You can squeeze more speed and performance out of your computer than you might think. Boosting start-up time by a fraction of a second or utilizing every bit of a PC’s available memory can be a fun, and rewarding process.
People have been trying to tweak, refine and improve things ever since the invention of computer. However it can take time to find the tips and tricks, so we’ve put together 20 of the best tips we could find to help your PC run up to 200% faster
All these methods have been tested and proved to work.
1.) Disable GUI boot
Disabling GUI boot can boost up your PC’s boot time by approximately 5%-10% (depends on hardware).
- Type ‘msconfig’ in your Start button and hit ‘Enter’.
- Now click on the ‘Boot’ tab and check ‘No GUI boot’.
- Reboot your PC for the changes to take effect.
Be warned though. It doesn’t work for some people. If you notice any latency in booting up, you should revert to default settings.
2.) Use ReadyBoost
ReadyBoost is a simple way to speed up your PC when your PC’s memory is running low. Simply plug-in a card or Flash drive and let ReadyBoot borrow its memory.
It’s compatible with most devices, so there shouldn’t be any compatibility related issues.
Once you plug-in a storage device on your PC, select ‘Speed up my System’ from the options. Now you can allocate as much space as you want to reserve for system speed.
3.) Downgrade visual effects
Downgrading some visual effects can make drastic improvements to your PC’s performance.
Go to Control Panel > Performance Information and Tools >Adjust Visual Effects >Performance Options and tick on ‘Adjust for best performance’.
Click ‘Apply’ for the changes to take effect.
4.) Disable system restore
Disabling system restore might not be the best option for everyone, but it’s certainly going to improve your PC’s performance by quite a bit.
- Right click on the ‘Computer’ icon and choose ‘Properties’.
- Now choose ‘System Protection’ from the left-hand side.
- A new tab will pop-up in front of you.
- Select ‘System Protection’ tab and click on ‘Configure’.
- Once you are there, turn off system restore by checking ‘Turn off system protection’.
Again, it might not be a good idea, but it’s certainly going to save you a lot of hard drive space.
5.) Defragment your hard drive frequently
Fragmentation can bog down your PC by making your hard drive do extra work. De-fragmenting your hard disk from time to time ensures that all the drives are working efficiently. Please note if your computer has an SSD drive this won’t help much.
- Type ‘Disk Defragmenter’ in the Start menu and hit ‘Enter’.
- Now select the disks you want to defragment. For automatic defragmetion, turn on the scheduled defragmentation every day, week or month.
6.) Add more virtual memory
If you have less than 1 GB of RAM installed on your PC, you should definitely add some virtual memory. Ideally, the fix should be to buy more RAM. But if you don’t want that, you can increase the size of virtual memory available to your PC on a temporary basis.
You need to increase the minimum size of your paging file. By default, the minimum size of paging file is set to the amount of RAM installed, and the maximum size is three times the amount of RAM installed. You can, however, easily increase the sizes.
Head on over to Microsoft’s official page to find out more about how to do this. They’ve put together a step-by-step guide.
7.) Disable start-up programs
A lot of unnecessary programs and services start up when you boot up your PC. Most of them are just eating up your PC’s resources sitting idle in the background. So you need to weed them out & prevent them from running on start-up.
- Open ‘Start’ menu and type in ‘msconfig’.
- Now go to ‘Startup’ tab.
- You’ll see a list of all the start-up programs over there. Untick the ones that are not required during start-up and click ‘Apply’. Be careful to not untick something which is required for booting up your PC.
8.) Turn Windows features on or off
Turning off inherent features in Windows Vista and Windows 8 will give you improvements to your computers speed.
- Go to Control Panel >Program >Program and Features.
- Now select ‘Turn Windows features on or off’ from the left panel.
- Untick all the features you don’t need.
9.) Adjust power settings
Go to Control Panel > Hardware and Settings > Power Options.
Check ‘High Performance’ radio button.
This option tells your computer not to conserve power and use all the resources to deliver maximum performance.
10.) Remove fancy desktop wallpapers
Granted, picture wallpapers look amazing, but they also slow the entire system down. So it’s better to stick to basics. The ideal size for any Wallpaper should be less than 500 kilobytes. Anything more than that is going to affect your PC’s performance.
11.) Reduce Recycle Bin Reserve
10% of your hard drive space is allocated for the Recycle Bin by default. Unless you delete large files, though, you don’t need that much space. Reduce it to just 2% to create additional space on your hard-drive.
- Right click Recycle Bin and select ‘Properties‘.
- Now click ‘Custom Size‘ and change to your required size.
12.) Disable Windows sound
Disabling Windows sound will marginally improve your PC’s performance, but every bit counts.
- Type mmsys.cpl and go to ‘Sounds’ tab.
- Now click on ‘Sounds Scheme’
- Select ‘No Sounds’ from the drop-down menu.
13.) Enable all CPU cores
Enabling all cores will boost the performance of your PC because all cores will working.
- Type ‘msconfig’ in the Start menu and then go to the ‘Boot’ tab.
- Now click on ‘Advanced Options’
- Select the exact number of cores from the drop-down menu.
14.) Clean up your drives frequently
As trivial as it may seem, regularly cleaning up your drives keeps your PC fresh and responsive.
Select ‘Disk Cleanup’ from the Start menu and hit ‘Enter’.
This tool will scan thoroughly for all the unwanted files, temporary pages, offline pages and other junk and remove them from your PC.
15.) Load Windows Kernal directly into RAM
Moving Kernal to the primary memory might be risky, but this procedure makes things much faster than most of the other methods mentioned previously.
Open ‘Regedit’ and navigate to ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet \Control\Session Manager\Memory Management’.
Change the value of ‘DisablePagingExecutive’ to 1 and reboot the PC for changes to take effect.
16.) Clean up the registry with CCleaner
While some experts say that registry cleanup doesn’t improve PC’s performance, but others do find it to be effective.
Use CCleaner, a free tool developed renowned develop Piriform. This tool will help you do a full registry cleanup and fix all errors.
17.) Get rid of Malware/Spyware
Even when you are careful about how you browse online there’s a good chance a harmful file could slip by unnoticed.
These files can impact your PC’s performance significantly (& harm your computer).
There are hundreds of paid and free anti-Malware/Spyware programs available on the market, but Malwarebytes is a great option.
18.) Check the disk for errors
If you have been using your PC for a long time, there are chances that some of your hard drive sectors are damaged, especially if you keep altering the data.
- To fix the damaged sectors, type chkdsk X: /f /r in the Start menu and hit ‘Enter‘.
- Remember, X is the drive you want to check. So if you want to check C drive, the command would look like this – chkdsk C: /f/r .
This is a fairly simple, yet effective method of improving your hard disk performance.
19.) Update device drivers
Outdated divers will impact your system’s performance, while at the same time leaving your PC vulnerable to external attacks.
Make sure that all your PC drivers are up-to-date. You can do this manually without using any software, however programs like ‘Device Doctor’ will detect all the outdated drivers in single click.
20.) Use a light Antivirus System
The combination of ‘Microsoft Security Essentials‘ and Malewarebytes is usually enough to keep your PC safe from all external attacks and hacks. Both of them are lighter than most other security software options on the market, yet are still effective at catching viruses before they do any damage.
Final words
We hope you enjoyed this list of tips and tricks to improve the performance of your PC. If you have others you’ve used successful please let us know in the comments below – we’d love to hear from you!
