My computer is running very slow is a question that I hear someone ask at least once a week. Every computer, no matter how powerful it is will slow down over time if you are not doing the proper computer maintenance procedures on a weekly and monthly basis. In this post, I would like to go over some of the more common reason why my computer is running very slow and what I do to boost my computers performance.

Just the other day I was working on my computer and there are times when I will go for what seems like months without paying attention to how much stuff is in my computer's recycle bin. When was the last time you emptied out your computers recycle bin? I know when I cleaned mine out I cleared up around 15gb of free space on my computers slow. This is a great way to boost computer performance when my computer is running very slow.

Common: My Computer Is Running Very Slow...Is It A Virus?

What a lot of computer users do not realize is that when you delete a file either by right-clicking on the file or by pressing the delete key on the keyboard is that the file you deleted is just moved to the recycle bin. It is not actually removed from your hard drive until you empty the recycle bin. Try to make it a point to empty your computers recycle bin and will help keep your computer running fast.

Another thing that computer users, including myself do, is they leave their computer running all the time. I fully agree that leaving a computer on all the time is the best thing for it, but every computer should be rebooted at least once a week for performance purposes only. When my computer is running very slow the first thing I do is reboot my computer. This allow for all of the memory to be cleared out and it give the operating system and programs a clean slate with maximum memory available.

When I got home from work today, I decided to surf the net on my computer for a while. After about 5 minutes, I was saying to myself why is my computer running very slow? It seemed that every I would go to a new web page or click on a link that Firefox would pause for about 3 seconds before actually doing anything. The first thing I did was to open the Task Manager and there I found the reason why Firefox was not working properly. It was taking up over 500mb of RAM and causing my computers performance to suffer greatly. The reason why Firefox was taking up this much RAM is because I had it open for at least 48 hours without closing it out at all. This is a great example of how a program that is running will continue to just consume more and more memory until it starts to have a negative effect on the computers performance.

If there is anything you have learned today, it should be that when my computer is running very slow, I typically just reboot it. This is the quickest and safest way to boost your computers performance. Also, don't forget about that recycle bin. Be sure you check it at least once a week and empty it if necessary.

All of the tips above are things I do when my computer is running very slow.