How to Make Your Computer Meaningfully Faster

There are many people who have many incorrect (largely outdated) ideas about how to make their computers faster. In my experience as someone who works at a business that repairs computers and makes them faster, there are a limited number of things that will effectively improve your computer's speed.

This resource is for your bog standard windows computer; I don't know much about gaming computers and I can't help you make yours faster. If you're wondering "But what about Apple?" there is a rather comprehensive answer for you at the link.

If you're reading this page and thinking "that's a little simplistic" or "this is pretty basic," that's because it is! This is a resource for non-technical people to begin to understand how their computers work and how to work better with their devices. Everybody had to start somewhere, and if you've found your way here in search of answers you're doing better than a lot of folks.

What does it even mean to have a fast computer?

There are three primary components that make a computer "fast" for standard use.

• Processor. Your Processor is how your computer handles processes. You don't really need to understand this, just understand that in the normal course of things, you cannot upgrade your processor. If your processor is the reason that your computer is slow, you have limited options to increase the speed.
• RAM. The RAM is Random Access Memory; it is the part that handles what your computer is actively "thinking about" at any given time.
• Drive. Your computer has some variety or other of storage drive in it. At the time of this writing (March 2024) we are on the cusp of moving totally away from one kind of drive to another, which will be more fully explained later.

So if you're working on a database on your computer your processor is what parses code and talks to the motherboard and tells your monitor how to display the spreadsheet to you. The RAM is holding all the changes that you've made and the information that you've loaded; it will store that information as long as the program is opened but will not keep it unless you tell it to save to your drive, which is long-term storage for information. If you've ever lost work because a program closed, the changes are an example of data that was being kept in RAM because it hadn't been saved to storage. This is confusing for some people because they think "memory" means "long term storage," which is incorrect when discussing computers.

A "fast" computer is a computer in which all of these components are working together well; a fast processor will open a program and make it operational quickly, sufficient RAM will allow your computer to "think about" lots of things at the same time without struggling to keep up, and an SSD will store and retrieve data very quickly. Sometimes you can have a "fast" computer with a slow processor, or a "fast" computer with an HDD, but generally speaking when you're looking to make a computer faster you're looking to improve the performance of one or more of these components.

Diagnosing the causes of slowness

The best way to figure out why your computer is slow is to get a look at what it's doing. On a Windows machine, this generally means exploring the Task Manager. Many people just use Task Manager to shut down frozen programs and never explore it more deeply, but the Task Manager is a valuable tool for figuring out what's going on under the hood, so to speak. The Task Manager can tell you about the performance of your:

• CPU (processor)
• Memory (RAM)
• Disk (SSD or HDD)
• Internet (Ethernet or WiFi)
• GPU (Graphics processor)

When you are experiencing slowness in your computer, hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and open the Task Manager, then select performance and see if anything is acting weird. The task manager has both visual and numeric representations of what resources your computer is using and you can click into each of them to see how they react to different behaviors on your computer. Close out of your browser, open your Task Manager, drill into the Memory tab, and then restore all the windows from your browser to see how your computer reacts to a sudden spike in memory use. Wait for your fan to turn on then open Task Manager and see what percentage your processor is at. Check the Disk (which doesn't tell you about how much is being stored, but how much time is being spent reading or writing to storage) and see if it's spending too much time active.

Your task manager is a great tool for telling you where to start when you're hoping to speed up your computer.

Things that Will Actually make your computer faster

Hardware

Remember, you will almost certainly not be able to upgrade your processor in a standard computer. These suggestions are for how to speed up your computer without replacing a processor (which CAN sometimes be done but is almost always an extremely involved process that is not worth the investment for the average user; if your computer cost less than a thousand dollars, you are probably not a good candidate for replacing your processor and would be better off replacing the computer).

RAM

Modern Windows Operating Systems require an absolute minimum of 4GB of RAM to run at all, and 8GB of RAM to run comfortably. RAM is inexpensive these days, and is often one of the easiest parts of your computer to replace or upgrade. I think that most average computer users (who basically use browsers, email clients, and office software) are going to find 16GB to be a sufficient amount of RAM. If you want your computer to be faster and it's got less than 16GB RAM, consider upgrading.

You can find out how much RAM your computer has by looking up the model number of your device or by looking it up in the system information in your operating system. You can find out the maximum RAM that your computer will accept by searching for the manufacturer part number and looking up the specifications for your computer.

