Does it worry you that your computer is running slower than when it was new? Is it frustrating that when you are in a hurry your computer seems to think that it has all day? Perhaps you need to do some routine maintenance today to speed up your computer.

There are several things listed here below that you can do yourself even if you don’t consider yourself to be all of that literate of a computer user. For the most part they are free things that you can do yet if you took your computer to a shop they would most likely charge you $100 or more to perform these routine things. You really can do these things yourself and much much more to make your computer run faster.

Probably the best thing you can do to speed up an older computer is to run the defragmentation program that is built into your computer. You don’t even have to worry about installing a new program because it is already there. Microsoft includes it with your computer. The only responsibility that you have is to run it periodically. Running the defragmentation program will make your disk run quicker.

Another thing that you can do is to run the disk cleanup program that is also built into your computer and is already installed just waiting for you to use it. All that this program does is inspect your hard drive for current or potential problems with bad sectors. When it finds a bad sector it either works around it or corrects the problem so that your computer does not have to hesitate when it is searching for information stored on your hard drive.

You might also consider installing an anti-spyware program on your computer. You can get one for free from Microsoft called Internet Defender or you can step up your protection a notch or two by investing $30 or $40 in a commercial anti-spyware program. Although it is not free the additional level of security is well worth the relatively small investment.

Now you want to go through your computer’s control panel and uninstall any programs that you find on your computer that you have never used or have not used for a long time. You will also find programs that the manufacturer installed. There is a high likelihood that you found them useless and never actually did anything with them. Go to your control panel, generate a list of programs in your computer and then be merciless in going through the list and uninstall any program that you have not used in the last year. This will free up even more room on your hard drive for more efficient access.

Now you need to consider spending some money. Not a whole lot of money. Think in the range of $50-$100 to increase the memory in your computer. It is lots cheaper than buying a new computer, right? In all likelihood your computer could use more memory than what is currently installed. You will find that whatever you spend in order to add additional memory to your computer will speed it up tremendously. And if you do just a little bit of research on your favorite search engines you will discover how truly simple it will be for you to install your own additional stick of memory.

These have been probably the top five things that you can do to make your computer run as fast or faster then it did when it was brand new. Naturally there are additional things that you can do to make it even faster, as referenced below, but these have been a few cheap and easy ways to make your computer run more effectively.

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