Give your PC a clean start
If you're reading this, it's highly likely that your PC is a fine-tuned piece of 64-bit technology, customized to the hilt and purring like a kitten with a belly full of formula. Yup, she's a beaut, and attacks your daily tasks like a Belgian Police Dog going after a fleeing perp. All is well in the world, until one day when you sit down, fire it up, and realize something is different. That extra bit of snap when programs open is missing, and encoding video seems to take longer than it used to. Even downloading files seems to require more patience than you're accustomed to exhibiting. It's at this very moment that you silently say to yourself, "What the FRACK???"
First things first—calm down, power user. Before you smash your rig with a hammer, pound on the keyboard, and decide to just nuke it from orbit, realize it's just a temporary slowdown and it happens to everyone, even Maximum PC editors. Over time, PCs get slower; it's just the nature of the beast. Don't fret, we're here to help by showing you how to give your PC a clean start. We'll show you how to restore you computer to its glory days, if you will. We'll walk you step-by-step through the cleaning process, showing you what you need to get 'er done, and if you find you can't resolve the problem, how to properly nuke it from orbit. We'll also detail—pun intended—physically cleaning your rig. Once you're finished, your PC will be noticeably perkier and everything will be right as rain. Now, drop the hammer, and let's get started.
Back it up and kick the tires
The only person to blame for not having a backup is you
There's only two kinds of storage devices in this world: those that have already died and those that are going to die. If you've already identified that your PC is acting wonky, it's time to back that mother up. It may seem counterintuitive that you would run a backup before you do a PC cleanup, but we highly recommend it: If you break something or something finally gives up the ghost, you'll kiss your USB ports that you made a backup before it all went sideways. There are numerous aftermarket tools, but Microsoft has been kind enough to give you a fairly powerful backup and imaging tool in the OS itself. If you're using Windows 7, just search for Backup, or dig into the Control Panel and look under System and Security. If you're using Windows 8.x, the backup system is the same, although it's hidden. To find it, go to the Control Panel and search for Windows 7 File Recovery.
The Windows backup and restore program works well enough, and should be run regularly.
If you have multiple drives, you can choose how you want the backup to run, and manually select the other drives in the system for the backup set. You should set an automatic backup as well, and create a system restore disc. Ensure that you created a system image, also, should you need to restore the backup to a completely new hard drive.
With your backup complete, it's time to do a basic visual inspection of the internals of the PC for obvious problems, such as fans clogged with so much cat hair and dust that they're causing the CPU or GPU to overheat and throttle, or data or power cables that have wiggled loose. Typically, loose or unplugged cables result in immediate show-stopping errors and crashes rather than a system slowdown. You're more likely to find your fans clogged with dust running at low RPMs or fans that have died.
Mash Malware
Don't always blame malware, except when it's to blame
If there's a bogeyman of mysterious system slowdowns, it's malware. In fact, if we had a nickel for every time a relative told us a "virus" was the cause of their slowdown, we'd have 0.08-34 of a Bitcoin. With that said, before you get too hip-deep in trying to speedupify a PC, a sweep for malware should be run. We'd also do a cursory examination of the OS for extraneous toolbars or tray items that have been installed. These aren't truly malware, but still worthy of eradication.
We'd also recommend a full system scan by the system's real-time AV software (after updating the virus definitions). A secondary sweep using various on-demand tools is also on the to-do list. This would include browser-based file scanners available from all of the popular AV vendors, as well local tools such as Malwarebytes (www.malwarebytes.org) or SuperAntiSpyware (www.superantispyware.com). Running specific rootkit removal tools available from companies such as Malwarebytes and Sophos, among others, can't hurt. Rootkits are a class of malware designed to thwart normal detection means. Before you get crazy about removing any detections, you should research it to make sure it isn't just a false positive. And be advised that many types of malware can't be removed with a single-click tool. You'll typically have to dig deep in a multi-page guide to remove many of today's specialty infections. Obviously, Binging will lead you to most guides, but a great place to start is Bleepingcomputer.com. The site has loads of removal guides and links to useful tools. But again, a word of warning: don't just start ripping things out of the OS without knowing what you're removing.
A thorough check for malware is recommended before any serious system cleanup.
Cruft clearing
Declutter the system files
Any PC that you use daily will build up hundreds of gigabytes of file clutter over the months and years that you use it. As most people are rolling large mechanical drives, the clutter has an impact on performance and your ability to pack away even more cute kitten videos downloaded from the Internet.
