Common Mistakes Most Windows Make That Slow Down Their PC

There's nothing better than getting a brand new PC that runs great out of the box. But over time, your PC will feel slower than it once did, and there could be many reasons for that. So coming up, no matter which version of Windows that you have installed, I'll cover 8 common mistakes people make slowing down your computer and show you how to fix those mistakes. Let's get started. The first common mistake users make is not doing proper case maintenance. If you're not This will result in your PC not being properly cooled. Overheating can cause thermal throttling, making your PC slower. If you live in a dusty area, have pets, or keep your PC on the floor, it should be dusted every 3-6 months. Otherwise, 6 months to a year should be good enough. Never use water or any type of liquid to clean the inside of your computer. This will absolutely destroy the components. Instead, get yourself some compressed air canisters, which are not too expensive. I usually get the 3-pack of the Falcon Dust-Off from Amazon. I'll link to that in the description. I find it's best to take the PC outside and blow out every vent, fan, nook and cranny, basically everywhere you see dust. Most people just shut down their computer and never restart on a regular basis. This can make your computer slower, with the memory building up over time. You can go to your power options, which you can easily access by left-clicking on the start menu in the taskbar, and then selecting the power icon. Choosing restart instead of shutdown flushes your RAM, giving your computer a fresh start after it reboots, with all the memory available, making your PC run faster. Doing this at least once a week is a good habit to have. Running too many programs all at the same time, using up system resources, can negatively impact your PC, slowing it down. So it's always best to close out the programs that you're not using. In addition, having the programs you have installed loading up in the background when you start your computer can have a negative impact on speed, so it's best to disable those programs from running at startup. To do this, right-click on an empty space in your taskbar, and select task manager. In the left pane, go to startup apps. Click on status, so you see enabled here at the top. Here you can see all the programs set to run when you start your computer. Select each program individually you know you don't need when your PC starts up, and then here at the top, select disable. Do this for every program you know you don't need when your computer boots up. And I got one more here. No matter what website you're on, be careful what you click on, especially ads with giant download buttons, ads offering free stuff, a free virus scan, etc. Doing so could lead to your PC being infected with malware, making your PC slower. My general rule for myself is to never click on any ads, no matter how trustworthy that site is. I know people that say they don't use security software like an antivirus program because they say it makes their computer slower. This is a huge mistake. Having your system infected with malware can have an even greater impact on performance and other issues. For most people, the virus and threat protection in the Windows Security app, which is free, should be all that they need. As a backup to your primary antivirus and anti-malware software, the free edition of Malwarebytes is what I recommend to use periodically. It allows for on-demand scans and does not conflict with any other security programs. While updating Windows has been hit or miss lately for some people, more often than not, if you're not installing Windows updates, you might be missing out on bug fixes that make the operating system run more smoothly. To do this, we'll need to go into Settings. There are several ways to get there. One way is to right-click on the Start menu in the taskbar and select Settings. You can also open Settings with the Windows Key and iKey keyboard shortcut. In the left pane, here at the bottom, select Windows Update. If you have an update available, install it. Otherwise, click on Check for Updates. Another key place to check for updates that might help with your PC is in More Options. Select Advanced Options. In Additional Options, select Optional Updates. On my PC, there's a couple Preview Updates. I won't be doing those. In Driver Updates, there's a couple here that look important, especially the firmware update from the manufacturer and the one for the graphics card. Just check the boxes next to those that you want to do. Then select Download and Install. If you're running low on space on your primary drive, you'll experience your PC slowing down. Delete the files and folders you no longer need and uninstall any software you don't need to free up space. In addition, run the Disk Cleanup tool to clear out your temporary files. To find it, go to Search in the taskbar and type Disk Cleanup. When it shows up, click on it. Choose your main drive. For most of you, that will be your C drive. Click OK. In the new window that pops up, check the box next to each category you don't need. Select Cleanup System Files. This should be on your C drive. Click OK. Then wait for it to finish. In the window that shows up, click OK. Are you sure you want to permanently delete these files? Select Delete Files. Then wait for it to finish. If any of your drives are hard disk drives, you should do drive maintenance. Over time with an HDD, it can become fragmented, resulting in slower load times. To fix this, go to Search in the taskbar and type Defragment. Select Defragment and Optimize Drives. Here you don't have to worry about solid state drives. For those, they do a trim, which is not as important as defragging with hard disk drives. If you have any hard disk drives, check the date they were last analyzed or optimized. If it's been a while, select the drive and click on Optimize, after which it'll do its thing. More conveniently, you can schedule when these optimizations take place by going to Change Settings. You'll want to make sure the box next to Run on a Schedule is selected. And you can choose by selecting the drop-down how often it runs. Your choices are Daily, Weekly, and Monthly. I do this on a weekly schedule. If you make any changes here, click OK. Otherwise, select Cancel. Here's a couple bonus tips that are more software-related, not having to do anything with the operating system itself. There may be times you think your PC is slow, but it's actually a program causing the issue. So when experiencing any issues with any programs, check to find out if a newer version is available. For example, here in GIMP, I would go to Help and then select About GIMP. And there's an update available here. You can also go to the site you initially got the program from to see if there's a new version. And the second bonus tip. If you're experiencing slower load times in your browser, it's not always the fault of your internet. While the cache in your browser can help to load web pages quicker, sometimes it gets corrupted. Clearing it out can help sometimes. Doing this will vary depending on the browser that you use. For example, with Chrome, in the upper right, click on the three dots and select Delete Browsing Data. Here at the top, you have time ranges from the last 15 minutes up to seven days. Click on More and select All Time. For myself, I like to keep all these checked, but make sure Cached Images and Files is selected. When you're ready, select Delete from this device. And that's it. The cache has been cleared. Thanks for watching. If this video was useful for you, give it a thumbs up and share it with others that it might help. Please let us know in the comments any other mistakes people make we might have left out. And if you haven't done so already, subscribe and hit that notification bell so you don't miss out on the latest in Windows and other tech-related stuff here on Brett in Tech.