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pangaea
Joined: 20 Dec 2007
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 Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2011 5:29 pm Post subject: How do I make my computer faster? |
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| My computer has become annoyingly slow, especially at start up. I have weeded out some old files, but I'm not sure what else to do. I have heard of programs that help make the processing speed faster, but I have no idea what to get and I am reluctant to download anything after my last run in with a virus when I was trying to download a free anti-virus program. Any suggestions? |
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onlyinkorea87
Joined: 16 Feb 2010
Location: Gimhae
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| Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2011 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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You said you cleaned out some files. Did you do a disk clean? I try doing that once every so often. If you did, and it doesn't work--maybe you can go to a service center and they can help.
Good luck!
-Onlyinkorea87
http://www.onlyinkorea87.wordpress.com |
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ttompatz
Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Location: Kwangju, South Korea
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| Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2011 6:04 pm Post subject: |
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Honestly?
The surest way to return it to original factory performance is to clean the heat sinks (hot chips get real slow), save your DATA files to a backup drive and then reformat and reinstall your O/S.
The registry is clean, the crud and preloads are gone as are all the fonts and other useless data that windows loads as a preamble.
Back to spec and then it should take about a year to clog up again on you.
Anything else is just 2nd best.
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pangaea
Joined: 20 Dec 2007
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| Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2011 7:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Does heat make a computer slower? I have noticed that my laptop gets very hot. For some reason, the vents are on the bottom, with only one vent partially open on the back. Are laptop trays that will help with that available here? |
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jonpurdy
Joined: 08 Jan 2009
Location: Ulsan
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| Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2011 8:08 pm Post subject: |
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I think what ttompatz means is that if a CPU gets too hot, it will underclock itself until it cools back down. I'm not sure about desktop machines, but laptops have been doing this for years.
I suppose some dust collecting on the heat sink of a desktop machine might cause it to work more inefficiently, however I would assume that any dust collecting would get blown away by the fan. |
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ttompatz
Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Location: Kwangju, South Korea
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| Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2011 8:54 pm Post subject: |
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| jonpurdy wrote: |
I think what ttompatz means is that if a CPU gets too hot, it will underclock itself until it cools back down. I'm not sure about desktop machines, but laptops have been doing this for years.
I suppose some dust collecting on the heat sink of a desktop machine might cause it to work more inefficiently, however I would assume that any dust collecting would get blown away by the fan. |
ANY/ALL solid state electronics HATE heat and will slow down when they get hot (electrical resistance issues) and also get hotter as a result of the additional resistance in an upward spiral until failure/burnout (hence the need for heat sinks and fans).
Even on desktops the heat sink will develop a "carpet" of dust on the top of the sink between the fan and cooling fins; reducing the effectiveness of both the cooling and the performance of the CPU).
Open the case (2 screws) and with a can of compressed air (3000 won at most computer shops or the computer section of your favorite department store), blow it clean. You will significantly improve CPU performance and it will run quieter.
If your (desktop) case is on the floor and the floor is hot under the case - MOVE the case. Sitting it on a hot spot on your floor defeats the purpose of cooling.
Then there is the "windoze" issue. The ONLY sure way to fix that is to backup your data, do a "quick format" on the HDD and re-install windows (all flavors from 3.11 to win7). There are some software solutions (registry cleaners, etc.) that will work in the short term but in the long run they contribute more to the problem than they fix.
To answer the OP. yes, you can get cooling pads for laptops here. They will have from 1-3 fans and are powered through your USB port. (they typically also have additional USB outlets as well). They cost anywhere from 10-20k won. Metal ones are better for heat dissipation than the plastic ones.
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EricB
Joined: 08 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 1:53 am Post subject: |
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| They're expensive, but if you can afford it I recommend installing a solid state drive (otherwise known as an ssd). in the twenty plus years i've been using computers, nothing has improved the day to day performance of my pc as much upgrading to an ssd. Bootup time and program startup times are drastically reduced. |
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eamo
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.
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| Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 3:00 am Post subject: |
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If the start-up is especially slow then you may have too many programs loading up which are probably not needed.
Enter 'msconfig' into the start search bar and go through the programs in the 'start-up' tab. Uncheck what you don't need.
More and faster RAM can make a big difference. Just make sure you know the maximum speed your motherboard can handle before buying new RAM.
Do the Windows Disk Clean-up thing.
For a more brutal disk clean up you could run the freeware Ccleaner with every option checked......but be prepared to have to retype all your usernames and password for websites after. |
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akcrono
Joined: 11 Mar 2010
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| Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 3:13 am Post subject: |
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| EricB wrote: |
| They're expensive, but if you can afford it I recommend installing a solid state drive (otherwise known as an ssd). in the twenty plus years i've been using computers, nothing has improved the day to day performance of my pc as much upgrading to an ssd. Bootup time and program startup times are drastically reduced. |
It's definitely a noticeable gain, but only for load times.
There are a few things you can do:
Open and clean the heat sink. If you're uncomfortable, you can probably get someone who knows how to do it for you for around $40 or so. Some laptops have stupid things in between the heat sink and the processor (mine had a piece of foil and some waxy thermal paste). Clean all that crap out, put on a thin layer of thermal paste (arctic silver can be found in Yongsan), and seal the whole thing up. For extra cooling, you can sand down the processor and the cpu (not as dangerous as it sounds; the processor has a heat shield on it), also known as lapping (google how to do it before you just start sanding away). I did that to my old dell laptop and it's made a world of difference.
