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ajqtrz
Chef - loquacious Old Dog
As the owner of a small IT company I've been working with PC's and Mac's for nearly 30 years. One of the things we do is to optimize the performance of our clients' systems. Once we do our 'magic' the system runs between 10 and 15 percent faster than out of box. How do we do this?
First, there are two things you need to understand about your computer. 1) Storage; and 2) Workspace. When we talk about storage you can imagine it to be the pantry of your kitchen (or the cupboards). In a PC it's the 'permanent' space you use to store things you either don't need or need to preserve when the computer is off are put on the hard drive or other device (flash drive, optical disk, etc). That's "storage." The "work space" is the kitchen counter upon which you work. In a PC it's the 'memory' or "RAM" Things on this "kitchen counter" are usually only there when you need them and returned to the cupboards when you don't, right? Mostly.
Sometimes you put things on the counter you will use often. Like your flour tin, the cookie jar (very often, that!), your knife rack, your spices, etc. Now imagine you have a lot of your counter covered with these things you use "often" If you do you might get to the point where the space you have to work in is only large enough for a mixing bowl and one ingredient at a time. When this happens and you want to mix cookies you have to put out the bowl, go to the cupboard (or refrigerator in this case), get the butter, go back to the counter, put the butter in, go back to the refrigerator, put the butter away, go to the cupboard, get the sugar, go to the counter, put in the sugar, go to the cupboard to return the sugar, go back to the counter, cream the butter and sugar, go to the cupboard to get the vanilla ....etc, etc...etc. A LOT of work and a lot of time taken to get the cookies mixed. That's what happens when you have too many things in memory (i.e. opened into your PC's RAM). The trick to maximizing performance is to balance out what you leave in storage and load when you actually need it with the things you have in memory that are, indeed, important. There are three steps in the process of achieving this.
First, determine what is in memory. On a PC you can do this by looking at what is actually running and what is configured to run when you start the PC. The first is seen when you bring up task manager (ctrl+ALT+DEL brings up a menu where the bottom of the list says 'start task manage'). If you do this you will see a LOT of things, many of which you don't have a clue ...but some of which you might recognize. Under the 'Applications' tab you have a list of programs active. If you have, for instance, a game started, it will be listed here either as a browser, or by the game name. If you have Microsoft word, and it's started, it will be listed. Other things that are not listed here are 'support' things that may be needed. To see them you look at the 'processes' tab. They are called "Images" and they have a name. If you look there you will see the name of your browser, some flash things, your antivirus (you do have one, don't you?) and maybe some things you recognize that you wonder why they are there. Like a scanner program for that scanner you had last year but gave away? Or printer software or camera software or whatever. In any case you just need to sort of note things you recognize. No need to turn them off, we do that in the second part of our little adventure. But before we do that let's look at the Performance tab. Here is where you find the numbers you need to change to improve performance (not exactly that, but close enough for our purposes here). Lower numbers mean better performance.
At the lower left (Windows 7) you see : Processes. This represents the number of things sitting on your counter taking up space. You will also see CPU usage. It might say 25% or 10% or anything from 0% to 100%. This the amount of work the system is doing at any moment. If your system is busy shuffling around things on the counter to make space it's not working on your program. Finally, there's Physical Memory. That's how "filled" your counter space is. Ideally the three numbers should be 30-50 processes, 1-10% cpu, and 20-40% memory. Most systems when we get them are 70-100 processess, 25-60% cpu, and 60-80% memory. Not good.
Now that you know what's running you can do two things to stop them. The first is easily reversible, the second, not so much.
First, bring up MSCONFIG. In Windows 8 or 10 you can search for it. You can do that in Windows 7 too. Just type msconfig in the search bar and it will bring it up. As it comes up it will ask you for permission, grant it. In Windows 7 there are 5 tabs. We will use two of them: Services and Startup.
In Windows 8-10 the services tab remains, but it tells you to bring up task manager to handle the startup items. We'll return to that in a moment.
