Reasons for computer slowdown and ways to fix them
1. Harmful applications (spyware and viruses)
Extensive use of the Internet is an easy way to catch spyware and viruses from unfamiliar websites. Therefore for the sake of safety we strongly recommend installing one of the antivirus software programs.
2. Applications that consume computer's resources
There are actually two types of such applications:
a. Those you don't use anymore.
How many programs are there on your PC? And how many of them do you actually use? Most PC users have applications they don't need anymore but forget to remove them. This results in lack of disk space and RAM. Uninstall a couple of programs and see the difference. For better efficiency we recommend using specialized uninstalling software.
b. Those that launch on system startup.
When some applications run together with the system, it needs more time to start up. You can disable automatic startup of such programs in the registry, but we recommend using tools that make startup management simpler.
3. Junk collecting on your PC
Active usage of your PC leads to creation of many files you don't actually need. These are useless temporary files, cache files, cookies and other unnecessary components that take up disk space. You may never know about them until one day your PC starts running slow. To free up lost space you should use a cleanup tool that will remove all useless files and leave the important data intact.
4. High level of hard drive fragmentation
If there's a lot of large files on your PC, the system will place their parts in gaps between other files when attempting to allocate space for them. Accessing such fragmented files has a bad impact on your PC's performance. To avoid this, you should regularly defragment your PC. While Windows provides a built-in solution for defragmentation, some tools make it faster and more effectively.
5. Hard drive errors
Logical hard drive errors and physical damage often lead not only to data loss and crashes, but also to serious system slowdown. Regular disk checking can fix these errors.
A good idea to bring a slow computer back to life would be to download a system optimization tool that will fix all above-mentioned issues and leave important data intact. But of course not all such tools are the same. Some of them have more features and are safer to use.