#Help speed up my computer free drivers

You can also scan for new hardware here if you change something about your physical setup, you might need to relocate it within the Device Manager in order to update the drivers and ensure everything is working properly. To check for updates, right-click the “Home” button and select “Device Manager,” then right-click the device you want to update the drivers on. Updating your drivers is often a handy fi x for something not working with a PC, but it’s a good idea to keep your device drivers up to date whenever possible. If you’re unsure what a piece of software does, always look it up online before removing it. The most obvious contender is of course Candy Crush, but if you take a trip into “App Settings” and scroll through the “Apps & features” list, you may find a surprising amount of software you never use, and never intend to use.Ĭlick on a program to view options, and uninstall it from there.

Speaking of stuff included with Windows 10, there’s plenty of bloatware you can just get rid of which will help speed up your laptop. There’s a ton of tools included with Windows 10 that you might use sometimes, but don’t ever want running in the background. Under “Privacy Settings,” you can individually select which apps you want to run in the background, and disable the rest. This one comes down to preference, and isn’t so necessary on more powerful systems with plenty of memory and high-speed storage. Reinstalling Windows is often like bringing a broadsword to a knife ﬁght effective, but far too much effort and potentially messy. System restore points are a more useful resource, and it’s generally a good idea to have both cloud-based and physical backups of your data.

#Help speed up my computer free install

Some people will claim that there are beneﬁts to using the other plans we’re not saying those people are wrong, but we are saying that any beneﬁts will be practically unnoticeable.Ī complete fresh install of Windows should only ever be a last resort, when other attempts to salvage your system have failed. If your PC is connected to mains power, set the power plan to high performance and call it a day. While many of these tips will also apply to desktop PCs as well as laptops, there's no point messing around with a desktop's power plan. Unless you have a staggering amount of memory to spare, it just isn’t worth it. It’s necessary to have regular automatic backups to your physical drive, and to reload the RAM disk image back into your memory every time you boot up your system, which takes time. However, RAM disks are volatile memory if your PC loses power, that data is wiped. If you’re moving ﬁles around a lot and only have an HDD or SATA SSD, it seems like a no-brainer. The advantages jump out immediately RAM is a lot faster, netting you vastly improved data transfer speeds for your virtual drive. Just don’t bother.Īlso known as RAM drives, these nifty data storage solutions use thirdparty software to partition a given amount of your memory to be used as data storage instead of random-access memory. If you have a SATA SSD or M.2 NVMe drive, you don’t want to try defragging it there are no signiﬁcant performance beneﬁts (because SSDs have no moving parts, there’s no risk of mechanical latency building up over time), and the lengthy defragmentation processes can actually wear out the memory cells and ruin the drive’s lifespan if you do it too many times. Here's some 'tips' that often make the rounds, that sadly won't make a difference.ĭefragmentation software can be helpful, but only for older drives.

#Help speed up my computer free for free

The tips on this page will show you how to speed up your laptop for free – but watch out for false advice. You can also block all apps from accessing your camera and microphone on the “Privacy” page. Turn both of these off to cut down the amount of data Cortana gathers from your typical PC usage. Under “Privacy Settings,” you’ll fi nd “Speech” and “Inking and typing personalization.” To complete the process, head back out to the main “Settings” menu. Annoying pop-ups, constant data-gathering, and forced Bing search (come on, Microsoft…) make Cortana the least helpful voice assistant in the biz, but fortunately, shutting her down is reasonably straightforward.įind the Cortana page under “Settings,” then toggle all the sliders off. Shut Cortana upįor the vast majority of users, Cortana is little more than a frustration baked into the core of Windows 10.

You can also pause all updates for up to two weeks useful if you want to try something in a specific version of Windows 10.

#Help speed up my computer free manual

You can turn on auto-updates, too, under “Advanced options,” but if you have a metered connection, we advise against this, and instead recommend manual updates.