Most of us understand the frustration of having our devices run slower than normal and these issues tend to happen at the worst possible times. Application crashes, black screens, blue screens, all of them can still happen even if your software is all up to date and you restart the machine regularly. As for how to keep your machine running smooth like butter? let me help with that.

Note that these recommendations are for windows 11 (However, some will work on Windows 10)

What to check for first: 

• Task manager and possible hardware limitations: if you see any unusually high CPU/Disk/GPU usage in task manager and can confirm that there are no unnecessary tasks running, there may be a possibility that your machine needs an upgrade of some sort. Laptops typically allow for RAM and storage to be upgraded whilst PCs allow for more components to be upgraded. An example of which would be upgrading a CPU
• Device drivers: While Windows updates are typically enough for most devices, there are cases where machines need additional device drivers to work correctly. Luckily the main popular laptop and PC manufacturers, i.e. Dell, Lenovo and HP, all offer applications that make this process quite straightforward. (Lenovo Vantage, Dell update, HP support Assistant

Best practices to ensure your PC runs well: 

• Ensure no unneeded startup applications are active on your machine (This can be managed by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ESC for Task manager, then opening the “Startup apps” menu)
• Ensure no unneeded applications are installed (This can be done by pressing the Windows start menu >searching and clicking on Control panel > Programs and features)
• Restart your machine every few days (it fixes many common issues. unfortunately, shutting down and powering on does not serve the same purpose.
• If you have a laptop, make sure there is adequate airflow for the fans to operate. This helps avoid thermal issues with the device’s internal components
• Monitor the storage usage on your drive(s). Ideally, the drive that the Windows Operating system is installed on, needs to have a reasonable amount of free storage remain available to ensure a machine doesn’t slow down

Quick ways to keep your machine clutter free  

There are 2 distinct tools you can use to increase storage on your machine.

1) Microsoft PC Manager – this easy-to-use tool allows for users to quickly clear up storage without losing important data. It offers many other cool features, read more about it here.

2) Treesize Free – This tool makes it extremely easy to visualise what files and folders are taking up space on your drives and is far quicker than searching through File Explorer. Read more about it here.

PC still slow after the above steps? Log a ticket with us!