1: Change your power settings.
Windows 10 has a ‘Power Saver’ plan that reduces performance in order to save a bit of energy. (Yes, even desktops will typically have a ‘Power Saver’ plan of some sort) There are typically 3 settings to choose from, or you can customize the settings if you prefer. The 3 presets are: “Power Saver”, “High Performance”, or “Balanced”. These settings can be found in the Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Power Options. In order to see the “High Performance” Option, you may need to click on the down arrow that says ‘Show additional plans’.
2: Disabling programs that will run on startup.
Over time your computer will likely accumulate several programs, many of which will be set to run when you first turn on the computer. Not only will this increase the time it takes for your computer to get situated when you first log in, but all the programs running in the background can also bog down the general performance of the machine. To remedy this, open up the task manager by either pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc, or right-clicking in an open spot on the taskbar and selecting ‘Task Manager’. In the Task Manager, there are several tabs, but the one we want to focus on today is the tab that says ‘Startup’. Here it will list all the programs that run when you first log in to your account. Windows does its best to try to calculate how much resources each program will take, but sometimes it falls a bit flat in that regard. Disable anything that you don’t actively use, or want to start when you first log in and it could help your computer run much smoother.
3: Disable Visual effects, animations, and shadows.
Windows 10 has some aesthetically pleasing features such as visual effects, animations, and shadows. If you are running an older pc or laptop, these can have some adverse affects, though if you have a newer, faster system these won’t change much.
It is simple enough to turn them off though! In the windows search box (bottom left-hand corner of the screen, or you can access it by just pressing the windows key) just type in sysdm.cpl and hit enter. This will launch the system properties box. Find and click on the advanced tab > click on Settings in the Performance section >from there it will bring you to the performance options box. From here you can choose a few preset options, or if you like to customize it to your exact specifications, you can do that too! For older machines we suggest the option to adjust for best performance.
4: Shutting down or restarting your computer
The last one seems like it’s almost too good to be true, but you’d be surprised by how much a simple restart can help improve performance sometimes. When restarting your computer it will clear out any excess use of RAM that for one reason or another can’t be cleared. It will also kill any processes that you may have started a long time previous that no longer needs to be running, and maybe you then forgot about it.
Using some or all of these tips can help your computer run faster which can help decrease your frustrations.
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