What makes a computer run slow? I hear a million different answers. Please only respond if you are sure.?

Question

IF IT IS YOUR PROFESSION TO KNOW PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT MAKES A COMPUTER RUN SLOW.

Answer 1

you've heard a million different answers because there ARE a million different answers, it's not only one potential problem which can cause a computer to run slowly, that's merely a symptom.

only a handful of possible causes are...
...viruses, spyware, lack of physical disk space, lack of physical ram, slow processor speed, cpu/memory hogging software running in the background, too many fonts installed, a dying hard drive, too many programs installed, the list goes on and on and on.

Answer 2

You have heard so many different answers because so many different things can cause the same result. That is like what makes a person die. I am a technology student studying computers and electricity.
One common thing slowing down computers is lacking resources, specifically memory resources. The causes can be running too many programs, a single program which is a memory hog, not having enough memory to start with, and having bad memory which means you cannot use all the circuits in the RAM chip.
The next problem is memory on the mother board. Your system cache has to work corrrectly. The next problem is unwanted/unknown software. Sometimes software such as spyware will take system resources and slow your system down. The trouble is that you didn't knowingly put it there and dont' know that your resources are being hogged. Viruses will do similar things. Viruses can also damage hardware. Damaged hardware can be caused by power supply controls being changed. If the correct voltages aren't there or if the fan controls are bad then your hardware will be damaged.
Again, there are lots of other things that can slow down your computer. This is just the tip of the ice burg.

Answer 3

There ARE a million different answers. It is usually too much running at the same time or not enough memory. Low memory will causes parts of programs to constantly page in and out to hard disk.

This can be caused by adware running in the background just waiting to pop up a window or a million other things.

Answer 4

not enough memory. If you are running XP you have to be at a minimum of 512 MB of memory.

You can limit the number of programs running in memory but doing the following:

Run a full spyware scan. Best product out there is at www.superantispyware.com. Download the professional version and run it. Its a full working trial.

Next, click Start, Run, and then type msconfig and hit enter. click on the Startup tab. That will show you everythign that is running at startup. Uncheck items you don't need and click apply and then reboot. When it reboots check the box that comes up. That should free up programs running in memory all the time.

That should do it.

Answer 5

There are a lot of different reasons. I have high speed cable. Mine runs slow when there are a lot of other people in my neighborhood network on the Internet at the same time as I am. Spyware or adware can also make it run slow.

We took our computer into our computer tech and had him take off everything that we didn't need on our computer and that helped a lot. It cost us $35 & was well worth it..

Answer 6

its not my profession, but there ARE a million different reasons. aside from potential viruses, most of them have to do with having more programs/applications running in the background than your hardware can keep up with.

alot of these programs could be adware or spyware, or just unnecessary applications that have gotten onto your computer over time. alot of normal software packages run small programs in the background (to get updates from the internet, or any other variety of tasks).
of course, if your memory is low, even having a few applications open at a time could do it.

Answer 7

Any professional computer guru will tell you the same things others have. There are too many variables and no clear cut answers or fixes ( unless you re-install the operating system ) . You pretty well have to go through the steps starting from checking out if a virus is present to deleting software and checking if the hardware is compatible or working properly.
Take your computer in to a professional if you can't or won't try fixing it on your own. ( To diagnosis and offer solutions when they can't look at it hands on, is almost impossible.)

Answer 8

Ive been using computer for years. When you have alot of applications open, it takes up memory. You can Ctrl Atl Delete and bring up Processes. There it shows all the processes running and how much memory it is using. There are alot of things happening that you arent aware of. I would suggest doing that and seeing what is using so much memory. And possibly look into and see if you even need the program running. Hope i helped.

Answer 9

It may be due to lot of program starting up when the computer starts and keeps running in the background for no need.

Try start-run-msconfig
1 uncheck all not needed programs
2 donot uncheck anything that you are not sure as it may relate to some system services and anti-virus software
3 defrag and diskcleanup

Answer 10

Mostly temp files, spyware and virus'. To combat all of the above you need a couple of different software programs. First off to get rid of annoying temp files go to http://www.ccleaner.com and download ccleaner. This will get rid of temp files, cookies, and other. Next go to http://www.download.com/. Get spybot, adware se, and AVG free. Get the latest definitions and run them all (separately of course). This should help immensely. If all else fails you may just need to upgrade your memory.
Another thing you may want to try is going to start | programs | accessories | system tools | disk defragmenter. Running this will defrag your drive and make access to files and programs a little faster.