Why Is My Computer So Slow?

One of the complaints I hear the most is, “Why is my computer so slow? It’s brand new!” I see you there shaking your head in agreement. There are several reasons for this, but just as many to avoid these issues.
What do you intend to use it for?
The first rule of thumb when in the market for a new computer is to know in advance what you intend to use it for?

1. If you are a casual internet user, and just check email, Facebook and browse for shopping sales, then virtually any desktop or laptop you buy from one of the electronic giants should suffice.
2. If you have plans to do heavy graphics or video editing, then you will need to fork out a little more money and go by way of the Macs.
3. The gamers, for the most part, know what they want and will purchase tower units with customized hardware components including a liquid cooling system, to reduce the heat from the 8 core processor with 16GB RAM (memory), a 2GB video card and an 800 watt power supply.

OK so now you have found your jewel – what about maintaining it? 

1. For personal home computers this tasks falls on you
2. For businesses you can consider hiring/ using onsite IT staff
3. Or for businesses that are not quite ready to commit to the ongoing salary and training costs of dedicated in house resources, they can call us and we can help keep your computers running to their optimum performance.

Some tricks to keeping your machine “clean” are:

1. Avoid pirated software
2. Have an antivirus installed and updated daily with definitions
3. Always watch for those dreaded “check boxes” when downloading 1 piece of software, which in turn, adds 2 or more software installations and that will ultimately lead to pop ups on your computer
4. Clean your internet cache on a regular basis, you can google “how to clean my internet cache for Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox” or any other available browser out there
5. There is a hidden folder called Temp, which always has files placed in it during any install that happens on your computer. The problem is, is that it never gets cleaned out unless you do it manually.  The Temp folder is located within every user profile, and is a separate folder for each profile, or user log in. On a Windows 7 computer, the path is, and this is usually hidden as well, C:\Users\(username)\appdata\local\Temp.  For Windows XP, it will be in C:\Documents and Settings\(username)\Local Settings\Temp. Don’t be alarmed if all the files will not delete, as ones that are in use by a program or service running on your computer, will not delete and aren’t usually large files anyways.
6. There also is a process called “defragmentation” which should be done at least once a month. All versions of Windows come with a defrag program, which can be found at, Start-All Programs-Accessories-System Tools\Disk Defragmenter. What this does is moves files together on your hard drive that got separated by you deleting files or uninstalling programs. This helps to speed up access to your programs as well as keep your free space all together.

I hope that you have found some of this information useful and can apply this to your computers you own or are in charge of. If you would like more information on the services we provide, you can call us at 905-629-3200 or visit our website at www.mantralogix.com.
Thank you for reading this blog and we look forward to hearing from you.