Slow computer?

j.smith1981

I have just been talking to a friend who builds computers, I had a discussion with him about the general ideas in speeding up computers.

People are so annoyed when their computers start slowing down, they say oh it'll be temp files, or other types of files all around your computer to a certain extent those could be posing a problem, but take a look at your systems performance by right clicking on your taskbar (the bar bit at the bottom in Windows) then selecting Task Manager.

If the Idle process is above say 90% (doesn't mean there's a process thats running at a higher rate of process power just means your processors being used for 10% of its total power, if that process or processes are gettng lower in their consumption of processor power then the 90% idle process will increase usually to say 100% if its completely idle but it won't ever be that) and there's tabs at the top of that window, called Peformance, if there's still quite allot of Available Physical (not Virtual) Memory then why is it slowing down you might ask, mine at this very moment is at 2184768 roughly means over 2GB's aren't being used.

Largely depends upon your systems specification like Memory say if there's below 1GB then you might want to try and expand your memory or get a better processor if there's allot of processing power being used, but try to investigate why this is occuring.

Anyways if there's hardly anything going on why is your computer so slow you might ask? One thing cooling springs to mind, people say you need to clean out your files, thats a load of rubbish if there's no processing going on, there could be dust between what's called the cooling sink, there's a little thing thats got a fan screwed onto the top of it called a cooling sink that sits over the or is hooked and clamped down onto the processor, seperated by whats called thermal heat paste.

Now what I would suspect is causing your computer to run quite slowly is dust, coming in through the airvents and getting clogged into say the cooling sink or where ever, get say an anti static wrist band before you do this and plug it either into a wall socket or click it onto the side of your computer the metal casing and earth yourself, make sure its plugged in but must be turned off before you do this thats crucial or you will damage your system.

Take off the cooling sink and have a look underneath (mine was matted with dust), clean away any dust (try not to run it under the tap or you'll have to take the cooling sink apart and make sure its 100% dry so no rust will form on it and damage it later on) then you must get some good quality thermal paste, it could be that the big manfacturers use a very cheap quality thermal paste (probably going to get allot of annoyance from the big companies by saying this), but they want you to keep coming back to them, so they make more money, don't be fooled by this!

The thermal paste they use are generally very bad quality, use a good I would say arctic silver thermal paste, the cooling sink is like a car radiator but for your processor, does the exact same thing though as the radiator tries to keep the engine cool, so does the cooling sink, it creates a good concentrated air flow over the processor with the fan ontop of that, but how is it supposed to achieve this when being blocked by dust? It's against the principle of what the cooling sinks supposed to do isn't it?

Use a good quality thermal paste like a good form of arctic silver paste and you will most likely find either it's not working again, because you breached some rules you should never do like not earthing yourself or have badly treated your computer, or you will find its running as it was when you first bought it. of course making sure that the other parts of your computer are dust free.

Then you should have a decently working speedy computer, or that when you first bought it that is.

Good luck, just thought I would share this with you,
Jez.

PS in my 4 years of being a professional software developer have I once ever been anywhere near a computer shop for help in wanting them to speed up my computer or asked what's wrong with it, always managed to do it myself and repair it no problems at all, from even replacing the capacitors on the motherboard, sometimes people think their PCs have just died, when they wont turn on for whatever reason, I can about bet on it for £20 that it will be a capacitor that's probably blown that regulates the power voltages going to the processor, what's the point in spending £60 an hour for some trained expert to look at it when you can do most things yourself with a bit of research and intelligence?

esuhl

I can honestly say that I have never seen a PC that was running slowly due to a degradation of the thermal interface material (TIM). If that is a concern, you would do far better to check the CPU's temperature using a tool like SpeedFan than re-seating your processor.

Despite the great marketing of Arctic Silver, I don't think that there is a big difference between the performance of that and any other branded TIM (but I do tend to buy Arctic Silver myself as you need such a small amount that the cost isn't a big factor). I think they did some tests & comparisons at the Tom's Harware website.

Having said all that, I would suggest that people try to keep the inside of their PC clean as dust can clog fans and vents and cause overheating. Opening the case and very carefully vacuuming up the dust and ensuring the fans are spinning evey now and then is easy, low-risk, and a quick way to keep your machine in good working order... (I'm talking about desktop PCs here; not laptops and netbooks!)

But re-seating the chip isn't something I'd advise unless you know you have a problem there. And I wouldn't suggest that anyone try that at all unless they're completely comfortable with what they're doing.

fwor

I'm afraid the basis of this post is flawed (though no doubt well meant). CPUs do not gradually slow down as they get hotter.

All current CPUs monitor their own temperature so that they can adjust fan speeds to keep within safe limits. Some will throttle their performance (typically by dropping their own clock rate) above a certain temperature threshold, but most won't. If they get too hot they just shut down.

It's certainly a good idea to clean the heatsink vanes regularly to prevent overheating, but I too would not recommend separating heatsink from CPU unless you have solid evidence that there is a problem in that area. There is too great a danger that you will damage other components in the process.

You can usually get that evidence from the BIOS setup screens: If the fans are running normally and the heatsinks are clear of dust, but the BIOS shows high CPU temperature then you may have a problem there. I too have never seen problems in real life with degradation of thermal paste over time.

j.smith1981

Ah so I got the wrong end of the stick with that? No that's fine.

Trying to get some logic set in my head over this, but from what you are saying is that if a cpu gets hotter the motherboard would then regulate how much power the (in the sense of volts) cpu would get?

Just trying to get some logic set into my head about this, seems to have worked what I have done though, actually going to have to do this again though at some point.

Mr_Toad

As a software developer you'll know about the registry being a database and like any database it needs regular housekeeping. As users install and remove software over time the registry gets bigger.

This is one of the contributing factors in a PC slowing down, it takes longer to find the registry entry. That's why many Windows users format and re-install on a regular basis.

Then there's all the little applets sitting there polling your system and checking for updates. Things like Adobe, Norton or whatever AV you use. If you look in msconfig you'll see what's being loaded at startup much of which you can do without.

Then there's the hard drive getting fragmented, a defrag will sort that out and files stored contiguously load faster than if fragmented. It also matters how the software you run uses the available resources, some modern programs need more RAM and assume modern PCs have it. If there isn't enough free memory it will start paging out to the disk which will slow things down.

Your advice about cleaning out the crud is good but plays only a small part in speeding up a slow PC

[Deleted User]

I once has a small PC about 7 years ago when i knew nothing about PCs. I was playing battlefield online when it was in possible as what some might say lag but my ping was very low!!! So i brave myself took the cover off.. then i couldnt see the CPU as cover in dust. Hoover it put it back together prob was sorted!! Now 7 years on i have a high spec gaming rig!!! Taught myself a lot over the years. Like mention before i format & clean install once a year & with the SSD take no more than an hour to get the PC back to the state it was. Also i strip it bear clean the lot out.. this take time 2-3 hours.. i mean strip the case so nothing in it.. take the heatstink of GPU, (CPU i not bother as no need) thou clean all the fans with a pint brush. (Have 7 fans all together). couldnt fit the big side fan on the side of the case due to the hugh heatstink from CPU so had to put 3 smalll ones on top of the case.

Most things people dont know if you delete a game or sofeware on some times it delete it but leave the sub folders files on your harddrive.. you have to find them and delete these