The Bane of Every Tech Support Professional’s Existence
“My computer has been acting slow” is the bane of any end-user support professional’s existence. It’s one of the most common complaints, but it’s also so non-specific that it’s often hard to diagnose – it’s a bit like going to a doctor and only telling them “I feel sick.” But fear not, with a little detective work, it is possible to figure out why a computer’s performance seems to be dragging.
The First Line of Defense: Reboot
I know that “turn it off then turn it back on again” has become something of a running joke, but hear me out. Programs can sometimes get locked up, processes don’t close when they should, and computers have lots of code doing all kinds of things that can interact in negative ways. A good, old-fashioned reboot can clear out many problems in one simple step. So, before you start any serious troubleshooting, give the computer a few minutes to settle after the reboot and see if the issue persists.
Clearing the Browser’s Cobwebs
In today’s era, we do an awful lot in the web browser. A small problem with your browser or with certain pages you’re visiting can make it feel like your entire computer isn’t running right. Fortunately, a huge number of browser issues can be cleared out by using the reset/refresh options built into the browsers themselves. These resets will flip settings back to their original state, clear changes that your extensions may have messed with, and wipe site cookies and cache data. I find that this takes care of more than 90% of the browser issues I encounter.
To do a reset/refresh, simply do a web search for the settings in your specific browser of choice. Here are the links to the Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox reset instructions: Chrome Reset Instructions and Firefox Refresh Instructions.
Clearing Out Disk Space
Generally speaking, having more stuff on your hard drive won’t slow down your computer. But it’s a surprisingly common misconception that it does. However, if your hard drive gets very full (as in, up over 90%), it can definitely slow the machine to a crawl. This happens because Windows no longer has any extra space on the drive to work with when swapping files around or creating temporary files. So if your hard drive is that full, you may be able to improve performance by clearing some space. Check out my guide on How To Clear Hard Drive Space on Windows 10 for more on how to do that.
Diving into Task Manager
Now that we’ve done some essential tasks for clearing out the most common problems, it’s time for some more in-depth diagnosis using the Windows Task Manager. To get there, simply click the Start button, type “Task Manager” in the search, and then click on it in the results. Tip: you can also just hit Ctrl+Shift+Esc to go right to it.
Task Manager has a few different tabs that are going to be useful for this, but to start, click on the “Performance” tab. Under this tab, the main things to look at are the CPU and Memory sections, because those are hardware categories that impact performance the most. Don’t stress too much about how the CPU usage bounces around or what percentage the memory usage is idling at. Instead, the main thing to look for is if either the processor or memory is staying very high (north of 80% or so). Constant high processor or memory usage could definitely be the source of a performance problem.
Identifying Resource Hogs
But that doesn’t mean that you need to upgrade hardware – more often, it means that some program is taking up too many resources. To find out, click over to the “Processes” tab. The Processes tab shows you exactly what’s running on your system and how much of the processor and memory it’s using. What makes it an especially good tool for this job is that you can click the CPU and Memory headings on the columns to sort the list from highest to lowest usage.
Click the Memory heading to sort from high to low, which will show a down arrow next to the percentage. Now let it sit and watch the list as it refreshes each second. Mainly look at the top of the list and see if any programs are using way more than anything else. Your browser will likely be at the top, and Google Chrome in particular is notorious for using lots of memory. That’s not necessarily a problem as long as you have enough memory for it to work with. The main thing is to keep an eye out for programs that are hanging out near the top of the list but that you don’t really need to have open all the time. Most of us probably have a few programs running automatically that aren’t essential, and there’s no sense in letting them use resources constantly.
Once you’re done looking at the memory usage, sort the list by CPU usage and again look for things that are either using way more than any other process or are not needed. If you’ve identified some programs that are using too many resources, you have a few options. One word of warning, though: if you don’t know what something is, it’s better to not mess with it. Some of your computer’s hardware may have small utilities that run to help it function, and you likely want those to work as designed.
Malware Scans and Windows Reinstalls
If it’s a program you don’t need at all, you can always uninstall it. If it’s a program you do need but it’s running when you don’t need it, you can prevent it from running at startup by going to the “Startup” tab in Task Manager and disabling it.
Another potential software problem is malware – the catch-all term for anything bad that winds up installed on your computer. For that, a reformat and reinstall of Windows is ideal, but it’s often worth trying a malware scanner first. I’ve mostly used Malwarebytes in the past, but search for articles from reputable tech sites about the best current scanners.
The Nuclear Option: Hardware Upgrades
If your computer’s general performance is still slow after trying all of these steps, you’re down to looking at either a major issue with Windows or a problem with the hardware. If the problem is Windows, a wipe of the hard drive and a fresh install might solve the problem. If it’s hardware, you’d need to run diagnostics or test by swapping out parts. The two parts most prone to failure are memory and hard drives.
And sometimes, a slow computer just needs to be replaced. But in many cases, the performance is just suffering from one issue or another that isn’t too hard to solve on your own. With these steps, you’ve got a pretty good start on sorting out the most common issues.
Happy troubleshooting, and remember – if all else fails, you can always rely on the most powerful tool in a tech support professional’s arsenal: the trusty “turn it off, then turn it back on again.”
