Game Boosting or how to speed up your PC games. How to speed up a slow Windows computer

If you feel that your computer is becoming too slow and your systems are no longer helping, you can find a workable solution to your performance problems without breaking the bank. Instead of buying a new computer, it is quite enough to “invigorate” your existing one with a small upgrade.

First of all, launch the task manager to find the bottleneck in your system. Pay attention to which of the system components is most loaded - the processor, memory or hard drive. This way you can decide what to replace in the system first.

Install SSD

This is the most obvious solution. If your operating system is installed on HDD, move it to and you will get an impressive performance boost. SSD reduces boot time and generally makes the system more responsive.

Although SSD prices have increased recently, they are still the most profitable investment for a system upgrade.

Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB (~5,500 rubles).
Transcend MTS420 120 GB (~2,800 rubles).

Since the capacity of conventional solid-state drives is not very large, and especially large SSDs have indecently high prices, it is better to use an SSD as a system drive on which the OS and the most frequently used applications will be installed. For user data, it is better to leave slow but capacious HDDs.

Increase your RAM

Windows 10 and modern applications, such as browsers, are quite memory-hungry. If your system struggles to turn around when you open many tabs in Chrome, and something is beeping about the page file, then it's time to buy more RAM.

Unfortunately, RAM has also become more expensive. But you can still choose something cheaper from the available options.

Kingston HyperX Fury 8 GB Kit (2 × 4 GB) 2,133 MHz DDR4 (~6,300 rubles).
Corsair Vengeance Blue 8 GB (2 × 4 GB) DDR3 / 1,600 MHz Memory (~5,300 rubles).

Make sure you choose the right memory kit for your system. The easiest way to find out what type of memory is compatible with your motherboard is CPU-Z. Launch the application and open the Memory tab.

Replace the processor (if possible)

The slowness of the computer may also depend on the lack of processor resources. Of course, replacing a processor in most cases also means buying a new motherboard, which cannot be called a cheap pleasure. But sometimes you can install a faster processor on your existing motherboard, especially if you're using an AMD-based system.

AMD has plenty of inexpensive but quite powerful processors.

AMD Athlon X4 860K Kaveri FM2+ (~3,180 rubles).
AMD A10-7870K Godavari FM2+ (~5,300 rubles).
AMD FX-6300 Vishera AM3+ (~4,000 rubles).
AMD FX-8320E Vishera AM3+ (~5,400 rubles).

Intel changes their sockets more often than AMD, so upgrading the processor on an Intel system is less worthwhile since you'll likely have to upgrade the motherboard too.

Before you buy a new processor, make sure it fits your motherboard socket. To do this, in CPU-Z, look at the Package section on the CPU tab.

Clean your computer from dust

Dust can cause your PC to become very hot. When your computer overheats, it starts to run slower. This is due to CPU throttling. An overheated processor automatically reduces its speed to avoid thermal damage.

Launch SpeedFan and check the temperature of your CPU and GPU.

If temperatures are higher than normal, buy a can of compressed air and thoroughly blow out your computer.

Dust-Off Compressed Gas Duster (~500 rubles).

Improve Cooling

Sometimes simply cleaning the dust is not enough, especially if you have never changed the thermal paste. Find out on SpeedFan whether it's the CPU, the graphics card, or both that's overheating. Then .

Thermal paste is inexpensive, and you will not have any difficulties purchasing it.

Arctic Silver 5 (~500 rubles).

After replacing the thermal paste, the temperature should drop. If it still remains high, you can improve cooling by adding a couple of fans.

PC fans are also quite cheap and quick and easy to install.

Cooler Master SickleFlow 120 - Sleeve Bearing (~400 rubles).
NZXT Technologies FN V2 140 mm Performance Case Fan (~430 rubles).

Perform overclocking

A significant increase in performance can be obtained by overclocking. Overclocking, or overclocking, is the transfer of the CPU or GPU to an abnormal, forced operating speed.

It’s easy to find detailed instructions on the Internet for overclocking a processor and video adapter. This can be done with both solutions from Intel and AMD.

However, overclocking components leads to increased heat generation. So you shouldn't overclock anything in a system without good cooling.

A new powerful computer pleases users with its performance, but over time its speed steadily decreases. In this case, many people have a reasonable question about how to speed up a Windows 7 computer without ruining anything in the system.

