It often seems that as time goes by a computer loses a significant amount of its original speed. Sometimes this lost speed is thought to be a normal part of computer aging but this is usually not the case. It takes a long time for a PC's parts to become old enough for their aging to affect the way the computer will perform. There are ways to keep a computer from losing speed and get its speed back if it has become slow. This article will talk about getting and keeping your PC's speed up to its potential. The Resources Basically, a computer consists of a motherboard, a CPU and RAM. The inherent ratings of these parts are what will determine how fast the computer will be right out of the box. Of course, if we put a greater demand on our PC by installing more hardware or even software into it, we may have to upgrade it by installing more RAM so we will not lose speed. However, if we haven't made any extravagant changes to the PC and it still slows down, we have to look elsewhere for our problem. What Steals a Computer's Resources? Poor performance, marked by slow speed, sometimes extremely slow speed, is most often the result of something having gotten into our computer and stolen a good share of its resources. The culprit usually causing this type of computer slowdown is malware. The word malware is a contraction of the words malicious and software. Malware can be any type of computer virus or spyware. These things have the ability to steal a computer's resources and slow it down to the point it can be difficult to use. For the purposes of this article, we do not need to differentiate between the different types of parasites. What is important is we realize we must scan our computers frequently for all types of spyware and all types of malware and viruses. This is the first step in computer maintenance because it will keep our PC's free of these things that destroy our computer's performance, not to mention the fact scanning for spyware can also save our identity from being stolen. The Registry Should Be Kept Clean As Well Corruption will build up in a computer's registry from regular every day use. The only way to avoid this is to not use the computer. This, of course, is not a viable option. So, what this means is not only do we need to keep viruses and spyware out of our computers, but we must also keep the registry free of corruption. Just like viruses and spyware will slow down our computers, so will registry corruption. In fact, some of the slowest and most unstable computers I've ever seen have become so because of registry corruption. There are other things a PC owner can check when he or she is dealing with a slow computer. Here's one: look in the system tray. This area of the computer screen is located in the lower right hand corner. If you find any icons there, right click them and look for the option to close the programs these icons represent. If doing so gets some of your computer's speed back, you'll know one of these corresponding programs was stealing resources from the PC. Still, it is most important to make sure you are free from spyware, viruses and registry corruption. If you do, your computer will likely continue to race down the information highway like it did the first day you used it.
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