Every computer user would have faced the problem of loss in speed. What would you do if you feel your PC is not performing to the standards expected of it? Call a professional to make the computer work faster? Not necessary if you are ready to try some simple basic things. Some of these easy and harmless methods are described here.

Many users go on for months without rebooting. Develop a habit of rebooting at least once a week. Every program that runs on your computer is loaded on to the RAM (Random Access Memory) while it is running. The ability of your computer to perform multitask depends on the ram. Rebooting your computer helps to speed up the computer by allowing the RAM to be cleared. It gives your programs a fresh start.

Another really simple way you can speed up the computer is by freeing up hard drive space. Today’s computers come with fairly large capacity of hard disk drive, something like 300 gb or so. You might think that with so much space in all the partitions of the disk, what difference it will make by removing a few files. It is true that with large capacity disks there will be no shortage of available disk space. But it still make some difference, especially with drive in which you have the operating system. Every time the computer wants s to find some file it will have to search the large bulk of data lying on the disk. Most computer suppliers load a lot of programs in a new computer. Most of them are used rarely. Open the control panel, double click on the add/remove programs icon, and remove one by one all the programs you do not really need. You can always install them again if you need it in future.

Removing some unwanted files from your drives is good for the computer but to make the best of it you should defragment the dick. Even though you have created some additional disk space by removing files the free space and occupied space lay scattered along the space of the drive. Some free space will be trapped in between bits of occupied space. Defragmenting allows the computer to organize the free space in the disk in an orderly way thus giving maximum utility of the available space and therefore better speed. To perform defragmenting go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter. It is advisable to run this utility regularly every night and if you are going to be away from the computer for a long time, before leaving. Defragmenting may take some time to complete.