Seven Ways to Make Your Laptop Run Faster

Nobody likes watching the hourglass on Windows laptops while waiting for an application to load or perform a task. Yes, newer laptops are smaller, faster, and cheaper, and upgrading your laptop with a faster one is definitely a reasonable option but while you wait for the government to offer a cash for clunkers laptop program, here are some suggestions to make your current laptop run faster.


1. Add More Memory

On Windows laptops you can see how much memory you have by right clicking on “My Computer” and clicking “properties.” If you have 1 GB of RAM you should definitely consider spending the $25 to bump it up to 2 GB. It’s usually a simple procedure requiring nothing more than a small screwdriver. Memory vendor Crucial has a scanner that can tell Windows users how much memory they have, how much they can add, and sell them the right type of memory on the spot.

2. See What Apps Are Running and Then Stop Them

It’s very common to have programs running on your machine that you don’t need. Preventing these from loading at start-up or uninstalling them can free up resources and make your laptop run faster. "What's Running 2.2,” is a free program that tells you what processes are running under Windows 2000/XP/2003. The ubiquitous Task Manager invoked with (Ctrl-Alt-Del) is perhaps the easiest way to see what’s running.

Microsoft also offers a free program called Process Explorer that provides a much more detailed view of what’s running and what’s using which resources.

Once you’ve determined what’s hogging the resources or which programs start-up automatically that you never use, it’s time to disable them. You can use Windows’ “msconfig” that you bring up from “run” on the “startup” menu and then “uncheck” the applications you don’t want to start.

3. Defragment Your Hard Drive

Every time you delete a file on your hard drive the operating system keeps track of the free space created. When you create a file the operating system looks for some free space to use and may break up the file and store it in different physical locations on the disk. If a disk gets severely fragmented, the operating system has to access parts of files all over the disk resulting in a lot of disk thrashing. Defragmenters consolidate files and make accessing them much more efficient. There are lots of third party defragmenters available along with ones built into operating systems including one in Vista that can be scheduled to defrag on a regular basis.

4. Diagnose Your PC With PC Pitstop

PC Pitstop temporarily loads a small Active X Control on your Windows computer and then uses that to scan your computer, run benchmarks, and look for problems. They have been around for many years and have been used by millions of users to diagnose their computers. The tests are free but some of the solutions may cost you a few bucks.

5. Rid Your Computer of Spyware

It’s easy to inadvertently allow spyware to be loaded onto your machine. Programmers who write spyware don’t particularly care how their programs affect your computers performance or how they interact with other programs. Spyware can slow your computer to a crawl as well as cause all kinds of other “weird” problems. All commercial anti-malware companies offer anti-spyware utilities. There are also some very good free anti-spyware applications like Adand Spybot- Search and Destroy.

6. Clean Your Registry

The registry in Windows machines is where all the important settings are stored. It’s a jumble of indecipherable codes and numbers. A “corrupted,” registry can cause your computer to fail. This is why we treat anything that claims to “fix” registry problems, with caution. That said, tuning up the registry can boost computer performance. We recommend you have an image backup of your computer before you start messing with the registry and use a reputable product like Registry Mechanic from PCTools.

7. Upgrade With Windows 7

Windows 7 is due to go on sale in October of 2009. After the less than stellar reviews for Vista, Windows 7 is being hailed as a big improvement over past Windows operating systems. Desktops and laptops are cheaper and more powerful than ever. You can get a lot of laptop for well under $1,000. There so many other reasons to upgrade your laptop including better, bigger screens, bigger faster hard drives, faster network connections, higher performance CPUs and graphics processing engines, not to mention all new applications and drivers. Consider handing down the old clunker and treating yourself to something more state-of-the-art.