It is frustrating when your computer is running slow. What's worse is the fact that there are so many things that can cause your computer to slow down. It could be hardware (physical components) or software (programs). In the hardware area, the problem could be the processor, the memory, or your network connection. In software, it could be Windows or another program you installed. It might even be a program you forgot you had on your computer that loads in the background every time you start it up! Fortunately, Windows has a built-in tool that can help you identify the problem.
The Windows Task Manager is a great tool for identifying why a computer is slow! To access the task manager, simply hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and then select "Start Task Manager". (Remember, Ctrl+Alt+Del means you press and hold down the Ctrl key, press and hold down the Alt key, and then press the Del key.) You can also go to the start menu search box (in Windows Vista/7) or the search window (in Windows 8) and search for "Task Manager".
Once there, you will find a variety of tabs in the Task Manager window. I like to start at the performance tab. The Performance tab will give you a graph of the CPU and memory use. Ideally, you want these to both be under 75% of the total. If either one is high, then it is time to check out what is using your resources.
Go to the Processes tab. Under that tab, you will see a long list of items. Each item in the list is something on your computer that is using the computer's resources. Once again, you have a CPU column and a Memory column, but in this case, it is broken down by the amount of resources each item is requesting. If you click on the title, you can sort the list by the CPU percent or memory amount. Check to see if one item is unnecessarily taking up a large amount of resources. If you don't know what a particular file is, do a search for the file name and check it out. It could be a legitimate Windows file, or it could be a type of malware!
If you find that your memory is being used up by your programs, then you might want to consider adding more memory. Adding memory is a relatively simple task on most computers (even many laptops). However, all computers have a limit on the amount of memory they can handle, so make sure to find out how much memory your computer can take before you purchase more.
While running out of memory is a fairly common problem (although it is becoming less common due to cheaper memory), running out of processing power is much less common. Most processors (even on older computers) are more than capable of handling today's programs. I am writing this on a laptop that is almost ten years old, and I have more than enough processing power to write on my blog and play a Youtube video at the same time. I also have an Excel spreadsheet open in the background, and I am still only using 13% of my processing power. If you find that your processor is constantly running at 90-100% and you aren't doing anything that complex, it might be time to scan your computer for malware with one or two different programs.
To put it simply, you don't have to deal with a slow computer! There are ways to speed them up, and if that doesn't work, you can always wipe it and put a fresh copy of Windows on it. I have been able to take computers that are ten or more years old and get them running nicely again. Yes, they don't run as fast as a brand new computer, but they will work fine for the majority of tasks we use them for.
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