Boost your computer performance today

We understand what it’s like when you just want to get on with some work, but your computer is performing like it’s been out the night before. Thankfully, there are some quick and easy things you can check and do to get your productivity back on track.

Give your computer a regular break

Now, this is also a fancy way of us saying turn it off and turn it on again – which definitely helps with performance. Your computer isn’t designed to be running 24/7, and there seems to be some kind of urban myth that leaving your computer all the time means that it’s quicker. It’s not. It’s really not. Leaving it on all the time will seriously reduce the lifespan of your computer and degrade performance rapidly. There are also potential Cyber Security threats from leaving your computer on, unattended, which we’ll cover in a future article.

Remove software which is no longer used

Still, got that version of Photoshop from five years ago on your computer? Not used Google Earth for a couple of years? Remove them then. Whilst you may not be using the software, it will still be taking up resources on your computer and potentially running some parts of the software in the background without you knowing about it. By removing software you no longer use you can boost the performance of your computer, free up drive space and improve your Cyber Security.

Check and increase the amount of memory in your computer

Just to be clear, we’re referring to memory (also known as RAM), and not storage space on your computer hard drive. As a bare minimum, you should have 8GB of memory in your computer, and ideally, 16GB would be the right amount for most people. You can check this on your computer by right-clicking on My Computer or This PC and clicking the Properties option. Some information will appear, and it’s the Installed RAM that you’re interested in. Most computers can have more memory installed if yours is a little short, and on average, it’s less than £40 for the parts.

Keep your computer up-to-date

At least once a week you should apply all updates available to your computer. This might be Windows Updates or software updates for your applications. By applying updates, some of them will improve the performance of your computer. They may boost your computer performance by replacing parts of the software which are deemed to be resource hungry or found to be negatively affecting performance. Again, this also helps from a Cyber Security perspective as well, as an added bonus. On Windows computers just type ‘update’ into the start menu and click on Windows Update Settings. From there press the button to check for updates, and then download and apply any that it finds.

We hope these pointers help you get better performance out of your computer, and perhaps give you a little more life out of your computer system.

Gavin Moorhouse is the owner of Lucid Computer Solutions, an IT Support business based in Redditch, Worcestershire. He could start up his computer, log in and begin work in less than a minute.