When considering the question of how to configure Windows 7, we have already touched on the problem of using various programs and archives with settings. We were talking about tweaks - small tricks that help increase system performance. However, you can do without third-party software.

You can really influence the speed of your PC or laptop using regular system optimization.

Many Windows features are not in demand among ordinary users, so you can safely disable them to increase machine performance.

Disabling visual effects

The beautiful interface of Windows 7 is a great advantage and at the same time a serious drawback when it comes to optimizing the operation of your computer.

Various visual effects place high demands on the hardware, slowing down some more important processes.

If you have a low-power laptop or a computer with old hardware, then a drop in performance when visual effects are turned on cannot be avoided. To correct this drawback of Windows 7, you can use the built-in tools and remove all unnecessary “chips”.

To bring the interface back to normal, you need to leave the four effects marked in the screenshot enabled. After that, click the “Apply” button and restart your computer for the new configuration to take effect.

Hard drive optimization

Files recorded on the hard drive are divided into fragments that are scattered over the entire surface of the media. This was done primarily for the rational use of free space, but as a result, it often turns out that when a user accesses a specific file, the computer is forced to collect fragments scattered across the entire surface of the disk into a heap.

A huge number of fragments of already unnecessary (or deleted) files are added here. The result is a decrease in the performance of the hard drive and, as a consequence, the system as a whole. There are two ways to fix this problem:

Periodically clean the disk from temporary and simply unnecessary files.
Defragmentation of the hard drive.

Remove from your computer all unnecessary files and programs that take up a lot of space but are not used for their intended purpose. Leave only the essentials that you cannot do without.

To delete temporary files:

After cleaning the system of debris and uninstalling unnecessary programs, you can proceed to disk defragmentation, which is done using standard Windows tools:

Optimizing your hard drive is one of the most effective ways to increase the speed of your computer. This will be especially noticeable if you have not defragmented for a long time and have not destroyed “computer junk” for a long time.

Increasing the swap file

The lack of RAM and the inability to install an additional stick often leads to the fact that users cannot qualitatively improve the performance of the machine and are forced to put up with low system speed.

You can increase the paging file using a USB drive and the ReadyBoost technology built into Windows.

A regular flash drive or memory card in SDHC/SD/MS format can be used as a storage device. Even a regular smartphone or any other device with built-in memory that meets the following requirements will do:

USB0/3.0 technology support.
Availability of free space (minimum 64 MB, but usually more than 200 MB is required).

There are still some limitations on data transfer speed, but they are quite reasonable: any modern drive has much better characteristics than what is needed for ReadyBoost technology to work.

If you want to provide all free space for the paging file, select the "Provide for ReadyBoost" option.

Cleaning autostart

Even on powerful new computers, some time after the start of regular use, the user notices a decrease in the operating system startup speed. This is primarily due to the large number of unnecessary programs in autorun, which are added there without the knowledge of the car owner.

During installation, various messengers, automatic updating applications, social network agents and other similar programs are necessarily registered in startup and run along with the system, taking up resources.

The best solution is to remove all applications from startup except those that are vital for the system. The latter include antivirus with its services and system utilities. You can clean startup using CCleaner:

If there is no CCleaner utility, then use standard tools:

In Windows 8 and 8.1, this operation can be performed from the Startup tab in the Task Manager.

Checking the registry and RAM

The tails left in the registry after uninstalling programs negatively affect system performance, which leads to a decrease in the speed of the computer. The solution is simple - periodically clean the registry using the CCleaner utility already mentioned above.

If you have never cleaned the registry, then after the first “cleaning” you may notice a serious acceleration of the system.

Don’t forget about RAM, which can also have various malfunctions that affect the final performance. To check your RAM, use the built-in tool “Diagnostics of computer RAM problems”.

Select the first option, which involves rebooting and checking. Don't forget to close all programs.

The scan can take quite a long time, so do not plan any computer-related tasks during the scan - it is not recommended to interrupt the diagnostics, as this can lead to serious errors.

Power Options

A minimum number of users remember adjusting power settings, although this is one of the important components of adjusting computer performance. Typically, the power management scheme has three modes:

Maximum savings – minimum productivity.
Balanced energy consumption.
Maximum energy consumption – maximum performance.

Switching the power mode is especially important for laptop owners. By default, the system is set to balanced mode, but as soon as the battery runs low, the power saving mode is automatically activated, which reduces performance.