First, click on the services tab. At the bottom left you will see the "hide microsoft products" check box. Since we are using Windows we don't want to turn it off by accident, so we check that box first. What's left may be a long list of things, or short depending on how optimized our system is. Look at the list. More than likely you will see some "Update" things....like "Adobe Reader updater" and "Flash updater' and "Google update..." I recommend you click on the button at the lower right that says "disable all" It's reversible so you can always turn all or some of them back if you need them. You might notice that some items -- antivirus in particular -- turns itself right back on. That's a good thing and we can be thankful for that.
Now go to the startup tab. Another list. These things are even less needed than the services. Again, click on the "disable all" and everything should be unchecked. You may want to recheck the antivirus entries, but they are generally just things that tell the system you want an icon in your system tray (the group of icons at the lower right of your screen). They are not necessary to the function of your anti virus program.
In Window 8-10 you would click on the startup tab then on "task manager" which will bring up the task manager. There's a tab there that list the startup items and allows you to enable/disable each. I would disable all and then be prepared to re-enable the ones I really need.
Now you have turned off everything that you can and by doing so, upon reboot you system should run much faster. Of course it may not too, since this assumes the cause of your slowness is that you have too many things running in memory.
If you find that something isn't working after you reboot you can always open msconfig or task manager and re-enable it. As long as you don't disable a Microsoft service (you did Hide all Microsoft Services, didn't you?) you will boot fine although you may find this or that complaining that it's software isn't loading. Just note the offending item at that point and go back and turn it's needed software back on and reboot again.
The second thing you can do is to uninstall whatever programs you don't use. To do this you open control panel, programs and features and then uninstall whatever you don't need/want/use. Often programs have been left that are loading into memory for devices long gone...like that old printer, scanner, camera or whatchamacallit. This is generally not reversible unless you still have the original software and license, so be careful.
Our current PC repair count is just over 17,000. We have used this on probably most of these systems and it's quite safe. HOWEVER, like all things, we can't be 100% certain everything will go right in your case. So the usual caveats about backing up your data, etc...apply.
Questions? Feel free to ask! In fact, I would suggest you ASK FIRST! Don't do anything unless you are quite certain you understand what you are to do... and if you still aren't sure, ask somebody with a modicum of technical expertise to "optimize" your system for you.
AJ
First, there are two things you need to understand about your computer. 1) Storage; and 2) Workspace. When we talk about storage you can imagine it to be the pantry of your kitchen (or the cupboards). In a PC it's the 'permanent' space you use to store things you either don't need or need to preserve when the computer is off are put on the hard drive or other device (flash drive, optical disk, etc). That's "storage." The "work space" is the kitchen counter upon which you work. In a PC it's the 'memory' or "RAM" Things on this "kitchen counter" are usually only there when you need them and returned to the cupboards when you don't, right? Mostly.
Sometimes you put things on the counter you will use often. Like your flour tin, the cookie jar (very often, that!), your knife rack, your spices, etc. Now imagine you have a lot of your counter covered with these things you use "often" If you do you might get to the point where the space you have to work in is only large enough for a mixing bowl and one ingredient at a time. When this happens and you want to mix cookies you have to put out the bowl, go to the cupboard (or refrigerator in this case), get the butter, go back to the counter, put the butter in, go back to the refrigerator, put the butter away, go to the cupboard, get the sugar, go to the counter, put in the sugar, go to the cupboard to return the sugar, go back to the counter, cream the butter and sugar, go to the cupboard to get the vanilla ....etc, etc...etc. A LOT of work and a lot of time taken to get the cookies mixed. That's what happens when you have too many things in memory (i.e. opened into your PC's RAM). The trick to maximizing performance is to balance out what you leave in storage and load when you actually need it with the things you have in memory that are, indeed, important. There are three steps in the process of achieving this.
