Tips For Fixing SLOW Computers

There are countless things that can cause your computer to run slow.  Older computers have slower processors and limited random access memory (RAM).  If your computer is not running Windows 2000 or Windows XP, it is very susceptible to viruses, spyware, and adware.  Microsoft is continually upgrading Windows XP to fight off the continuous attacks of worldwide hackers.

If you are using a computer without virus/firewall software, it will quickly become bogged down with all manner of malicious software that attacks your computer.  Most of this software is designed to make money off of the information that it steals from your hard drive.  We try to protect our customers with the best available hardware firewalls.

Earlier versions of Windows often crashed with the famous "blue screen of death."  As Windows improved, the blue screen of death is very rare in Windows XP.  When an individual program crashes, it usually does not affect Windows XP.  However, when it does, it is often in the background in the form of a "hung" process.  Your system is most vulnerable to a hung process during system start up.  If you have many programs that load into the lower right of your screen, you can often hang a process by trying to start an application (such as Internet Explorer or your mail program)  before Windows has fully completed loading. 

If your computer is running slower that usual, you can see what processes are running in the background by pressing Ctrl, Alt, and Delete simultaneously.  This will bring up the system monitor applet.  In the first picture, you can see what processes are running the background.  If you ever see iexplorer.exe or outlook.exe in this list, it is probably hung up and slowing your system.  Be sure you do not close any process that is "owned" by the system.  If you accidentally close a system process, it will not cause any permanent damage.  Just restart the computer.  The second picture shows the status of the demand on your processor.  If you see that the load on the processor is 100%, you either have a hung application or your virus program is running its daily scan.  The last tab shows the status of your network traffic.  If you see a high traffic count and you are not intently downloading or uploading data, then someone else is.  Finally, if you are in doubt on what to do, try restarting your computer.

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