Is your computer frustratingly slow?
September 2021
Hi Readers, hope you are well and enjoying the September sunshine.
A lot of support requests recently have been regarding computers that have suddenly slowed down A LOT.
Common symptoms are:
- The computer was a bit slow, but now has gone really, really slow.
- The computer or laptop is switched on – Windows takes ages to load.
- Once the main desktop is visible, it seems that the computer is ready for your commands. Upon clicking to open files, a word document or your favourite web browser – nothing happens at all.
- Most people are frustrated by this and think they have not clicked the icon correctly, so click it again, and sometimes again. Still, nothing happens.
- After what seems an eternity, the computer loads several of the same items as it has remembered every click you made in frustration and suddenly you have several web browsers open or multiple copies of word etc, etc.
- Despite your long wait, the computer is now working, but everything is very slow.
So what could be causing this issue?
The issue is usually the hard drive in your computer that is not a solid state disk (SSD). SSD’s have no moving parts which means that data can be read and written at very high speeds by multiple programs.
Older disks have a spinning platter and a head that moves to where the data is stored on the disk. This leads to a bottleneck as all the disk requests from windows and the programs you are trying to load get held up in a queue. Think of it as a thousand people suddenly want to use your bathroom.
If you have an older hard disk, then there are two things you can do:
The first thing to check is how many anti-virus programs you have running. It is possible to have two and sometimes three running. They will all be competing with each other to scan your files.
Secondly, you can replace your older style hard disk with an SSD. The good news is that it is possible to copy the old disk on to the new disk so you don’t have to reload windows or any of your documents, pictures or programs. Your computer be exactly the same as before. The only difference is that it will be a lot, lot quicker.
You can scan your computer to find out what sort of SSD will be compatible by browsing to:
And running the scan. Prices have gone up recently due to the global shortage of silicon.
Keep safe everyone – at the time of writing this, there are only 103 sleeps until Christmas!
Lord Squeaky