Tips To Speed Up Windows 10 PC

Windows Operating Systems tend to get slow after a period of time if not managed properly. Below are some tips on how to make and keep your Windows 10 PC / laptop faster.

Uninstall applications that came bundled with the OS

Uninstall all unwanted apps that came preinstalled with your OS. Go to Settings >> System.



Then, Apps & Features.



Here, uninstall the apps you don’t need. Just be careful to not to uninstall any important programs, such as drivers.

Disable background apps

Go to Settings >> Privacy, Then, click on "Background apps".



Disable the unwanted apps from running in the background.

Disable startup apps

Open the Task Manager and go to the "Startup" tab.



Disable the apps that you don’t want to run when your PC/ Windows starts. Again, just remember not to disable important apps, such as Antiviruses, OS tasks etc.

Disable Services (Advanced users only)

Open "Run" (Windows key + R) and type "msconfig" followed by clicking OK. 

Then, go to the "Services" tab.



Disable all unwanted services from running.

Check Power options

Keep your PC performance balanced for normal usage and change it to High performance only when doing performance sensitive tasks. Change it to Power Saving mode only when your battery is low. Keeping the settings to "Power saving" reduces the CPU clock speed.



Occasionally run a PC cleanup tool

Free tools like CCleaner etc. can be used to clean junk files /cache from your computer. But, be careful to install the right software. There are many scams out there nowadays.

Ensure Disk Defragmentation is ON

Enable "Disk Defragmentation" if its switched OFF, unless you are using an SSD because defragmentation can ruin an SSD. By default, Windows 10 enables this feature.

Keep important Software updated

Software such as OS (Windows updates), browsers, frameworks (.Net, Java, Flash etc), drivers (video/audio/graphic drivers), anti virus software etc. should be updated regularly.

Keep some free space on your hard drive

RAM uses some hard disk space for page file allocation. The free space you should keep should be a little more than the RAM installed on your PC, unless you have changed some settings manually.

Run error checking on your Hard Drive

Run error checking at least twice a year to ensure that your hard disk is running smoothly.



Doing this will help you not to lose your data due to hard disk crash. Also, a hard disk that runs with errors could reduce system performance.

Turn Search Indexing off

Especially for lower-powered PCs, search indexing can eat up system resources, if only temporarily. If you do a lot of searching, this won't appeal to you, as some searches will be slower.

 

To turn off indexing, open the "Indexing options" from Control Panel window (you can also just type index in the Start button search box, and you should see "Indexing Options" at the top of the result list), click Modify, and remove locations being indexed and file types too.

Reset DNS cache if websites load slowly

Open Run and type ipconfig /flushdns and press OK.



Run only one anti-malware at a time

Running more than one can severely reduce PC performance and could also cause other issues.

If none of this helps, consider upgrading your RAM

If you use the PC for simple tasks, like Word,Excel, Browsing, Movies etc., then 4 GB RAM should be minimum. Anything above that RAM should be 8GB and above.