How to speed up your laptop

For the past few days, has your notebook been feeling too slow when starting up? Have you noticed a sharp drop in performance even when using “light” programs, but you don’t know what this could depend on? Don’t worry, maybe with a little maintenance you can get your laptop back as fast and snappy as it used to be.

All you have to do is follow the directions below. I don’t assure you miraculous results, that’s clear, but the situation, at least a little, should improve. I already anticipate that the operations you will have to carry out basically concern the modification of some system settings aimed at lightening the workload that weighs on your laptop. Of course, if your laptop’s slowdowns are caused by hardware-related problems, the only solution to fix them will be to buy new components, but we’ll talk about that later.

So, are you ready to find out how to speed up your laptop? Yup? Very well! So make yourself comfortable, take your time to concentrate on reading the next lines and, more importantly, implement the suggestions I will give you. If you do, you should be able to improve the situation (as far as possible). Enjoy the reading!

Index

• Disable the automatic start of programs
• Identify viruses and malware
• Update the operating system and programs
• Defragment the disk
• Reduce system animations
• Restore the system
• Replace hardware components

Disable the automatic start of programs

If you want to speed up your laptop, one of the first operations I recommend you do is disable the automatic start of unnecessary programs. For what reason? Well, it doesn’t take long to figure it out: if there are too many programs running when the system starts up, a considerable amount of RAM will be uselessly used and, consequently, the machine will be slow already when it is turned on.

Are you wondering how to disable automatic program startup on Windows? To begin with, call up the Task Manager tool  (you can do this by pressing the Ctrl + Alt + Del keys on the keyboard at the same time and then clicking on the Task Manager item in the menu that opens, or by right-clicking in an “empty” point of the taskbar and by selecting the item Task management or Start task management from the menu that opens).

Once the Task Manager utility is started, click on the More details item    (if necessary), select the Startup tab containing the list of applications that are started when the laptop is turned on, right-click on one of the programs set for the automatic start and then select the Disable item from the context menu (or on the button of the same name at the bottom right). Then repeat this operation for all unnecessary programs that start automatically and that’s it.

I recommend: do not disable computer security software (such as antivirus) and system components or you could compromise the stability and security of your computer.

Do you have a Windows 7 PC  (or previous version of the operating system) available? If you wish, you can disable the programs that start automatically also from the Run panel … : press the Win + R keys on the keyboard at the same time to call it up, give the msconfig command and select the Start item from the window that opens to access the section from the which to remove programs set to start automatically. In the guide in which I explain how to speed up Windows 7 startup,  even more, specific information on how to best use the tool I just showed you: I suggest you take a look at it.

Do you own a Mac? Don’t worry, even on macOS, you can disable unnecessary programs set to start automatically. To proceed, go to System Preferences by clicking on the gray icon with gears on the Dock bar, select the  Users and groups item from the window that opens, highlight your account (if necessary) and click on the Login Items tab.

Finally, locate the programs that you do not want to start when the Mac is turned on, select them one at a time and then press the (-)  button located in the lower-left corner of the window.

Identify viruses and malware

If you use a Windows laptop, another thing you need to do to speed up your computer is to detect viruses and malware that you may have inadvertently downloaded along with some apparently “harmless” program. As you can imagine, viruses and malware can consume huge system resources, which can cause slowdowns and malfunctions of various kinds.

To identify malicious software that may have lurked in your laptop, you need to scan the system with the antivirus you have installed and, if you find that there are indeed viruses or malware, proceed immediately to remove them using the tools integrated into the antivirus itself. In case you have difficulty in doing so, I suggest you take a look at the articles in which I explain how to eliminate viruses from your PC  and how to eliminate viruses from your PC without formatting, in which you can find much more detailed information on how to proceed with the most popular antivirus.

If, on the other hand, you want to try other antiviruses (both free and paid ) in addition to those you already have installed on your laptop, take a look at the guides I linked to you. If from your “investigations” you do not find any cyber threats on your computer, do not make the mistake of letting your guard down: carry out regular scans and, more importantly,  keep the antivirus updated so that it can promptly detect any “Intruders”.

If you have a Mac, you should know that your computer, or rather, the operating system you use ( macOS ) is less prone to viruses than Windows. However, Mac malware does exist and can slow down your computer just like those designed for Microsoft systems. If you want to know how to eradicate them, read my guide on how to clean your Mac from viruses.

Update the operating system and programs

Updating the operating system and programs is another precaution that you must necessarily take to speed up your laptop. Are you wondering why? Also in this case it does not take long to understand it: the software can contain errors (called bugs in the jargon ) that generate slowdowns, malfunctions of various kinds and abnormal battery consumption.

To search for the availability of new updates on  Windows 10, go to the Settings menu by clicking the gear symbol located in the Start menu sidebar, go to Update and security and select the Windows Update item in the sidebar located on the left.

On Windows 7, on the other hand, type ” windows update ” in the search field on the Start menu and select the first occurrence that is found. If you are interested in more information on  Windows updates and how to update Windows PCs, please read the guides that you find on my blog.

As for the search for new updates on macOS, click on the Apple logo  (the icon of the ” bitten apple ” located at the top left, in the menu bar), select the item About this Mac and then press the Update button  Software… .

Would you like more details on how to update your Mac? Well: take a look at the tutorial I just linked to and you will see that you will find all the information you are looking for.

Defragment the disk

Defragmenting the disk is another operation that I recommend to do to ensure that your laptop does not suffer slowdowns. Over time, in fact, the data saved in your PC is arranged in a disordered way due to the lack of contiguous spaces on the disk, a phenomenon that is called fragmentation. This is a problem that mainly affects mechanical disks and file systems used by Windows (such as NTFS and FAT32 ).

The defragmentation is, as you probably guessed, the operation by which fragmented files are reset, allowing the operating system to find them more quickly. Since the problem of fragmentation affects the SSD drives and file systems used by macOS much less, on the latter it is not necessary to do it.

Windows, being affected by the fragmentation problem, automatically defragments the disk. However, if you have changed some Windows settings and you suspect that this is not the case in your case, proceed as follows: open the  Start menu, search for ” defragment and optimize drives”  in the menu that opens and click on the first occurrence that is found.

In the window that opens, click on the Change settings button, check the items  Run on a schedule (recommended)  and Notify in case of three consecutive scheduled runs not completed, choose the option Every week from the menu  Frequency and save the changes made by pressing the OK button. If any step is not clear to you, please consult the guide in which I show in detail how to defragment your PC.

Reduce system animations

Both Windows and macOS make the use of your laptop enjoyable through a whole series of animations and graphic effects that are really beautiful to look at. Too bad, though, that if you have a slightly dated car, these animations can slow it down considerably. So let’s see how to reduce the system animations to avoid this kind of problem.

To reduce the graphic effects used on Windows, go to the Classic Control Panel  (just search for it in the search field of the Start menu and then select the first occurrence that is found), click on the System and Security item located at the top left, click on the System item and then on  Advanced system settings from the left sidebar.

In the System Properties window, presses the  Advanced tab, press the Settings button located in the Performance section, click  Performance Options, press the Visual Effects tab, remove the checkmark from the items related to the system animations you want to remove (eg. Animations on the taskbar, Show window shades, etc.) and, to save the changes, click on the Apply and  OK buttons.

To reduce the graphic effects used on macOS, on the other hand, go to System Preferences by clicking on the gray icon with gears located on the Dock bar, presses on the  Accessibility item, click on the Monitor item and put the checkmark on the items Reduce Motion and  Reduce Transparency.

If you want, you can also disable the animations applied to the opening and closing of windows, by pressing the  Dock item  (from the main System Preferences window  ) and then removing the checkmark from the  Magnification and  Animation items when opening applications.

Restore the system

You have scrupulously applied all the information I have given you in the previous lines, but despite this, your laptop continues to show signs of “suffering”? Assuming this issue is not hardware-related (I hope for you!), You can fix it by doing a  system restore.

This operation, which is quite simple to implement, removes all the software problems that cause slowdowns on your laptop in one fell swoop. If you have never done this before, I suggest you read the guides in which I show how to do it on Windows 10 , Windows 8,  Windows 7,  Windows XP  and macOS to avoid making mistakes.

Replace hardware components

If your laptop’s slowdowns aren’t caused by software issues, there’s obviously something wrong with the hardware. That’s why you should consider replacing your computer’s hardware components, such as RAM and disk. By doing this, your PC can literally “resurrect”.

By increasing the RAM memory, in fact, you will greatly improve the performance of the machine when using particularly “heavy” software or during rather complex and demanding multitasking sessions. By replacing the mechanical disk with an SSD drive, on the other hand, you can significantly increase file access times and system startup times, as well as those related to program execution.

Before making the purchase of new  RAM  and a new  SSD drive, take a look at the purchase guides that you find on my blog and that I have just linked to you: they will help you to identify the hardware components that best suit your needs and, why not, to save some money by taking advantage of any offers available.

If you decide to do-it-yourself with regards to installing the new components (after making sure you can do it without voiding the warranty of your computer), you can find some general information on how to proceed in the guides in which I explain how to assemble PC,  how to increase PC RAM  and how to upgrade PC.

 

 

Source: aranzulla by https://www.aranzulla.it/ The article has been translated (Powered by Google Translate) based on the content of aranzulla by https://www.aranzulla.it/. If there is any issue regarding the content, copyright; please report below the article. We will try to process as quickly as possible to protect the rights of the author. Thank you very much! We just want readers to access information more rapidly and easily with other multilingual content, instead of information only available in a certain language. We always respect the copyright of the content of the author and always include the original link of the source article. If the author disagrees, just leave the report below the article, the article will be edited or deleted at the request of the author. Thank you very much!