There are many reasons for a computer to be running slowly. There is no magic trick to speed up a slow computer. One must try to find out the cause of the slowness and what are the factors present that cause it. You should check if your computer remains slow always or at some specific time and if an error occurred during the startup of your computer.
If your computer remains slow occasionally, it can be due to a software error because when we start the computer the software becomes slow and after closing of the program it again restores its speed. We will discuss some important factors that are the main causes in decreasing your computer's speed.
More than 5 year old computers can be slow than today's fastest computers but we can also optimize an old computer. Usually the speed of a Celeron computer is slow. If you have installed a new hardware which is not properly configured then it can also slow down your computer's speed.
Another reason for the slowdown of your computer can be the heavy load at start up. When you first install the new software on your computer like messengers MSN, yahoo etc. then they start themselves at the start up. Which means whenever you restart your computer, the startup program will be loaded into the memory automatically. This can reduce the speed of your computer. Your computer speed can also be slow if a malicious process is running. Insufficient RAM can also slow down your computer. Any hard disk errors or fragmentation issues can also slow down your computer's speed.
If your computer becomes slow suddenly this can be due to a virus or spyware's attack on your computer. To resolve this issue you should use an antivirus for the scanning of the computer and then for the cleaning of any virus if exists there.
Your computer can do a lot of things at the same time. At the bottom right corner of your screen, where you can see the clock, is an area called the "Notification Area". It's a place where Windows shows icons of the programs that are running in the memory. If a lot of icons are present there, it means that your computer may be performing so many tasks. Windows XP uses the inactive hide icon button to hide the processes. You can double click on the arrow button that is hiding the Processes to unhide the processes.
A lower RAM can also decrease the speed of your computer because when we run any program on the computer, it extends a process from the program into the memory. A program while on running mode is called process and when we close the running program then the space allocated to this program in memory becomes reallocated. If you are using the Windows XP then you should use a RAM of 1 GB for the best performance. However 512 MB is also enough, but 256 MB RAM is not enough for the system that is running the Microsoft Windows XP operating system. Your computer's speed can also be slow if your hard disk requires a disk defragmentation. I recommend you check the issues that are discussed above to maintain the speed of your computer.
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