Replacing RAM is either very simple or nearly impossible, depending on whether there is an available slot for upgrade or if the RAM is soldered to the motherboard. If it's soldered and there is no available slot, you will not be able to replace the RAM and will have to try something else.

Finding the right RAM for your computer

There are several important specifications you will need to know in order to find RAM that is compatible with your machine. They are:

• Size. The "Size" is going to be anywhere from 1GB to 32GB for most computers (1GB is the very low end and would be found in computers that are more than ten years old).
• Memory Technology. DDR SDRAM, or "Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory" is available in several generations; newer generations tend to be faster and more powerful. You cannot put the wrong generation of RAM into your computer, it will not work. At the moment (March 2024), we are in the middle of moving from DDR4 to DDR5; computers more than about seven years old may have DDR3 or DDR3L RAM. You must get the correct technology generation for your computer.
• Speed. RAM comes in different speeds; generally faster is better but there are some caveats there. If you are buying RAM to match a piece that is soldered to your motherboard, it should be the same speed as the soldered piece. If you're replacing all the RAM in your computer, you can buy faster RAM than what came with it, but you should check the specifications for your computer to check the maximum speed the motherboard will accept.
• Form Factor. This one's simple; there are different formats for different computer types, UDIMMs and SO-DIMM. UDIMMs are generally larger, SO-DIMMs are generally smaller. Your laptop won't typically take a UDIMM, your desktop is unlikely to use SO-DIMMs.

If you are uncertain what any of this means, you can try to identify the correct type of RAM for your computer using the Crucial RAM Adviser tool. You don't have to purchase the RAM it suggests, but you can use the RAM it recommends to figure out what type of RAM is currently in your computer.

So, to quickly summarize, if you're looking at "8GB DDR4 3200 SoDIMM" you're looking at an 8 gigabyte module of DDR4 RAM with a speed of 3200MHz in a small form factor. Generally the structure of describing RAM is [Size][Technology][Speed][Form Factor].

Drive

If you have an computer from before 2020, there's a reasonable chance that it shipped from the factory with an HDD, or Hard Disk Drive. It is more standard for computers today to come with an SSD, or Solid State Drive.

HDDs read information by skimming a mechanical arm very quickly over a spinning disk to see where data is stored. SSDs read information by flashing it to silicon chips. SSDs are much, much faster than HDDs. If your computer has an HDD, cloning the drive to an SSD and making no other changes to the computer should significantly improve speed.

Unfortunately, for nearly all applications the performance gains from one type of SSD to another are negligible, so if you already have an SSD installed on your computer you will likely not be able to make your computer faster by swapping the drive.

This is a great solution to speed up older computers, but doesn't help modern computers much.

Software

If your computer has slowed down over time, it is likely because the hardware in the computer just can't keep up with the demands of modern software. Newer computers can do more things at once, and faster, than older computers can. Sometimes that means that a program you wouldn't even notice on a new computer would make an older computer frustrating to use even if it technically met the minimum requirements of the program.

Some programs are particularly resource-hungry for a variety of reasons, and you may want to reconsider your use of some programs and your behaviors with others.

Browser

No matter what browser you're using, it is going to want to eat up every spare byte of RAM you let it. This is especially true if you're someone (like me) who likes to have dozens of tabs open at a time to switch between. One of the better ways to ensure that your browser isn't slowing down your computer is to close some tabs so your processor doesn't have to process them and your RAM doesn't have to hold onto them. This isn't a big deal for computers that are set up comfortably for modern standards, but on an older device you're trying to get more use out of, you might get some decent mileage out of limiting yourself to a handful of tabs at a time.

Now, I'm going to say my obligatory "You should be using Firefox instead of Chrome" and I'm going to point out that there are very specific Firefox plugins at that link that will help you with speed and loading times, but I'm also going to give the following advice to improve speed on any browser you happen to be using.

• Use a "tab sleep" extension that will snooze unused tabs. (The one in Firefox is called 'auto tab discard').
• Use a good adblocker (uBlock Origin is what I recommend) to ensure that you're not wasting speed downloading ads. uBlock will also allow you to tweak your settings to not download large files.
• Use only necessary extensions and plugins to save speed on startup.
• Use a tab manager extension that saves your tabs as bookmarks or a list while letting you close the tabs; Tree Style Tabs and OneTab are popular - I use Simple Tab Groups.