For this step, we'll start with the low-hanging fruit. Simply open My Computer, right-click your primary drive, and select properties. Click Disk Cleanup and check off the things that are clutter (just about everything is in this panel) and click OK. We did this on a work box and shaved off 5GB in Windows Update files that had been sitting around. While 5GB isn't much in the day of 4TB drives, many people still run 1TB and smaller drives with every nook, cranny, and sector filled (you know who you are.)
The next easy cruft targets are the system restore points automatically created by Windows. Windows typically creates these snapshots of the OS when you install a new driver, OS update, or application. Windows sets a default for these based on the size of the drive it's installed on, but they typically occupy gigabytes on the drive. To free up space, you can delete all but the latest restore points by clicking the More Options panel from Disk Cleanup, and selecting Clean Up under System Restore and Shadow Copies.
The built-in disk cleanup does a decent first pass at dumping unneeded system clutter.
Before you do this, though, think about how the recent stability of your system. If it's been reliable but slow for the last few months, wiping the previous restore points should be fine. But if the system is being wonky, you may just need to rely on those restore points to get the box back to a point where it's stable, so we'd recommend keeping the old restore points until you're sure the box is working. You should also be aware that Windows 7 and Windows Vista used System Protection and Restore Points to occasionally make backup copies of your personal data files through the Volume Shadow Copies service. These older versions may be purged when you do this, but it won't touch your most recent versions.
Yeah, we know, many power users will thumb their nose at System Restore and some will outright switch it off because malware can use it as a place to hide, but the feature can truly be a bacon-saver sometimes.
Another easy target to clean out is the default downloads folder. Other than documents, the vast majority of downloaded files can usually be dumped overboard.
Clean the Crap
CCleaner is an easy-to-use, one-stop declogger
Originally named Crap Cleaner, this handy application has since been renamed to the more palatable CCleaner, but it still works amazingly well at clearing out the junk from the corners of your OS. Available for free from http://bit.ly/MPC_CCleaner, it's an easy one-stop shop for freeing up space that you might normally miss with the built-in cleaner. As much as we like CCleaner, you shouldn't expect miracles. We ran it on a three-year-old scungy build of Windows 7 after running the Window's cleaning routine and CCleaner came up with 18.3GB to clean out—16GB had accumulated in the trash bin. One word of warning: By default, CCleaner will wipe out your browser cookies, which might throw you for a loop when you're forced to sign into web sites that you may have forgotten the passwords for. It's probably best to exclude browser history and also Windows Explorer Recent Documents from the CCleaner clean-out, too, because they don't net you much space but make your system more livable.
CCleaner still does an admirable job of emptying out unneeded files.
Stop Startups
Giddyap quicker
Oddly, many people still define their computing experience by how long it takes to cold-boot their PC. First, we just have to ask, have you tried standby or even hibernate? You know, those handy modes that can have you at the desktop five or 10 seconds after touching the mouse button or keyboard? No? You still prefer to boot from cold, anyway?
If your OS install is a year or two old, you will have accumulated enough startup programs to significantly impact hard-drive boot times. The easiest way to remove these programs is click on the Start button, and type msconfig. Click on the Startup tab and scroll through the list, looking for things that don't need to be started at launch. Uncheck them, click apply, then OK, and reboot.
One thing to remember, Windows 7 will optimize the boot times automatically. If you reboot, and wait five minutes and reboot four or five times, the boot times should actually get better automatically as Windows 7 decides what it can prioritize.
Windows 8.x (yes, haters, step back) actually improves upon boot times, as well. Anyone who has used the new OS can attest to its fast boot times. Win8 moves startup optimization to the Task Manager (ctrl-shift-esc). Click on the Startup tab, and Windows 8 will even tell you what's slowing things down, and give you an estimate of how long it took to boot after the process was handed over to the OS.
You can manually deselect programs that start up from msconfig to speedify your boots.
Those of us who have moved on to the SSD-based western shores of Valinor live lives fairly well untroubled by slow startups. But those poor souls of middle earth still using mechanical-based drives are the ones who need to concern themselves with startup optimization.
Consider an upgrade
Hardware isn't always the answer, but it usually is
The vast majority of our tips to clean up a slow-running PC can be solved in software, but sometimes software isn't the answer. How will you know the difference? One of the clearest indicators is age. Old PC components do not age like wine. If you're at your buddy's house to "take a look at his computer" and that computer is a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP, it's a lost cause.
So, while most newbs you're trying to help can still benefit from the cleaning tips in this story, the P4/Athlon XP machines aren't going to sing no matter how much you tune them. Putting money into a hardware upgrade for these old dogs should be carefully weighed: new parts can be difficult to locate and everything in the box is suspect.
