Just about everybody that owns a computer has, at one time or another, had problems with the computer slowing down from its normal operating speed. While there are several things that can cause a computer to slow down, one of the most common problems I have seen over the years is actually simple to fix. This problem is basically one of over loading the computer with the type of programs that load at startup.
Chat programs, peer-to-peer programs, multimedia programs, and many more will sometimes automatically set themselves to load on startup when you first install the software. Most can be recognized by an icon in the system tray next to the time. While some of the programs in the system are indeed important, many are totally unnecessary and are just stifling your computers performance.
A good rule to go by is to always keep icons in the system tray (programs that load on startup) to a minimum. Many programs will let you select whether they load on startup or not. First see what you have in the system tray. Simply pointing to the icon will usually tell you. Sometimes you can right-click on the icon and a menu will appear allowing you to choose various things including, if you're lucky, exiting or closing the program from the system tray. Close anything you are not using.
If you can't close the program at the system tray, try starting the program and look for a setting in "preferences" or "options" or something like that. Many times you can find a setting within the program itself that will allow you to stop the program from loading every time the computer starts.
If you have a lot of programs loading that you can't close and you're having other problems, you may be infected with some type of ad-ware or spy-ware. These can also greatly slow your system's performance. If this is your case then you need to have someone like myself look at the computer and clean out all the bad programs.
Good Luck!
Jim Barrett
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