Why Is My Computer So Slow?
When you’re in business, time is money. There’s probably nothing more frustrating than trying to meet a last-minute deadline on a computer that’s running slower than molasses. There are many companies out there who will try to sell you their computer optimization programs, which supposedly cleans out the clutter, thus making your computer run lightening-fast. While this would be an amazing product if it truly worked as-advertised, the truth is that they typically don’t address the real reasons for sluggish performance.
Some of the reasons for slow computer speed are:
An unreliable hard drive – When your hard drive has trouble reading a sector, it doesn’t give up immediately. It will make several attempts to read the sector before it will send you an error message. Let’s say your hard drive successfully reads the sector on the second or perhaps third attempt; it would then carry on, attempting to read the next sector, which may also take a few tries to read successfully. All of this happens seamlessly, without ever notifying you of the failed attempts. It’s easy to see how your computer could be running 2-3 times slower than when it was brand new if your hard drive starts to become flaky.
Malware – Malware can slow your computer because while you are trying to accomplish your tasks, so are any malware programs running in the background which will bog down the system.
“Bit-rot” – Over time, we install, uninstall, add, or change programs on the computer which, in a sense, wear out the hardware. Typically if you’ve had your computer more than 5 years, you’ll probably want to upgrade anyway. Aside from “bit-rot”, technology changes so fast. Whatever money or time you might be tempted to spend to speed up Old Faithful, might actually be better spent invested in a new system.