Unless you're in the retro computing club, we'd recommend dumping that Pentium 4 box.
It's not so bad for a Phenom II or Core 2 box. In fact, these machines can be quite workable if the user has realistic expectations. Dropping an SSD into a Phenom II or Core 2 rig would be a game-changer for these old platforms, even if the motherboard doesn't support the full SATA 6Gb/s speeds. Sometimes, a little RAM will even help, if the box was already memory-starved to begin with. With a 64-bit OS, 8GB is standard and 4GB is borderline.
If gaming needs a boost, dropping in a newer GPU can certainly help. Even those rigs that are constrained by low-wattage PSUs now have a modern option with Nvidia's new Maxwell series, which can run on even 300W PSUs.
If the machine is also running that now-abandoned OS, Windows XP, an OS upgrade to Windows 7 or even Windows 8 is advised.
Obviously, we don't recommend $400 in upgrades on a $200 PC, but a $100 upgrade on a box that buys the person another 24 months of use can be a godsend for those on tight budgets. As we said, though, everything at or below the P4/Athlon XP line should be abandoned.
Visualize your drive
Think of WinDirStat as Google Maps for your HDDs
You've cleaned up the extraneous system files on your machine, but the real junk is the gigabytes of nothingness you've collected from repeatedly dumping that 32GB memory card onto the hard drive because you were afraid to delete something you might need later. Six months later, those same unkempt files are bogging down your system and freeloading on your dime. When space gets tight, we turn to WinDirStat (www.windirstat.info).
In the past, when drives were smaller and your file-hoarding was limited to a mere 500GB or so, you could rely on the good old-fashioned search-and-destroy technique: browsing through Windows Explorer for old photos, games, and files that you simply don't use anymore. With 3TB and even 4TB drives packed with god knows what, that technique isn't effective anymore. Instead, use Windows Directory Statistics, or WinDirStat, to help visualize and locate files on our drives that can be slated for termination. WinDirStat is an extremely lightweight (less than a megabyte) open-source program that scans your hard drive to provide you with three sets of information: directory list, tree map, and file extensions list. The tree map—easily the most attractive feature in the program—represents every file on your hard drive as a colored rectangle. Also handy is the extension list, which gives you total percentages calculated by file extensions.
We dig the simple and effective representation of our hard drives from WinDirStat.
The tree map is the handiest and helps you easily see where you have bloat on your drives—the bigger the file, the bigger the rectangle. Scrolling over files displays the file name and its location, and you can delete files from within the program by selecting a file and pressing the delete key.
Dedupe it
Duplicate often
Most people treat hard drives like the attic or garage. Rather than immediately culling extra files, you simply put it in storage to deal with at a later date (the road to hell, good intentions, etc). No matter that you already put those files in storage just last week—you'll get around to dumping the duplicate files eventually. While there are many, many deduplication tools available, one good starting place is Auslogic's free Duplicate File Finder app (www.auslogics.com) It doesn't have the bells or whistles of apps that analyze audio, photo, and video for duplicates, but it works fairly fast and is a good way to eliminate the obvious duplicate files. On one old Windows 7 box, Duplicate File Finder turned up a good 39GB of dupes that could be tossed. Simply fire up Duplicate File Finder, have it search your drive, and it will give you a list of duplicate files. Under Action, select All Duplicates In Each Group, and it will mark the duplicate files for dumping into a trash can, or moving into the Rescue Center, where you can recover the file if you realize later on you made a mistake.
The program works well enough, but we wouldn't wipe out files willy-nilly without first making a separate backup and making sure that the irreplaceable files going away are actually duplicates. DFF will show you the file name, file size, and creation date, which gives most people enough confidence to delete, but the paranoia in us would want to visually confirm it, too. This same philosophy is probably what brought us to this space issue in the first place. After all, am I sure I really did copy all of the images from the memory card to the computer? Even the ones I took last weekend? I'll just make another copy... I have plenty of space.
Duplicate File Finder can quickly, er, find your duplicate files.
Optimize your storage
Storage is usually the prime suspect in system slowdowns
Before we get started discussing problems with your storage system and how to optimize it, make sure you have done two things: First, that you've connected your SSD to a SATA 6Gb/s port on your motherboard (consult your manual), and second, that you've enabled AHCI on your SATA controller via the motherboard BIOS. If you've already installed Windows and your SATA controller is set to IDE instead of AHCI, hit Google to find the registry hack to fix it. And yes, running in IDE mode rather than AHCI on a modern SSD can indeed rob you of performance.
