How can I make my computer fast?

Computers have the ability to process and transfer information at amazingly high speeds. The speed of your computer depends on how much free disk space it has, how files are organized, and the speed of your processor and Internet connection. You can speed up your computer by performing regular maintenance on it.

Free up Disk Space

When you have a lot of data that you don't use frequently, your computer becomes overloaded with information. Your computer may be loading and running applications that you don't want or no longer need. Even if they aren't being loaded, they are consuming space. Among the biggest culprits of space stealing are Internet files and cookies, which keep a memory of a site you viewed so it loads faster if you return to it. Clear out old programs and erase cookies regularly to free up space and speed up your system.

Defragment the Hard Drive

When you ask your computer to do something, it has to work through the file cabinets in order to pull required information and store new information. Like any busy office, things can be put in places of convenience, not always in the most organized fashion. Defragmenting your computer organizes the millions of files in your system and places them in order. Defragmenting is easy to do through your computer's control panel.

Get Rid of Spyware

Emails and websites can load your system with spyware and viruses. These embed themselves deep into specified hard drive sectors working to invade your system resources. While you are working on one thing, the spyware or virus is working on something else, consuming hard drive space and processing resources. The result is the slowing of your computer's ability to function. A good antivirus software eradicates your system of these pests and restores it to faster speeds.

Internet Speed

Some people have brand new, fast computers and can't figure out why it might take ten minutes to load one Internet page. The reason may be in your Internet connection and the provider you use. Dial-up services were the original way to access the Internet but now are considered slow and impractical for online use. Use DSL or cable connections. These offer various speeds as fast as 2 mkps, making streaming video and large file transfers fast and easy. If your Internet is slower than you want, consider the speed of your connection as well as how many individuals are linked to the network. The more computers trying to access the Internet at the same time, the more information your connection needs to process and the slower it will be.

Source:

Microsoft: Maintenance Speed