We’ve all been there.  One day you turn your computer on, and it takes forever just to get started.  Next thing you know, opening a program takes several moments longer than it did just a few months, days, years ago.  Even worse, with internet speeds getting faster and faster, your internet just seems to be getting slower and slower.  Why is that?  Is your computer just getting old?  Should you buy a new one?

We asked Joe Malacina, CEO of No Limit Enterprises, a tech company to break it down for us.  Here are the results:

Computer Age

Computers nowadays should last you a long time.  It is normal to experience a slight slowdown in speeds as the years go by with your computer, but these should barely be noticeable.  In fact, any computer built in 2010 or later should last ten years without missing a single beat.  There are exceptions of course, but for the most part a decent computer should last you a very long time before things start slowing down.

Why is my computer Slow?

For the vast majority of cases, your computer just needs a good cleaning, and I don’t mean with a cloth.  Over time our computers start accumulating a lot of useless programs, and outdated software.  When this happens, your computer usually keeps trying to run the software when its so old that nothing can even run it.  This uses valuable resources that your computer could be using to run smoothly and efficiently.  So what you need to do, is browse through your computer and cleanup all the old junk.

Secondly, spyware and viruses are infecting more and more devices every single day.  So a good virus and spyware scan can clean up a lot of junk.

How do I get my computer fast again?

There are several things you can do to get your computer running like a cheetah again.  The first thing you should do is make sure your computer’s operating system is updated to its newest version.  Some older computers won’t be able to do this, but most can.  Next, run a virus scan and delete any viruses that appear.  You can also cleanup your startup programs.  This will get your computer booting up faster than ever.  I also recommend deleting obsolete programs and utilities.

A Step-By-Step Approach

Going through the steps in an article might be a little confusing, so we searched around for a comprehensive guide to cleaning up your computer and making it fast again.  After reviewing several websites, the best one we could find was on Infinity Guides.  They have a Clean Your Computer Easy Guide that shows you how to clean up your computer in less than 30 minutes.  We ran through the guide ourselves and afterwards, we were impressed with the results.  We found that our computers booted up 20% faster on average, and programs loaded nearly 40% faster.  Our internet browsing also improved quite significantly, and we learned some helpful tips to keep our computer fast.

Here is a link to the Clean Your Computer Easy Guide from Infinity Guides that we recommend.