First, determine what is in memory. On a PC you can do this by looking at what is actually running and what is configured to run when you start the PC. The first is seen when you bring up task manager (ctrl+ALT+DEL brings up a menu where the bottom of the list says 'start task manage'). If you do this you will see a LOT of things, many of which you don't have a clue ...but some of which you might recognize. Under the 'Applications' tab you have a list of programs active. If you have, for instance, a game started, it will be listed here either as a browser, or by the game name. If you have Microsoft word, and it's started, it will be listed. Other things that are not listed here are 'support' things that may be needed. To see them you look at the 'processes' tab. They are called "Images" and they have a name. If you look there you will see the name of your browser, some flash things, your antivirus (you do have one, don't you?) and maybe some things you recognize that you wonder why they are there. Like a scanner program for that scanner you had last year but gave away? Or printer software or camera software or whatever. In any case you just need to sort of note things you recognize. No need to turn them off, we do that in the second part of our little adventure. But before we do that let's look at the Performance tab. Here is where you find the numbers you need to change to improve performance (not exactly that, but close enough for our purposes here). Lower numbers mean better performance.
At the lower left (Windows 7) you see : Processes. This represents the number of things sitting on your counter taking up space. You will also see CPU usage. It might say 25% or 10% or anything from 0% to 100%. This the amount of work the system is doing at any moment. If your system is busy shuffling around things on the counter to make space it's not working on your program. Finally, there's Physical Memory. That's how "filled" your counter space is. Ideally the three numbers should be 30-50 processes, 1-10% cpu, and 20-40% memory. Most systems when we get them are 70-100 processess, 25-60% cpu, and 60-80% memory. Not good.
Now that you know what's running you can do two things to stop them. The first is easily reversible, the second, not so much.
First, bring up MSCONFIG. In Windows 8 or 10 you can search for it. You can do that in Windows 7 too. Just type msconfig in the search bar and it will bring it up. As it comes up it will ask you for permission, grant it. In Windows 7 there are 5 tabs. We will use two of them: Services and Startup.
In Windows 8-10 the services tab remains, but it tells you to bring up task manager to handle the startup items. We'll return to that in a moment.
First, click on the services tab. At the bottom left you will see the "hide microsoft products" check box. Since we are using Windows we don't want to turn it off by accident, so we check that box first. What's left may be a long list of things, or short depending on how optimized our system is. Look at the list. More than likely you will see some "Update" things....like "Adobe Reader updater" and "Flash updater' and "Google update..." I recommend you click on the button at the lower right that says "disable all" It's reversible so you can always turn all or some of them back if you need them. You might notice that some items -- antivirus in particular -- turns itself right back on. That's a good thing and we can be thankful for that.
Now go to the startup tab. Another list. These things are even less needed than the services. Again, click on the "disable all" and everything should be unchecked. You may want to recheck the antivirus entries, but they are generally just things that tell the system you want an icon in your system tray (the group of icons at the lower right of your screen). They are not necessary to the function of your anti virus program.
In Window 8-10 you would click on the startup tab then on "task manager" which will bring up the task manager. There's a tab there that list the startup items and allows you to enable/disable each. I would disable all and then be prepared to re-enable the ones I really need.
Now you have turned off everything that you can and by doing so, upon reboot you system should run much faster. Of course it may not too, since this assumes the cause of your slowness is that you have too many things running in memory.
If you find that something isn't working after you reboot you can always open msconfig or task manager and re-enable it. As long as you don't disable a Microsoft service (you did Hide all Microsoft Services, didn't you?) you will boot fine although you may find this or that complaining that it's software isn't loading. Just note the offending item at that point and go back and turn it's needed software back on and reboot again.
The second thing you can do is to uninstall whatever programs you don't use. To do this you open control panel, programs and features and then uninstall whatever you don't need/want/use. Often programs have been left that are loading into memory for devices long gone...like that old printer, scanner, camera or whatchamacallit. This is generally not reversible unless you still have the original software and license, so be careful.
Our current PC repair count is just over 17,000. We have used this on probably most of these systems and it's quite safe. HOWEVER, like all things, we can't be 100% certain everything will go right in your case. So the usual caveats about backing up your data, etc...apply.
Questions? Feel free to ask! In fact, I would suggest you ASK FIRST! Don't do anything unless you are quite certain you understand what you are to do... and if you still aren't sure, ask somebody with a modicum of technical expertise to "optimize" your system for you.
AJ