When you plug in the laptop for charging, the economy mode does not switch, although there is no longer any need for it. On such trifles, users lose moments, which then add up to a noticeable slowdown of the computer.

If you work on a computer or laptop that is constantly connected to the network, be sure to configure the power supply:

If necessary, you can customize the scheme for yourself by clicking on the “Customize power plan” link. On the "Advanced Options" tab you can set your own values.

Enable all processor cores

Nowadays it is almost impossible to find a working computer that has only one core; modern machines have 2 or more cores.

Usually the operating system automatically checks the type of processor installed, but it often happens that only one core is used at boot.

You can correct this shortcoming on your own:

Now, when starting the operating system, all processor cores will be used, which will significantly speed up loading.

Another useful tip that can seriously increase the speed of your computer is to replace the thermal paste on the processor.

Due to the dried substance between the processor and the cooler, machines even with the most powerful configuration begin to slow down, so do not be lazy at least once every 2 years. A more accurate replacement time can be determined by measuring the processor temperature - if the value significantly exceeds the norm (about 65 degrees), immediately remove the cooler, clean off the old paste and apply a new substance in an even layer.

There is probably not a single PC owner who would not like to increase the performance of his computer, especially if it is already old. Some people want to get the most out of their hardware, some don’t have enough available resources, and some don’t have enough money to upgrade and buy a new PC. This article will tell our readers how to increase computer performance in different ways.

How can you increase your computer's performance?

To begin with, it’s worth saying that there are two ways to increase computer performance: hardware and technical. In turn, the hardware method is an increase in computer performance using the so-called, when old weak computer components are replaced with new, more powerful ones. A systematic way to increase the performance of an operating system is to optimize the operating system installed on the computer.

The hardware method of increasing computer performance is the simplest, since there is nothing simpler than going out and buying new components, replacing the old ones, but most of you are probably interested in how to increase computer performance in a systemic way. However, we will tell you how to increase productivity with these two methods.

Increasing computer performance in a systematic way

For those who want to get the most out of their hardware, the following recommendations will be given:

Choose the correct operating system.

Turn off visual effects.

You can disable visual effects in Windows by opening “Computer”, calling up the context menu there and selecting “Properties”. On the side, select “Advanced system settings” and go to the “Advanced” tab, where in the “Performance” category you need to click on the “Settings” button. In the window that appears, in the “Visual Effects” tab, select “Ensure the best performance.” Then we apply all this and close it.

It’s probably worth mentioning that you need to get rid of various kinds of visualizer programs that change the visual design of windows, icons and install their own visual innovations. Install the default classic theme.

As a result, you will get an operating system that is unattractive in appearance, with “oaky” windows and a taskbar, but the computer’s performance will increase significantly.

Clear your desktop.

Remove unnecessary programs.

In turn, we recommend installing only those programs that you really need, without analogues. For example, many people install several browsers, players, instant messengers, etc., choose one program at a time: it will be more convenient for you and the system will be “easier.”

Use “light” analogues of programs.

Clear autostart.

In order to increase the loading speed of the operating system, try to reduce the number of startup programs as much as possible, since a large number of them significantly reduces the loading speed, especially on a weak computer. Some programs can simply be launched on their own, since launching them after a full download takes a matter of seconds, and when they are launched all at the same time, it freezes the computer.

Clean your operating system.

Clean the system unit.

Increasing computer performance using hardware

Now let's look at the second way to maximize computer performance - using hardware. A hardware way to increase computer performance is, in fact, a regular upgrade, but let’s just look at it from a more budgetary point of view.

So, when increasing the performance of a computer with hardware, you can rely both on the components themselves and on an assessment of the performance of the operating system (although it is better to take note of this assessment, but not as a basis). It is best to watch the computer load; if the processor load is at its peak during operation, you can increase the computer’s performance by replacing it; if this happens with the RAM, then increase it. Hardware improvement needs to start with weak points, most often it is RAM. In addition, if you have an integrated video card, we recommend installing a discrete one, but so that it is no weaker in parameters than the integrated one, otherwise there will be no point in it as such. occurs when a video or game is very slow during playback. Try to update so that you don't have to change the entire architecture.