Antivirus

If you are using a Windows machine there is about a 95% chance that you do not need to run any antivirus other than the Windows Security program that comes with the operating system. Antivirus programs can use a huge amount of resources and the two most popular (Norton and McAfee) are the worst offenders. I would stridently advise against using Norton or McAfee; if you absolutely positively must have a paid antivirus subscription, I recommend ESET because they are very on the ball about updating their virus definitions and because ESET doesn't bring your computer to a crawl when running a scan (and it is pretty polite about only scanning when you want it to).

What you DO NOT want to do under any circumstances is run two antivirus programs at once. This is surprisingly common, and it is neither safer nor more efficient. Running two antivirus programs will just eat up resources and conflicts in the programs may actually make your computer more vulnerable, not more secure.

Really, if you're using Windows, Windows Security is fine. As much as I hate Windows (and I do hate Windows), the security improvements from Win10 on have been really good.

Cleanup

Computers come with a lot of bullshit these days, and a lot of it will slow your computer down. My general attitude is that my computer should only be able to run the things it absolutely needs to function without my permission, and for everything else it should require my say-so. This attitude is not shared by most companies that make computers or software, so it's a constant battle. Here are some of the things your Windows machine is doing to ruin your life and how to fix them.

Cortana/Web Search/Copilot

This is a general category that I think of as "Clippy." These are attempts to be "helpful" that are supposed to hold the user's hand and make doing things on the computer easier for them. What they actually do is eat up resources while running in the background and then point users to Microsoft partners and Microsoft software instead of solutions that might be better for the user.

It is possible to fully disable Clippy software from Microsoft, but it generally requires you to be comfortable with editing your registry. If you know what you are doing it is perfectly fine to muck about in the registry, but do not muck about in the registry unless you know what you are doing. Here's a good example of a guide that shows you how to disable Web searches in Windows 11 that shows users how to edit the registry. If you are going to edit the registry you need reliable resources to follow; Tom's Guide and How-To Geek are both sites that I recommend checking for information before you attempt to edit the registry if you aren't certain what you're doing.

If you are not yet comfortable with that, you can also severely limit what various programs can do by going into your computer's Settings>Apps>[App]>Advanced Options, and selecting the options to never allow the app to run in the background.

Startup Customization

If your computer is slow on startup, it may be because you've got too many things starting when you turn the computer on. This is another opportunity to make use of Task Manager.

Hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and select Task Manager. When it opens up, select "Startup Apps." You will see a list of applications that are running on startup. Generally what I do is sort that list by Startup Impact and disable everything that I know I'm not going to need access to the moment I turn my computer on. For instance, I do not need any Adobe products when I turn my computer on, I will open Adobe programs as needed, so I've disabled all Adobe software on startup. I do not use Microsoft Edge, I do not need it to turn on with my computer, so I do not run it on startup.

What you choose to run on startup is going to depend on your needs, but here are some guidelines for what to disable:

• If you aren't sure what it does, don't disable it. It would be a pain in the ass to accidentally startup disable the software that lets you use your touchpad, for example.
• Think about what you really do when you start your computer. If your printer console is turning on every time you turn your computer on, even if it's low impact, do you really need them to run on startup if you only print twice a year?

Bloatware

Various companies pay Microsoft money to let Microsoft shove their product in front of your eyeballs. This looks like McAfee free trials with new computers and Candy Crush getting installed as an app with an update. This sucks. A McAfee free trial that constantly pesters you to activate and that is difficult to uninstall isn't there to benefit you, it's there to make Microsoft and McAfee money, and it sometimes does so by slowing your computer down.

I tend to think it's a good idea to have as few programs installed on my computer as possible. I want to know why my computer is doing what it's doing, and I want to know that it's doing those things with programs that I allowed it to have access to. Every time I get a new computer I sit down and strip out the programs that I don't want and didn't ask to have. I do this before installing any programs that I do want because sometimes you'll have an infuriating problem like the free Office trial overriding your Office perpetual license or your work-provided 365 license if you don't remove the trials before installing your copy.

Take the time to sit down with your computer and go through its list of applications. Find out what each one does and if you want it. If you don't want it, uninstall. (Though again, if you don't know what something does, don't uninstall it; research these things before taking action).