Your Computer may be slow and erratic as a result of a single or many reasons, but chiefly, the main causes
of such malperformance, though not an exhaustive list, are as follows:

• Virus/Trojan/Spyware infection


• Lack of Housekeeping


• Insufficient RAM or Memory


• Slow Computer Component



Read on for detailed information, or if your interest is in a quick and free diagnosis then click here to join
the popular $100 annual maintenance program.




1. Virus/Trojan/Spyware infection
   
   These are malicious programs that in the least write themselves to the operating system registry
   (that is your computers wake up routine), in effect, every time you switch on the computer, the
   program re-arms itself and continues to cause havoc.



2. Lack of Housekeeping
   
   Believe it or not, when you do not perform routine housekeeping on your computer, it can make it
   lethargic. Cookies need to be deleted often, (a cookie is a description of you and your habit as analysed
   by a website you visit, some cookies can be useful, but most are simply there to track your habits
   thereby making you a soft target for advertisements). Imagine having your computer carry for eternity,
   cookies from websites you would never return to, or websites you just don't visit anymore. In the same
   vein, computers temporary folders need to be purged too, the internet temporary folder for example
   might have in them information about obsolete websites one had visited years ago. The final piece of the
   housekeeping jigsaw is 'hard drive defragmentation' (the hard drive is where your data and operating
   system software live). To try and explain this clearer, consider this synonym, imagine you live in a three
   bedroom house where you have the jackets of your suits in one room, the pants in another, and your
   shirt and shoes in the third room. Everytime you need to go out in your suit, you would have to
   perambulate between the three rooms to be completely attired. What you are doing is exactly what
   happens when a hard drive is fragmented. The head of the hard drive has to jump back and forth to
   fetch information that could easily be in the same location by defragmenting. Fragmentation makes a hard
   drive work harder not smarter.



3. Insufficient RAM or Memory
   
   Let me explain to you briefly the function of the RAM or memory before I go any further. The memory
   (RAM) on a computer is like a post office. Parcels, Packages and letters arrive at a post office
   for processing before onward transmission to their final destination, in exactly the same way, data
   (information) arrives at the memory (RAM) for onward transmission to their final destination, which
   could be the screen you are watching right now.
   
   Now let's explain how insufficient memory (or small post office) can cause your system to act slow.
   
   When your computer has insufficient memory and you fire up a number of applications, the little memory
   quickly becomes full and there is requirement for more memory to enable all the applications run. The
   central processing unit (this is where instructions from your operating system are processed) becomes
   clever and borrows an area on the hard drive to use as memory so all the applications can run
   simultaneously. This area on the hard drive is termed 'pagefile'. This phenomenon is commonly referred
   to as Virtual Memory. The size of the pagefile is usually controlled dynamically by the operating system
   except you choose to do otherwise. With a computer that has little memory, it is more likely that you would
   need a much bigger space on the hard drive to use as pagefile. Whenever there is a request for the
   information in pagefile (on your hard drive), the central processing unit gets clever again and quickly
   swaps it with that on the real memory at the time. This swapping of information between the real memory
   and hard drive is referred to as thrashing. This effect makes a computer extremely slow.



4. Slow Computer Component
   
   A computer is made up of many components such as a central processing unit, motherboard (also called
   systemboard) and hard drive. There is constant interaction between these three throughout any
   computing operation, including surfing or printing. Where any of these components is inherently slow,
   then that component would act as a bottleneck affecting the whole system. No matter how fast the
   other two components go, depending on the direction of the information flow process, they would
   either spend time waiting for the slow component to pass on the next information due processing or be
   forced to slow down their own processing so as not to overload the slow component. To you, the end
   user, the overall picture you see is a glaringly slow or misbehaving computer.




Now that you have an idea why your computer is acting the way it is, we would be delighted to help you get
it back to winning ways. Our $100 annual maintenance program can help you get a free diagnosis or for a
no tie consultation, contact our repairs department who are always glad to help.

Return to Home Page