Why do PC's slow down so much?

marl

marl

marl

Soldato
Joined
16 Jun 2004
Posts
2,824
My current rig is 7 years old. When new it would boot up in less than a minute. Now... it takes a good 5 minutes before it's good for anything!
 
itll probably have sata 2 connections which wont harness the full potential of a sata 3 SSD but would still make it snappy :)
 
Why do PC's slow down so much?
Click to expand...

Theoretically they shouldnt slow down just due to time really

Its the stuff we put on the computer that slows it down, installing programs that launch at startup, things that check for updates, etc etc

I reinstall windows on my computers roughly every 6 months to keep everything clean and quick and driver issue free

This regime has also taught me to be economical with what i install so that i can learn to use fewer programs to do more which in turn also uses less system resources
 
Jony27 said:
itll probably have sata 2 connections which wont harness the full potential of a sata 3 SSD but would still make it snappy :)
Click to expand...

A SATAII SSD will still be a significant improvement over a HDD, especially with a clean OS install.
 
Windows 7 seems a lot better compared to previous Window versions when it gets older.

It's a natural thing though for the OS to "degrade" after a while. A fresh install will clear out all the junk it collected over time and will make it snappy again.

You could try a registry cleaner like CCleaner which I find does help a bit with older systems if you really don't want to do a clean fresh install.
 
7 years worth of Windows XP updates seem to slow old machines a bit even on fresh installs.

Back in the day you could run it on 512MB ram, with SP3 and full updates you want at least 1GB of ram to run reasonably. :)
 
Windows falls apart over time. It isn't "natural" or "inevitable", it's crappy coding by Microsoft.

Your options are 1/ Live with it or 2/ Change to an operating system which doesn't fall to pieces as time passes. 1 is easy to set up and 2 is easy to live with.
 
JonJ678 said:
it's crappy coding by Microsoft.
Click to expand...

Haha nothing is perfect bud. Bound to have errors in over 1 million lines of code.

The things I do to keep the pc super fast:

+ Installed an SSD
+ Download CCleaner, run it at start-up.
+ Check when installing software to avoid additional "Bloatware".
+ After installing a piece of software to use on the quick, uninstall it after use.
+ Check for obsolete registry entries. Fix or remove them.
+ keep the hard-drives clean with good management systems.

You should be fine if you do some of these.
 
panyan said:
Theoretically they shouldnt slow down just due to time really

Its the stuff we put on the computer that slows it down, installing programs that launch at startup, things that check for updates, etc etc

I reinstall windows on my computers roughly every 6 months to keep everything clean and quick and driver issue free

This regime has also taught me to be economical with what i install so that i can learn to use fewer programs to do more which in turn also uses less system resources
Click to expand...

+1 you nailed it.

I have a 2005 P4D 3.0Ghz ,admittedly with an SSD, (crappy early kingston V something 64GB) and without installing crap on it, it maintains a very speedy boot (win 7, 20 seconds to desktop). Limit what you install and it will remain clean!
If you must install loads of stuff, either do it in a windows VM on VMWare workstation or re-install every once in a while. Possibly once a year.
 
JonJ678 said:
Windows falls apart over time. It isn't "natural" or "inevitable", it's crappy coding by Microsoft.

Your options are 1/ Live with it or 2/ Change to an operating system which doesn't fall to pieces as time passes. 1 is easy to set up and 2 is easy to live with.
Click to expand...

thats a bit harsh. its what i always used to think though. keeping windows clean keeps it fast (i have done with my ageing P4D and it still flies). Its when you install loads of 3rd party stuff it starts to slow down. I suspect MS had to make it easy for developers to develop for the OS. Since they monopolise the market now, all developers code for windows and trying to enforce good software development will probably cost too much developers, time and money!
 
It really is windows that causes it, the way it just dumps crap all over the place, nothing is kept where it should be.

Defragging your drive helps but then Windows updates just come in and mess it all up again.

Also bare in mind, Windows updates every so often, not sure if that would effect the speeds going by the general idea that the software is becoming more advanced, while your computer is not.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom