You probably get at least one Adobe product update a day.There are three major kinds of updates you can apply to your PC. If could choose between a free 1998 model car or a free 2011 edition of the same vehicle, which would you pick? The newer one, obviously–but for some reason many people don’t employ the same logic when it comes to their PC’s operating system, software, and hardware. You can apply similar reasoning to an underclocked CPU, to missing capacity (or drives) within a storage array, and even to the absence of specific components that you’d expect to see on your system (Lost your optical drive? Maybe your motherboard is on its last legs, and its demise is affecting your overall performance in some way.) Conclusion: Perhaps your sudden slowdown is the result of a bad stick of memory. But you also know from checking the specs that your system shipped with 4GB of RAM. For example, suppose that you pull up the Task Manager (press Ctrl-Alt-Delete, and select Task Manager) and discover that your system has only has 2GB of physical RAM listed in the Performance tab. The Windows Task Manager can help you analyze speed problems.Second, understanding your hardware will allow you to target issues that you can look up within Windows itself. Do you hearing a random sound from your speakers whenever you try to perform a specific task within Windows? Does your optical drive make a different sound than your used to hearing when it spins its disc? Keen listening skills can’t give you answers right off the bat, but they can help you notice that a problem may be afoot. Is your computer emitting a strange noise? Maybe it’s a struggling fan, or the “click of death” from a hard drive approaching extinction. First, it gives you a chance to recognize by sight or sound when something isn’t right. Easy enough, right?įamiliarity with your PC’s components helps you troubleshoot speed issues in two major ways. If you bought it, look up the manufacturer specs online. Don’t run for a screwdriver or some third-party program (though CPU-Z is pretty handy for the nitty-gritty details) to figure this out: If you built your PC, you should know what’s in it.
You can’t fix PC speed issues if you don’t know what’s inside your PC.It’s important to know what hardware your desktop or laptop PC contains. Nevertheless, we can give you some generally helpful hints that you can use to dig out of the mess.
Of course, systems differ, software differs, and your specific system’s history is unique, so we aren’t in a position to pinpoint the source of your problem. But since no such deluge of small coins seems likely, we’ll instead outline some methods you can use to troubleshoot unexpected slowness on your PC, free of charge. Had we a nickel for every time a friend, loved one, or random stranger asked us, “What’s slowing down my PC?” we could shutter PCWorld and retire to live comfortably on a small, secluded island.