With that out of the way, the first thing to do when you sense your system is slowing down and you see your hard-drive activity LED churning constantly, is enlist the trusty three-finger salute. For the uninitiated, that means pressing ctrl-alt-delete to bring up the Task Manager in Windows. Select the Performance tab to see if anything is spiking or is nearing 100 percent utilization. From there, you can go to the Processes tab to see which process is taking up all those resources. In the screenshot below, we see a staff member's work PC that suffered daily paralyzation at the hands of a virus scan and several associated processes. The resolution was to kill the processes, then make sure to schedule the virus scans during non-work hours.
Both Samsung and Intel offer free "tuning" software that helps keep your SSD running in tip-top shape.
If everything looks fine in the Task Manager but the system still feels slow, run a few benchmarks to see if the numbers are up to spec. For sequential read and write tests, we recommend Crystal-DiskMark for SSDs and HDTune for Hard drives. Admittedly, none of us use HDDs for our OS anymore—there's no reason to with SSD prices falling faster than the value of Bitcoin.
If you run the benchmarks and find the performance is lacking on your SSD, you have a few options. Your first is to optimize the drive via the Trim command. What this does is send a command to the drive that tells it to run its garbage-collection routine, which means it will erase all the blocks that have been deleted, clearing the way for them to receive fresh writes. If the drive has not been trimmed in a while, data can become fragmented all over the drive, and since blocks of an SSD have to be erased before they are written to (as opposed to a hard drive, where they can just be overwritten at any time), a simple write command can require the controller to delete blocks, move data around, and then perform the write, which can seriously degrade performance.
If your system feels like it's stuck in the mud, the Task Manager will reveal what's causing the problem.
In general, if you're running Windows 7 or newer, you should be fine. However, you can Trim a drive manually on Windows 8: right-click the drive in My Computer, and click Properties, Tools, and then Optimize. If you own a Samsung or Intel SSD, you can download the free Samsung Magician or SSD Toolbox software, respectively, which also let you Trim your drive.
HDD "Optimization"
Fast hard drives aren't
If you are running a hard drive and want to optimize it, there's not a whole lot you can do beyond keeping it defragmented. To make sure it's "defragged," right-click the drive, select Properties, Tools, and then Defragmentation. Ideally, you should do this after you've done your cleaning of unused junk from the machine. If it's your boot device, some people like to disable hibernation before a defrag to get a little extra "boost" out of the defrag by eliminating the multi-gigabyte hiberfil.sys file. Frankly, we don't think it matters much anymore. In our opinion, the concept of a "fast hard drive" is antiquated now, due to SSDs, as is the concept of "optimizing" them. Any gains you make toward keeping a hard drive optimized will be largely unnoticeable in the real world, beyond dumping the useless cruft and running a basic defrag, which the OS will do on its own.
Let's Get Physical
Knock, knock, house cleaning
Unless you live in a HEPA-filtered cleanroom, a desktop PC will eventually need a physical cleanup as well as a digital one. That means opening up the case, which means turning off your rig and unplugging it from the wall. Don't want to lose a finger in those fan blades. Most case panels are secured with six-sided Phillips screws, sometimes call a "hex" screw. Or they have thumbscrews, which can usually be removed by hand. Once taken out, keep these together in a small container. An empty coffee mug will do in a pinch.
If you've had this PC for several months, you should see a coating of dust inside. That has to be removed, because it insulates surfaces and clogs up fans, which can lead to overheating. With a can of compressed air, spray short bursts at the dust. Long sprays can freeze the inner workings of the can. And tilting the can may also cause its liquid to spray, which contains a solvent that can damage the contact surface. Ideally, do this dusting outside, because you don't want all that dust floating around indoors.
Case fan filters can also get gnarly. These days, most of them slide out. Spray them with air, or remove them, run them under the tap, and air dry. Fans themselves also get grody. You may need to temporarily remove the CPU fan from the heatsink to clean both items sufficiently. When spraying fans, hold their blades down to prevent them from spinning, otherwise you may damage the motor.
A periodic disinfecting wipe or baby wipe can take care of your mouse, but keyboards usually need you to pull their keycaps to really get at the crustiness underneath. A puller tool is best for this. You can order one online from Newegg or Amazon, and regional computer stores like Fry's and Microcenter usually sell them. Some people run their boards through the dishwasher. Don't use detergent or hot water for that, and give them at least a day to fully dry out.
Gordon agrees, baby wipes work amazingly well for cleaning the surfaces of a dirty desktop or laptop.