How to increase your computer performance score? It's very simple! To do this, in the test results, the operating system itself will tell you what needs to be updated, but you should not think that by updating the specified component, the score is guaranteed to be calculated based on the smallest next component. This happens because the assessment is carried out according to its own system, the logic of which is very difficult to understand. In addition, all components in the assessment are interconnected and if you, for example, replace a video card, then it is not a fact that the RAM will not pull the score down.

Often playing video games, you may find that your applications are running slower, the system is running too fast and even freezes at critical moments. This is sad and makes one think about high costs for new components or even a complete replacement of the PC. However, there are some simple and effective ways to improve the speed and performance of your computer for gaming. This how-to guide will cover various methods to clean up old files before upgrading your hardware in a few simple steps.

Update your graphics drivers

Removing old programs

Remove old programs. The more programs you have on your computer, the slower it will run. By removing unnecessary programs, you can easily improve the efficiency of your device.
Open Control Panel on your PC. Go to Programs and Features. In Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10, these settings are in different places, but overall they are not particularly different, so you will always find them easily. Go to the Organization tab and switch it to Last Used Date. This will allow you to filter your programs and find ones that you were not using at the time.
Remove unused programs. When you find a program you no longer use, click Uninstall. (Be careful if you don't know what these are, some apps are required to run games.)

GPU overclocking

IMPORTANT, before doing this, make sure your GPU can be "overclocked" as many are locked at the factory.
Overclocking your GPU causes your graphics card to clock higher than its factory settings. This is a potentially dangerous method of improving gaming performance, so any changes you make are at your own risk. To do this, you must determine the baseline from which your graphics card is currently running.
Download free testing and analytics software. One of the most popular utilities is Heaven 4.0. Download and install this application. Click Run. The program will play several scenes that are designed to test the capabilities of your device. Click “Benchmark”, which you will find in the upper left corner of the screen to check the performance of your GPU.
Record your result. Once the test is completed, a window will appear with a rating for your video card. Write this down so you can compare it to your score after overclocking.
Download the GPU Tuning Tool. You can find them for free on the Internet. Download and install. After running the application, increase the core clock speed by 5-10 MHz. Check the stability of the system and, if everything is fine, you can further increase the frequencies. Monitor your computer's temperature; if it overheats, you risk losing your equipment. Set a new frequency. Once you have found the correct frequency for your graphics card, restart your computer. Some overclocking software will prompt you to make the changes you've made.
To make sure you've found the right frequency, launch any game and see how it works.

Over time, the computer operating system undergoes wear and tear, which affects both the performance of the device and our nerves. This is especially noticeable when working on weak computers. However, this is far from a reason to reinstall Windows prematurely, and you shouldn’t rush to create an installation flash drive and remember which key starts the transition to the BIOS. Using several simple methods, we will not only return crystal virginity to our system, but also speed it up, in some places making it run faster than the new one.

Why does my computer slow down?

Most often, the slowdown of the operating system is associated with its inept use: incorrect removal of programs, cluttering of the hard drive and lack of timely measures to clean it. When installing Windows 7 itself, few people change the standard system configurations, which are far from optimal.

Hardware acceleration: unloading the processor

Hardware acceleration is the redistribution of some system functions from the main processor to hardware to increase the overall performance of the computer.

In other words, this is shifting part of the CPU work to the video card, if it is able to handle it faster.

The hardware acceleration feature is enabled in all builds of Windows 7 by default. You can check this using the following path:

Right-click on the desktop and select “Screen Resolution”.
Select “Screen Resolution”
Now go to “Advanced options”.
In the window that opens, select “Advanced settings” On the “Diagnostics” tab, select “Change settings”

If this button is inactive, there is no need to panic: you have hardware acceleration enabled, and the caring developers of the video adapter foresaw what could get you here, and removed changing the settings away from the wrong hands.

The required button is “Change settings”. If it is inactive, acceleration is already enabled

Visual Effects: Maximum System Performance

The pleasant graphical interface of Windows 7 puts a very noticeable load on the computer's hardware, which cannot but affect its performance. Visual design, of course, serves as a good addition to the operating system, but when it begins to noticeably affect its performance, it is better to sacrifice beauty for the sake of optimization.

Right-click on the “Computer” icon and go to “Properties”.
Click on “Advanced system settings”

Now we need to get to “Advanced system settings”. Select the “Advanced” tab and in the first “Performance” section open “Settings”.

