The Computer User's Survival Handbook: Why Is My Computer Slow?

Why Is My Computer Slow?

Introduction

We all want our computers fast, right?

So, why is it slow?

If you read this booklet you will find out that, and also will know what to do about it.

In order to handle anything, understanding is a key factor. Therefore, the first part will deal with the reasons why computers can go slow, or sometimes just appear to be slow. Then, once you understand the reasons, I'll show you what you can do about them.

I know very well that most of the computer users are not techies (geeks, etc) so I wrote this booklet in as plain English as possible. However, it's unavoidable that I will have to use some technical words. In order to assist your understanding I also created an easy to understand glossary – found in the back of this booklet. Each tech word that can be found in the glossary will be indicated with orange dotted underscoring. For example: geek

. If you have any slightest doubt or question as to what the word means then I would encourage you to look it up. Knowing the terminology will not only help you to understand this booklet but anything else you might read about computers – so it's a good investment!

This booklet is part of the Computer User's Survival Handbook series. Which will contain educational materials and tips/solution to this and many other topics such as viruses

, basic troubleshooting and maintenance, and so on.

So, let's see...

Why is my computer slow?

The most common reasons

Here's the list of what I've found to be the cause behind slow computers

:

Viruses

.

These are unwanted programs

 that are running on your computer in the background (behind the scenes) without showing anything on your screen. They use up your computers resources and thus making it slow.

Too many running programs.

Each program that is running at a given time is using up the computer's resources. Because the computer have limited resources and the operating system

is trying to make sure that each program is getting its fair share, these resources get spread thin. This means that the program that you are using at the moment will not get enough resources to operate at the speed that you expect it.

As an analogy, imagine that the programs are cars and the computer resources are represented by the road infrastructure (lanes, intersections, lights, roundabouts, etc). As long as there are not many cars on the roads then everybody can travel at a good speed. But as soon as the number of cars on the roads at the same time increases, the resources get scarce for each car and everybody starts to travel more slowly in general.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of software that you install will add components that start every time that you restart your computer. These are responsible for the long wait when you start your system or log in. For example: AOL is a bad offender on this. It starts 3 or 4 components which keeps on running afterwards, using up resources.

It should also be mentioned the toolbars 

and plugins

 for web browsers

. These little programs that run inside the browser giving extra functions (or sometimes generating ads for you). These can really slow things down or mess things up. So, only use and install those and really need. The only one I really find necessary is ad-blocking, such as uBlock Origin.