Last but not least, don't forget to wipe the dust off your monitor's screen. But don't use conventional glass cleaner, because it can permanently damage the panel. You can buy screen-cleaning kits from most office supply stores, or you can use a spare microfiber cloth, like the kind made for camera lenses. Pharmacies also stock these. Just gently wipe the screen with it. If you need some liquid to clean the screen, spray your cloth with plain water from a mister. Never spray the screen itself, because the liquid can drip into the panel housing and corrode the components within.
Tuxie the cat, pointing out a spot we missed while cleaning.
An Ounce of Prevention
If you've just cleaned out a rig that's never seen a proper cleaning, you're probably wondering what you can do to avoid such horrors in the future. Fan filters are obviously one option. If they're not built into your case, you can get them from sites like Newegg, Amazon, and Frozen CPU. Some have magnets, and you just slap them on; others need to be screwed in. To get the correct sizing, measure your fan diagonally with a ruler. The most common size is 120mm. A filter's dense mesh will reduce airflow and increase temps in the case, so there's a trade-off. Even the best filter will not completely eliminate dust, it will only reduce the number of times per year that you need to clean the insides. Smokers and owners of furry pets will also need to clean more often than usual. Periodically brushing those critters will help reduce buildup.
And we don't know if we have to mention this, but washing your hands a few times over the course of the day will also help prevent unsightly crud from building up on your input devices. This is especially important after a meal or after spending time outdoors. And speaking of food, try to keep it away from your keyboard, which is a crumb magnet and said to be dirtier than a toilet. If your mouse pad has an old-style fabric surface, you may want to consider eliminating it altogether (unless your desk is made of glass), or switching to one made of plastic or metal—materials that can be cleaned quickly and easily.
Nuke it from orbit
Nothing can save LV426, so when it's too mangled or infested, just nuke it
We won't bother telling you to back up your data before you send your OS to meet its maker, because that is too obvious. But before you nuke the OS, make sure you have everything you need.
What might not be obvious is that because of piracy, a lot of the more expensive software packages require activation, which also requires you to deactivate any serial numbers before you begin your bombing run. Most professional Adobe packages work this way, so if you're running Photoshop, Illustrator, or any locally stored creative suite, be sure to open the app, click Help, and then Deactivate. Make sure you've done it correctly by firing up the program again to see if it asks you to activate. If it does, you're good to go; keep in mind you'll need Internet access to successfully do this. Also keep in mind that if you deactivate a piece of software, then upgrade your system, the software might think it's a different computer, which can complicate re-activation.
The activation process varies on a program-to-program basis, so use Google if you run into any issues. Microsoft's Office suites react the same as the operating system, and any significant change in hardware will trigger a reactivation. The bottom line: If you have a mission critical application that you absolutely have to have up and running as soon as possible, be sure to know what the re-activation process is before you pull the trigger so there are no surprises. Some apps require you to contact the vendor for a new code before they will run, which is a wonderful thing to learn at midnight Friday before a three-day weekend when you need the app that night.
In order to reinstall certain software, such as Adobe products, you must first deactivate the serial key.
There are other apps you should also pay attention to. First up, browser bookmarks. Chrome will let you sync your bookmarks on other machines, but you need to set it up to do so. If you're into the old-school method, you can also export your bookmarks file as HTML and then re-import it. You'll want to make sure you have a copy of your iTunes library handy, too, which is located in C:\Users\Username\My Music. Be sure to deauthorize iTunes while you're at it. You'll also want to back up your Steam library so that you don't have to re-download all your games. To do this in Steam, click Steam in the upper left-hand corner, select Backup and Restore Games, then follow the prompts. Alternatively, you can do it manually by copying the entire Steam directory over. You no longer have to worry about save-game files, since they are now all automatically saved to the "Steam Cloud."
Steam includes a built-in Backup and Restore tool, and we recommend using it.
Your final stop on this trail of tears is to make sure you have all the drivers you need for anything connected to your PC. At the very minimum, be sure to have your chipset and LAN drivers, as those always go first, and with an Internet connection you can always download anything else you need care of the helpful SlimDrivers utility. Don't forget your printer drivers, though, and it doesn't hurt to download Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 either, though Windows Update could also do it for you.
Once you've deactivated your software, collected all the serial keys you need, made sure your Steam and iTunes libraries are backed up, saved your browser bookmarks, and have all your drivers, you are ready to proceed. Before you reboot your PC to reinstall, be sure to take a moment to consider all the amazing times it's given you. Once that's complete, shut her down, and we'll see you on the other side.
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