How to Make a Slow Dell Computer Run Faster

Estimated read time 4 min read

For a lot of us, Dell computer just does not run as fast as we would like it to, or as fast as it did in the past maybe. So in this article, we’re going to go over 10 specific tips on some things you can try in Windows that may improve your Dell computer’s performance.

Now obviously nothing beats a hardware upgrade, but if you do have a lower end Dell computer, some of these tricks might help. Now if you have a high end Dell computer or a modern computer you just upgraded and it’s still running slow, you might have other issues that these probably won’t help.

1. TURN OFF VISUAL EFFECTS

Step 1: Go to Start Menu and search “performance”

Step 2: A new window will be open and in that you have to check “Adjust for best performance”.

And what this will simply do is remove a lot of fancy animations, maybe graphical effects. So Windows probably will look a little bit uglier, but it may seem a little bit snappier because you’re not like waiting for animations and stuff like that, so again this will be for very low end hardware with very low graphics power, this could make a difference, but if you have a reasonably powered computer, it probably won’t make a huge difference, so you may just prefer Windows to look nicer when you’re using it and not choose this.


2. UNINSTALL UNWANTED PROGRAMS

Over time your PC can fill up with unwanted programs, you haven’t used in ages. These take up valuable hard drive space and system memory so go ahead and remove the ones you don’t need anymore.

Step 1: Click the Start Menu and hit Settings.

Step 2: Click apps and scroll through the list to see which ones you don’t use.

Step 3: You can uninstall one program at a time by selecting it and clicking “Uninstall”.


3. ADJUST POWER OPTIONS

  • Go to Settings → System → Power & Sleep → Additional Power Settings.

By default this will show as Balanced, but there will be other options likely showing up here. And High Performance maybe the one you want to consider, especially if you’re on a desktop.

Now if you’re using a laptop that’s always plugged in, you can also choose high performance, but just be aware if you’re using a laptop that is not plugged in running off battery, then this will probably severely drain the battery life. So in that case you may not want to change it, but if you are running off AC power, high performance is probably the best if your computer is noticeably slow most of the time.

Also keep in mind though this will make it so your CPU will run at a higher clock by default all the time, so if you’re concerned about energy usage, or maybe you have really bad cooling in your computer, you may notice it running hotter, and the fans running faster, so if you do notice that and don’t like it, you can of course turn it off of high performance back onto balanced.


4. DISABLE UNWANTED STARTUP PROGRAMS

By default Windows runs numerous programs at startup, so you can easily access them when needed but not all these programs are used on a regular basis and worse they slow down startup speed and overall performance. it’s best to disable them.

Step 1: Right-click on an empty space in your taskbar.

Step 2: Then select “Task manager”.

Step 3: Select “startup tab” on top and scroll through the list.

Step 4: Disable all the programs which is not important for you.


5. DEFRAGGING & OPTIMIZING DRIVES

The longer you use the computer the more scattered your files get. Slowing your computer’s performance. Defragging and optimizing drives will help sort them in one place.

Step 1: Click the Windows button and type “defrag” and hit “Enter”. You can optimize all drives or just the system drive which usually is the “C Drive”.

READ – HOW TO CLEAN “C” DRIVE

Step 2: Select the drive, click optimize. Once that’s done you can close the window.


6. DELETE UNNECESSARY TEMP FILES

Your computer is loaded with temp files that are just wasting space.

Step 1: To delete them, right-click the windows button and click run.

Step 2: Type in %temp% and hit enter.

Step 3: Select all the files with your mouse or by pressing ctrl + a on your keyboard and hit delete.

Step 4: Open Run Box Again and type in temp then hit enter. Delete all the files from this folder also.


 

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