We've all experienced it. Our brand new computer which should be fast, seems to be bogged down a bit. Or our older machine that was fast at one time, has been slowing down overtime. But there is something you can do about it, short of buying a new machine or re-installing Windows Vista. Here are a few tips for new and old owners alike to 1) Make their computer run faster and 2) Maintain that speed. Many times for purpose #2, people give up and wipe their drive clean and do a fresh operating system install. And although that will make your system snappier, it can be a pain in the butt. Through regular maintenance you can at least prolong the amount of time in between clean installs. I've had my laptop for about a year, and with these tweaks and maintenance methods, I have not noticed a slow down on my machine.

These tips are mainly geared towards Windows Vista, but some are universal.

First, to increase the speed of your system:
1) Remove unnecessary bloatware. Remove any programs/apps that came with your system that are useless or are notorious system hogs. Norton Antivirus and other Norton products are principal offenders. Get rid of it but make sure to get other antivirus (i.e. Avast, Antivir) and firewall (ZoneAlarm) software to replace it. Not only will removing these programs increase speed by eliminating a lot of background processes, it will also free up hard-drive space.

You can remove these through the windows un-installer, or download CCleaner which has good uninstalling features.

2) Optimize Windows Vista by following the tips outlined in the first post in this thread. By following some of these optimization tips, you can increase the snappiness of your computer by eliminating unnecessary start-up programs, background apps, etc. This can lead to a faster computing experience as well as potentially decreasing windows boot times.

3) Defragment your hard-drive. This speeds up the performance of your hard-drive, especially if you've never done this before and your drive is highly fragmented. I recommend using Diskeeper, Jkdefrag, or Defraggler for good free options.

4) Defrag and re-order your bootfiles. Follow the guidelines outlined here. This optimizes your bootfiles, allowing for faster boot-up times.

Now to maintain the current speed of your system, as well as to maintain the general health of your machine:
1) Defragment using diskeeper, jkdefrag, or defraggler on a consistent basis. I try to do it once a week.

2) Use CCleaner to clean out junk files and unnecessary registry entries. This safe and effective program will clean out files like temporary internet files to free up hard-drive space, and will delete unnecessary or old registry entries. I've been using this for a while and it is completely safe. Again, try to use this ~once a week.

3) Run in the background and conduct regular system virus scans, adware/malware scans, and maintain an active firewall program. Nothing will sap your system faster than a virus, worm, or malware on your computer. The best way to prevent them from affecting your system is to prevent them from getting on their in the first place. If you get one you are usually stuck wiping your system completely. So be sure to have these programs up and running, updated, and used frequently. Here are some of my recommendations (free software). Some of these free versions have upgraded versions that you pay for. In most cases the free version is more than enough. Personally I only use the free versions:
Antivirus: Avast, Avira Antivir
Firewall: ZoneAlarm
Ad/Malware Detection: Adaware


4) Reduce the heat of your machine=increase its lifespan...this is somewhat unrelated but a good thing to do anyway for laptops. Laptops produce large amounts of heat due to the confined spaces the internal components find themselves in. If your machine runs very hot, you could be shortening the life of your machine (the extent of which is debatable, but it doesn't hurt to make your machine run cooler). Physically you can prevent this by making sure your air-vents aren't blocked and by periodically cleaning out the air-vents/fans.

On the software side you can undervolt your CPU to reduce the heat that your chips produce by using RMClock. Depending on your chip and machine, undervolting can have a dramatic or minor effect on system temperatures and energy savings. The basic premise is that your CPU is given an excess amount of voltage to account for variabilities between individual CPUs. But the voltage is in excess, and you can tune it down using RMclock to use a lower voltage that is perfectly fine for your particular chip. I have done this and shaved a few degrees off of my temperatures, and there are no ill-effects from doing this. Your chip is running at the same speed as before, just with lower heat output and voltage input. Follow the guide here for more information. It will probably be helpful to also download hwmonitor (temperature monitor) and Orthos (to stress test your CPU under new voltages).

5) Once you have tuned your machine to be running fast, is virus/malware free, and have all your windows settings/personalizations the way you like it, its a good idea to create a "original" or "baseline" backup image on an external drive, using a backup program such as Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost. Then, all you have to do is backup your personal files over time. If your computer dramatically slows down or becomes infected, instead of doing a clean install you can just restore to that original image, and you'll be back to that original speed of your machine.