Why does a computer's performance degrade as it gets older?

Question

I've owned many computers over the years. Without fail, they slow down and perform at a fraction of what they did when new. Obviously being connected to the internet exposes the PC to viruses and adware yet, despite diligent scanning and cleaning, it eventually needs replacing. What's going on inside the PC that is causing it to become essentially obsolete within a few years?

Answer 1

Hard disk drives have moving parts in them, which wear out and become slower and less efficient, so even if you take good care of your hard drive, it will slow down and slow everything else down with it. Most operating systems use a virtual memory swap file on the hard drive in addition to RAM, and she slower the hard drive is, the slower the OS will run. Everything else will continue to slow down because of heat. If you break down your case every few months and do a thorough job of cleaning, get rid of all the dust, make sure your cooling fans are working well and unobstructed, your machine will last longer and will stay fast longer.

Answer 2

They don't really degrade.

They tend to fill up with junk which will slow them down and while scanning and removing unnecessary programs can speed them up they wont get the computer as fast as a clean install.

The other part of the problem is perception. The PC may have seemed fast when it was new but compared to a new PC it will seem slow.

If you were to take speed measurements on a new PC then reinstall it after a year or so when you were convinced that it was slower, if you then re ran the tests you would find the speed was actually the same as when it was new.

Answer 3

OK, I have 2 answers to this problem. OK I'm assuming your probably using Windows XP right? Well the problem is not the actual computer itself but rather its operating system, Windows XP. Now when you say viruses and such, that is NOT the problem. What is actually going on is that the programs you have installed like games and mainly virus scanners are actually the things slowing down the computer!! This is because, the applications load a part of them selves at boot-time. So your basically running all of your applications at the same time (or a portion of them)! Now your saying over time this happens, yes in a way it does, considering over time you load more and more stuff onto the computer, but in fact, if you setup a computer with nothing running, no virus scanners, no firewall, no applications to speak of, the performance of the computer would not degrade in any measurable amount.

Now your thinking "Well is he saying I have to unload all of my computer software??". Well I have news: you don't! What you have to do is follow these simple steps:

Click on Start - Run

Then in the window that appears type msconfig and press enter.

Now in that window click the tab that says "Startup"

And click "Disable ALL" at the bottom of the screen.

Now, this MAY cause your computer to not load your instant messenger client, for example, at boot-time but if you think about it running the messenger in the background is NOT essential to the computers operation. Now restart click OK. and close the window, when asked to reboot you should reboot. Now, there are other somewhat more difficult tricks to improve preformace (only more difficult for me to explain to you how to use them), but if you really want your computer to run faster than it started just say so. also, explain to me more of what is going slow and what needs to be improved.

Answer 4

windows just clogs up.

if you do virus scans, defragment your hard drive, and really look after your computer it will last longer than other people's pc's who don't do any of that but yours will still grind to a halt.

it's just a windows thing that you can do nothing about.

i make a backup of my windows installation using norton ghost and when i start seeing my pc slow up, i restore that back up - it only takes 6 minutes - and i'm back in the game.

before doing that, i used to just reinstall windows from scratch every year or so.

it's not really the computer which is degrading in performance, but the operating system. a fresh install of windows can make the life of a pc well over 10 years til the hardware starts to fail - depending on who is using it, and what they're using it for an old pc still has it's uses.

the exceptions to this is of course new hardware (usb, bluetooth, wireless networking etc) and increased minimum software requirements which you often can't do anything about.

don't forget to 'accept' this answer if it helped.

Answer 5

properly, technologies forges ahead and without hardware updates, our computers do not. Our purposes are requiring further and further factors and in case you do not improve the hardware, you'll see a down grade on your performance. My advice might want to be to improve the RAM, it truly is oftentimes the most inexpensive performance booster. i might want to take it to a minimum of two GB. extraordinarily because you're doing solid upkeep interior the defrag/secret agent ware/spyware type. those are major and should be carried out oftentimes even on new platforms. yet another theory might want to be replacing out some classes. i do not recognize what anti-virus software you employ yet some (Norton & McAfee) use a great quantity of equipment factors to run interior the history. style Micro's Antivirus software runs otherwise and is a properly rated as any of the different appropriate classes. tendencies antivirus software purely has 2 small classes operating interior the history to guard your computing device instead of the 12-16 that Norton or McAfee makes use of. it truly is only a huge difference interior the structure of the appliance, no lack of secure practices. I genuinely have an older equipment and said a huge huge difference in performance after I replaced to the craze product. yet I nevertheless might want to improve the RAM to a minimum of two GB (XP received't see more beneficial than 4 so do not waste your $$$) and flow from there. solid success!

Answer 6

There are three main reasons, one is that the hardware gets worn and no longer operates at maximum capacity, second is because as you put more stuff on your computer, the more fragmented your files will be(remedied with defrag), third is that your prospective of fast changes as time passes, every year, fast is redefined by the ever evolving technology, something that was fast a year ago is not as fast anymore relative to the new products, therefore your old computer seems slower.

Answer 7

See here why FAT file systems get pretty early into trouble, lowering performance, needing defrags; and why unix/linux file systems don't:

http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index.php/2006/08/17/why_doesn_t_linux_need_defragmenting

This for one, then as you were mentioning: worms, exploits, trojans that are common to Windows but almost unheard of in Linux. I suggest you run SUSE Linux on your PCs and live happy with top performance.

Answer 8

2 main reasons

1 new programs need faster speed

2 the silicon part of the main Bord the main enemy for it is the electric which make it degrade

Answer 9

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Computer Slow

Download and then run startup.exe (FREEWARE) at:

http://www.mlin.net/startupcpl.shtml......

Can't live without it and windows...

Then disable and/or uninstall whatever u don't need.

Other things to try:

1 - Disk Cleanup (removal of temp files, cookies, etc.)
2 - Defrag
3 - Registry Cleanup (CAN BE VERY RISKY!)

FROM A HARDWARE PERSPECTIVE THE BEST AND MOST COST EFFECTIVE POSSIBLE UPGRADE (IN GENERAL) IS THE ADDITION OF MORE MEMORY (RAM).

ALL ELSE FAILS - RELOAD YOUR O/S (WINDOWS) AND THEN REINSTALL ALL OTHER PROGRAMS YOU NEED/USE!

Joe...

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Computer Virus/Spyware/Adware/Malware/etc

All FREE...

Download and then run Avira AntiVir Personal Edition Classic at:

http://www.free-av.com/

Download and then run Spybot - Search & Destroy at:

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/

Download and then run Ad-Aware SE Personal at:

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

Joe...

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