
basis.
2. Clear
Up Excess Data and Clean the Registry
Sometimes all
that your laptop needs is spring cleaning; unused programs and tiny bits and
pieces of data left over from previous programs can bog down the system speed.
In addition, the registry system of Windows-based machines get filled up with
chunks of unnecessary data like duplicate entries, information related to
uninstalled applications, and undesirable file extensions.
So, what can
you do? Download a free cleaning utility like CCleaner which hunts down and
removes excessive data and scans and repairs the registry as well.
3. Defragment
Your Hard Drive
You must have
heard of it before, right? Well even if you didn’t, that’s fine.
Defragmentation refers to the process of searching for the fragments or pieces
of data of a certain file and placing them in a single location; think of
rearranging your cupboard, so that everything is tidy and neat. Overtime, a
hard disk becomes fragmented with data from different files scattered all over
the place.
You should
perform defragmentation on a weekly basis, or at least once a month. It will
not only improve your system performance, but it will also contribute to the
battery life as the hard disk has to spin less to retrieve data.
4. Reduce
the Startup Programs
When your
operating system such as Windows boots, a number of programs start up in the
background. Most of these are important services which are needed by Windows,
but some of them are unnecessary and slow down your laptop. You can disable
them by typing ‘msconfig’ in the ‘run’ dialog box under the ‘start’ menu in
Windows, while in Windows 8 and 10, this list is located in the task manager.
5. Upgrade
RAM
If you want
to drastically boost the performance of your laptop, consider upgrading the
RAM; more RAM means more data is buffered quickly, and the remaining data
doesn’t has to wait for long to be processed.
6.
Install an SSD
SSD or
solid-state hard drives are different from conventional hard disks in the sense
that they do not contain any moving parts, and because of that, they have
higher read/write speeds. Traditional hard disks use a motor to spin a magnetic
disc for reading and writing data. SSDs are fairly inexpensive nowadays, so
consider getting one. Your laptop will feel as if it is running on NO2.
