Why is PC slow? The cause and how to fix it

You just bought a new PC that is great. The program, the file loaded unexpectedly fast. Unfortunately, this situation will not last long. But after a period of use, you realize why it is getting slower and slower?

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What made your PC slow?Actually there is only one answer.It is a combination of different factors that reduce your machine performance. These elements are divided into three main groups: hardware, virus infection and spyware penetration, and the third group. These are the methods to eliminate these two groups of factors.

We need to find out the cause then find "cure" such as hard disk fragmentation, conflict DLL, registry, virus, spyware .

Causes and consequences

Hardware problem

After a period of use, the hard drive will be fragmented.The reason is the installation of the program, deleting the program, manipulating the file.

Hard disks are designed to store data from predefined clusters.The small file size will not use up this space, whereas large files will be split to save to many other links.The files are more fragmented when the hard disk contains more and more data.The longer the hard disk has fragmented files, the longer it will take to read the fragmented files and assemble them into complete continuous data.Similarly, data logging will take longer.

This process occurs frequently, which can affect the surface of the hard disk.Hard disks can generate sectors, reduce performance, hard to record data, or cannot record data.

Resource consumption problem

Just as the computer's performance will decrease when the hard drive is fragmented, a long list of programs loaded during boot time also reduces performance.If you buy a complete computer, it is also possible that the manufacturer also installs some software as part of the advertising strategy or agreement with software companies.

Many installation programs are configured to automatically load when the computer boots, even if the user does not want to run the program.Utilities with additional features for hardware or hardware components, all run in the background.Most users do not know which programs are running because they do not show any notifications.However, they may display system tray icons.

These programs take up a lot of system resources.The more programs that work simultaneously, the more system resources you consume.Normally, a computer should have about 85% to 90% of its memory after booting.If there are too many programs loading at startup, the amount of memory is reduced to 50%, then running real applications such as Word, Excel, IE . will become very slow.

Software and malware issues

One factor that greatly affects your computer's performance is spyware and adware programs.They run in the background, compromising not only performance but also slowing down browsers.

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The concept of spyware is software that runs tasks unrelated to the application you are using, such as displaying ads, collecting personal information, reconfiguring the user's machine, . which users do not approve or do not know.

The concept of adware (software) is software whose sole purpose is advertising.

The concept of malware is software that hinders some functions of other applications such as viruses, worms, Trojans .

To counteract the attacks of these software, the computer must "shoulder" additional anti-virus software, anti-spyware software, anti-intrusion software such as firewalls, email filters. .

According to analysts, these programs reduce computer performance by 15%.Vice President of CloudMark Computer Security, Leon Rishniw, said: "Computers are slowed down by many factors, including malicious software running in the background, and security solutions also take up. lots of resources "

The two main reasons for the slowdown of computers are due to utilities and spyware. There are many software utilities floating in the market, like bad quality peer-to-peer applications, they don't just install spyware that also contains components that cannot be removed.

How to fix and improve performance

Delete fragmentation

The easiest way is to use the built-in windows utility: Disk Defragmenter and Disk Cleanup.Go to Start -> All Programs -> Accesories -> System Tools.

Disk Cleanup checks hard drives for unnecessary programs and deletes Windows, IE temporary files. You should run Disk Cleanup once a month, your hard drive will have more space and be faster.

Disk Defragmenter is a very reliable program.Disk Defragmenter analyzes the status of the hard disk and optimizes directories and files.After the files are swapped, the hard drive will reorganize those files and store them in successive links, greatly speeding up the performance of the system.

Check the defragmentation rate of the hard disk weekly.When Disk Defragmenter indicates that the hard drive is fragmented more than 10%, click the "Defrag" button now.Set a plan to delete fragments on weekends.This process will take several hours, and you should not run any programs when the Disk Defragmenter program is running.

In addition, there are some software from other firms such as:

Symantec's Norton SystemWorks 2006(priced at US $ 69.99) is a set of tools worth more than the tools available from Microsoft.SystemWorks includes software to defragment hard disk, remove programs in Windows Registry, fix DLL files, provide system information .

PerfectDisk 7.0($ 39.95) of Raxco: defragment the hard disk with just one step.PerfectDisk deletes the blanks created by fragmentation on the hard disk.This makes the hard disk not fragmented for a long time.

Windows optimization

One of the useful tasks before defragmenting is to uninstall unnecessary programs.Go to Control Panel -> Add / Remove Programs.Choose programs you have never used.Click "Remove" button.The uninstall process also makes your Windows "light" a lot.

Just as important as a hard drive, stop those programs that load at startup that you don't use.Click Start -> Run and type: msconfig and select OK.This command will run the built-in tool in the system.Select the Start Up tab, you will see a list of programs that will load at startup.You uncheck the unwanted programs, and click OK.When the computer restarts, the programs marked with it are allowed to boot.If you find that you need this program or don't need other programs, repeat the steps above.

In addition, a few other tools you will also need are Scan Registry, TaskMonitor, SystemTray, and LoadPowerProfile.These are the tools available in Windows.For full instructions on how to use these tools, we would like to introduce them on another occasion.

Anti-Malware

Do not use protection programs, your computer is very susceptible to viruses and spyware. Anti-virus programs are often very successful in identifying viruses and destroying them.But best, you should only run an antivirus program, running 2 or 3 programs at the same time will be very resource consuming and affect other programs.

Anti-virus software such asSynmatec'sNorton Antivirus, for example, is too famous.But these anti-virus programs are priced quite high, running "heavy".Therefore, we would like to introduce to you 2 very popular anti-virus programs of Vietnam: D32 and BKAV.Both D32 and BKAV are free anti-virus software, regularly update new virus patterns, and have automatic protection for computers from virus infection.

Virus removal program by Truong Minh Nhat Quang, D32 and the latest virus sample updates are available athttp://www.echip.com.vn/echiproot/html/d32.html

BKAV program of network security center by author Nguyen Tu Quang and members is available athttp://www.bkav.com.vn/

How to kill spyware

But for spyware, the detection and elimination of them is difficult.Each software uses different methods to find and kill.But often, this program kills this spyware then misses the spyware and vice versa.

Therefore, you should run more than one concurrent anti-spyware program.To reduce risk, and remove spyware from your computer, you should scan for spyware every day.

Two of the most effective, very popular and completely free spyware removal programs areLavasoft'sSpyBot Search and DestroyandAd-Aware.Both programs allow you to use them without consuming system resources.However, Spybot can be configured to act as part of the system, to prevent spyware intrusion while you are not using a program to scan.

Webroot'sSpySweeper($ 29.99) runs in the background and has the ability to protect computers against real-time spyware.

MicrosoftAntiSpyware Beta 1is still free.This is a tool that allows real-time protection.AntiSpyware is based on well-known software acquired by Microsoft from Giant Software.

One of the latest trends, is the all-in-one toolkit that provides virus, spyware, and firewall protection.An advantage of this trend is that it only needs to update once for the entire product.Zone Alarm Internet Security Suite 6.0($ 69.99) andPanda Platinum Internet Security 2005($ 79.99).

Hope this article will help you a lot.Wish you always have a "healthy" PC and high performance at work.

Minh Phuc