Easiest Ways To Speed Up Your Windows Laptop
Laptops have become an essential part of so many people’s daily lives. No matter what job you do, you are most likely working online and doing it on a laptop. While this is incredibly useful and convenient, our laptops become bogged down with data at some point.
This post will go through the quick and straightforward steps you can take to speed yours up and improve its performance. No need to rush out and buy a new laptop; just make a few tweaks.
Alt: A laptop on a wooden desk with a notebook and pencils next to it.
Limit startup tasks
While laptops are efficient and make tasks so much more straightforward, this efficiency could slow down your laptop. Both laptops and computers have programs that launch automatically when you turn your machine on. As they load in the background, they can significantly slow down your laptop, so check which programs are running on start-up and delete those you don’t need to speed your laptop up immediately.
Delete unused apps
Today, as we know, there’s an app for everything. So it just could be that your laptop is being bogged down by apps. Deleting unused applications is a surefire way to speed up your laptop, PC, and smartphone. If you think you don’t have any unused apps, once you start digging, you’ll find out that probably isn’t true.
Considering so many of us use our laptops for many hours a day, every day, you have probably downloaded half a dozen apps that you thought you might have needed but completely forgot you had because you never opened them.
Look through them and delete those you know you won’t use. Keep in mind that they do not sit dormant on your laptop. Even unused, they’re taking up space on your laptop and slowing down its performance.
Clear cache
Your internet cache is probably jam-packed with thousands of searches and online data. Clearing out your laptop memory includes clearing up your internet memory, which can stack up very quickly.
Simply deleting your post history and cleaning out your cache is another quick way to add some speed back to your laptop, and it should be a regular exercise as it helps to strengthen your laptop’s security.
Disk cleanup
Disk cleanup is a simple and easy tool that quickly deletes unused data and apps if you don’t want to do it manually. This is especially useful for getting rid of files and data, as finding the data you want to delete manually can be a mission.
You may not know where to look necessarily, and there is almost certainly more data and files than you may have first thought. Using disk cleanup regularly should be part of routine laptop ‘housekeeping’.
Use task manager
Task manager is an excellent tool to help you find what is and isn’t constantly running in the background. We are all guilty of not wholly exiting programs after we’ve been working, and the task manager is here to fix that.
Opening it regularly, seeing what is running in the background, and closing unneeded programs and tabs, will save battery life and speed up your laptop.
Alt: A laptop on a windowsill.
Battery options
There are ways to adjust your battery options to save battery life and ensure that you aren’t spreading all your laptop’s power across programs and tabs that you aren’t using. The “High Performance” option is what you should be using.
The default setting is “Balanced,” and while this saves on battery power, it isn’t the best option for speed. The high-performance option means you will use up your battery much quicker, but if you’re plugged in, your laptop is likely to perform optimally.
Adjust graphics
Unless you are gaming or work as a graphics designer or video editor, there is absolutely no need to have your graphics turned up to the highest settings. You don’t need to see Google or your Excel spreadsheet in high-definition.
Turning down your graphics settings is a great way to increase performance. You see it in games all the time; if you turn the graphics up and your machine can’t handle it, it will lag: don’t let this happen to your laptop.
Virus check
Viruses are another problem when it comes to laptop performance. While you may not be the victim of a hack, and your data hasn’t been stolen, viruses can and do slow down machines simply by existing on them.
Running regular antivirus checks will ensure your machine stays virus-free and performing at its best. Once again, this should be a regular part of your routine, which will keep you and your data safe.
Alt: A sideways view of a laptop on a wooden surface.
Software updates
Software updates, more often than not, come with optimizations. Unnecessary app data is deleted, bugs are fixed, and the apps are upgraded to perform better. You should never skip or ignore these updates.
Older apps are almost always slower and bog down your machine. Updates also increase the level of protection for your laptop, keeping you safe from potential hacks. It is a win-win to run updates when you get them.
Speeding up your laptop is as simple as doing a few checks and letting your computer delete data that you don’t need. There is no need to run out and buy a new laptop when the one you have is perfectly capable of being cleaned up to the point of feeling like it’s brand new.