In terms of upgrades, it depends on what you have for ram and sockets, as well as in what way you want the computer to be faster. If you want faster load times, go with an ssd. If you want to run more things at once, get more ram. If your problem is video performance, get a better graphics card (can be impossible on some laptops). Anything else, you probably want to upgrade the processor. There is a program called CPUz which will tell you what kind of sockets you have on your machine so you can find upgrades. An upgrade is usually because of a specific demand; find the demand and you will know what to upgrade. Depending on the part, sometimes its just more cost effective to get a new machine.
One last thing to increase speeds, as someone else pointed out, is to do a clean install of the OS. This will erase EVERYTHING, so backup any music/videos/files/game saves etc that you want to keep. Another option is to get a different OS altogether; both xp and windows 7 are faster than vista and I've heard Ubuntu Linux runs pretty fast as well. |
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UknowsI
Joined: 16 Apr 2009
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| Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 6:21 pm Post subject: |
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Against any professionals advice I would also recommend not to use anti-virus software. Some anti-virus software are ok, but too many of them will do way more damage than good. The main reason why my computer has been slow has actually been because I have had to install anti-virus software. If you are a careless user you might get a virus, but it's better to know how to format fast every 3rd year than to run most of the anti-virus software out there. However, if you are going to install every program Korean websites require I guess an antivirus program might be useful...
Quick list:
-Remove dust
-Format hard disc
-Install Windows XP or Windows 7 (if using windows)
-My questionable advice: Make sure you don't use anti-virus software which slows down your computer (If you are certain that it's a light weight program that's fine)
-Have at least 2-3 GB of RAM
It's quite possible to make an old computer run fast. A 4-5 year old computer used to be ancient, but these days it's no problem using much older computers as long as you're not slowing down the system or trying to play 3D games. I would say that a hardware upgrade is generally not worth it unless it's just putting in a bit more RAM. SSDs, better coolers, updated CPU and so on will in most cases just give a minor boost compared to the cost and are more appealing if you are actually enjoying upgrading your computer. |
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spanky1off
Joined: 21 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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as the guy said above! actually i have to take my laptop in today because it overheats and slows to a crawl. so id say maybe your suffering the same kind of problem. my laptop fan actually needs replacing. a separate laptop stand cooler fan might help a little.
get avira antivir...recomended by indian i.t. gurus according to my super geek mate who got his msce there. its free got a light footprint and is effective. |
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sadguy
Joined: 13 Feb 2011
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| Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2011 6:13 pm Post subject: |
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i just upgraded my ram from 1gb to 2gb and it's amazing. everything runs so much faster.
if you get an ssd to replace your hard drive, how do you transfer all of your old files to the new one? |
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Darkeru
Joined: 21 Apr 2010
Location: England
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| Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2011 8:00 pm Post subject: |
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| UknowsI wrote: |
| Against any professionals advice I would also recommend not to use anti-virus software.....The main reason why my computer has been slow has actually been because I have had to install anti-virus software. |
As a compromise to this, I'd suggest installing 'Avast Antivirus Free Edition'. All anti-virus softwares will slow the computer to some degree, but this one isn't so bad, though it doesn't detect as well as some others. Completely avoid Norton Antivirus, as it seems to be one of the worst offenders I've seen in slowing the computer down. |
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akcrono
Joined: 11 Mar 2010
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| Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2011 9:28 pm Post subject: |
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| sadguy wrote: |
i just upgraded my ram from 1gb to 2gb and it's amazing. everything runs so much faster.
if you get an ssd to replace your hard drive, how do you transfer all of your old files to the new one? |
You need to find some way of hooking up both of the drives to your computer. If your computer has an e-sata port, that should work. If not, you can find an adapter that will allow you to hook the new drive up to your usb port (like an external drive), probably in Yongsan. Its much easier with a desktop, as every motherboard I've seen has at least 2 sata ports, so all you have to do is hook up the new drive with the cables that are included with it.
| Darkeru wrote: |
| UknowsI wrote: |
| Against any professionals advice I would also recommend not to use anti-virus software.....The main reason why my computer has been slow has actually been because I have had to install anti-virus software. |
As a compromise to this, I'd suggest installing 'Avast Antivirus Free Edition'. All anti-virus softwares will slow the computer to some degree, but this one isn't so bad, though it doesn't detect as well as some others. Completely avoid Norton Antivirus, as it seems to be one of the worst offenders I've seen in slowing the computer down. |
Really depends on browsing habits and how much you click on extra stuff. I went without a virus scanner for a couple years with no problem back when I had a new computer. There was a thread here about 6 months ago about a few tech savvy people doing the same. If you just do light browsing and don't make online purchases, it isn't necessary, although it's still a good idea for most computers. Avast actually has pretty good detection. I use AGV, which is also free, and runs very fast. Kaspersky is a well rated virus scanner that is subscription based that I got for my parents when I moved out here.
Avoid Norton like the plague. MacAfee is another one that I avoid; while it is less obtrusive, it is still bloaty and slow. |
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dazzed
Joined: 26 May 2007
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| Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2011 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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| surprised nobody suggested defragging. It'll shorten the time the HDD finds the info from your HDD. Also, if you just have 1-2 gigs of ram upgrading to 4 gig should help on the load. |
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