You purchase a new computer, bring it home, turn it on and think man this thing is fast. You start installing software, surfing the net, checking e-mail, downloading games, and before you know it your new computer is running so slow you can’t do anything with it anymore.

Sounds like something that happened to you? Let me explain why that happened and what probably caused it.

When you purchase a new computer it doesn’t have much software on it. There is no spyware or viruses from surfing the net and checking e-mail. That computer is perfectly clean and running at its best.

After using the computer for a while you install new programs and games. Some of those programs and games are set to load when Windows boots up and takes up valuable memory and system time by running in the background.

You also might catch viruses and spyware from surfing the net, checking e-mail, and downloading stuff. Over time those viruses will make changes to Windows that could cause it to become unstable and not perform at its best. Spyware will take up memory and system time. This is the cause of most people’s computers loosing speed.

Windows handles files in a sloppy manner that can “fragment” your hard drive. Think of fragmenting like a child who leaves her toys out after playing. After a while of being out they get damaged and some of them might get lost. Removing the trash and defragmenting the hard drive will let your computer run faster.

Listed above are the most common problems I see with computers that have slowed down over time. Check out the rest of my [1] Speed Up That PC series to find out how to fix this problem.