When a technical problem arises, you may be able to get to the bottom of things simply by using your computer’s own tools. Window comes with a selection of built-in utilities that can help you identify and correct many common problems. If these little things are not done in return, PC slows down and the only way to increase PC performance is to manually fix them using some built-in tools. These are some of the ways you can use such tools to diagnose faults and then fix them.
Rearrange your files:
Basically, computer errors are the result of a number of things that may or may not have anything to do with the way the computer is used, but can slow it down.
The best way is to start defragmenting your disk – this can help resolve performance issues, especially if it is running slowly. To start this tool, go to Start > My Computer > (in Windows XP) or Start > Computer (in Windows Vista). Right-click the icon for the disk you want to defragment, select properties > click the Tools tab > click Defrag Now. In Windows Vista, you can schedule a defrag to run automatically by going to Start > Control Panel > System Maintenance > Click where it says Defragment your hard drive in Administrative Tools. In the opened window, click ‘Run on schedule’ and click modify.
Windows Help Console: Both XP and Vista have a built-in help console, this is a database of Microsoft help articles that can help fix common errors, it can provide a quick response to some problems. To activate go to Start > Help and Support > to open the help console. To search for a particular keyword, type in the search box and press Enter.
Computer Management Console: Go to Start>right-click My Computer (‘Computer’ only in Vista) select Manage, click Continue on user account Control Computer Management Console provides access to a variety of useful information about your computer, including the device manager.
Other diagnostic tools available are:
Task Manager – used to close unresponsive programs
Reliability and Performance Monitor – Use it to view disk and network activities to see how files, programs, and services are consuming system resources.
Disk Cleanup – Used to improve performance by removing unnecessary files
Scandisk: built-in Windows error checking functions.
Insufficient memory will also cause errors. That is why software programs include minimum memory requirements. A program that needs 14 MB of memory will fail on a computer that only has 4 MB of memory if it runs. The same goes for disk space, monitor color depth, and resolution. In these situations, problems occur when a piece of software tries to access things (hardware, memory, space, resolution, etc.) that it can’t find. Make sure you have enough memory on your PC.
This article doesn’t even begin to cover the whole aspect of diagnosing slow computer problems, but you can find additional information on getting help with slow computer problems and how to manually fix them here.
Dayor is a support technician in the IT industry with over many years of experience providing solutions to businesses and individuals on various network and general PC issues. Check out his opinions on SlowPC, just click on how to fix your slow PC without an engineer call