Select “Options” in the “Performance” section

In the “Visual Effects” tab, check the “Ensure the best performance” value and click “Apply”.
Our choice - "Best performance"
These settings disable all visual effects and provide maximum performance, but the system begins to look rather unsightly. If the resulting style makes you disgusted and sad and gives you nightmares about Windows 95, return the checkboxes to some menu items:
- “Enable desktop composition”;
- “Using display styles for windows and buttons”;
- "Show thumbnails instead of icons";
- “Smooth out jagged screen fonts.”
We agree by clicking the “OK” button.

Hard drive: memory cleaning and defragmentation

All files that are written to the hard drive are divided into many sequential fragments in order to reduce the space used. As a result, in order to read the file, the computer is forced to put them back together. And the presence of various debris in its path increases the reading time, which slows down the system and causes delays of varying lengths when opening or changing files. At the same time, the speed of work, of course, drops.

The simplest solution to this problem is regular cleaning of the hard drive from junk and equally regular defragmentation. By systematically removing unnecessary files and programs from your PC, you can greatly increase its speed.

First, you need to put things in order in the space you use: remove unnecessary music, watched movies, installation files, hundreds of new Microsoft Word documents and other delights of human presence.

It is worth getting rid of unused programs. Let's start with this.

How to increase performance: cleaning the hard drive

To begin, select “Control Panel” from the Start menu.
Select “Control Panel”
Go to “Uninstall a program”.
We carefully study the list, find an outdated or unnecessary program, right-click on it and delete it.
Right-click on the unnecessary program and select “Uninstall”
Now let's get rid of system garbage. Using the Windows key combination (flag on the keyboard) + R, call the “Run” command, enter %temp% and click “OK”. This way we will quickly move to the storage location of “junk” temporary files, and we will not have to spend a long and tedious time trying to find them in the system.
Go to the "Temp" folder
Everything that is in the called folder is temporary files. In combination, it is system garbage that must be removed. Using the key combination Ctrl + A, select everything and delete it.
Select all files in the folder and delete them
If some files stubbornly refuse to be deleted, there is nothing wrong with that. Most likely, they are being used by some active programs right now and can be skipped.
If some files do not want to be deleted, skip them
Now you can move on to the next step of cleaning your hard drive from system debris. Going to “Computer”, right-click on “Local Disk (C:)” and click “Properties”.
The item we need is “Properties”
Going to the “General” tab, select “Disk Cleanup”.
Select the “Disk Cleanup” button
When the system analyzes the estimated amount of garbage that can be removed, the disk cleanup menu will open. In this menu, in the list of files available for deletion, check all the boxes, click “OK” and confirm deleting the files.
Select the files that the system will delete
After cleaning, uncheck the box “Allow the contents of files on this disk to be indexed in addition to file properties” and click “OK”. In the window that opens, do not change anything and click “OK” again. If the “Access Denied” window pops up, click “Continue”, and “Error changing attributes” - click “Skip all”.

If there are several system disks on the computer, we clean them all in the same way.

Disk defragmentation: how to speed up your PC

After completion, repeat the procedure with the remaining disks.

How to work with CCleaner: PC cleaning program

For the next step, we will need the CCleaner utility, which allows us to clean up all the system junk that we were unable to remove using Windows tools. The program is free, and you can download it from the official website http://ccleaner.org.ua/. This is not the only or even the best utility that helps clean and speed up the system, but CCleaner is simpler and more accessible than anything else.

Having launched the installed program, go to the Applications tab, where we uncheck everything that is still dear to your heart (for example, browser history), and then click Run Cleaner.
The button we need is Run Cleaner
After cleaning, go to the Registry section and click Scan for Issues. After completing the analysis, click Fix selected issues.
We find problems and errors in the registry and fix them: the Scan for issues and Fix selected items buttons, respectively
Now let's go to the Tools section and select the Startup tab. Listed here are all the programs that start automatically when you turn on Windows. Select all unnecessary ones and click Disable. This way we will disable their autorun and reduce the load on RAM.
We remove all unnecessary programs from autorun using the Disable button

Page file: speeding up RAM

The paging file, also known as virtual memory, is a separate space on the hard drive that serves as an intermediate link in the exchange of information between the RAM and the hard drive.

Windows 7 by default makes the page file 50% larger than the amount of RAM, but sometimes this size is too small. This leads to frequent overwriting of the file or direct access to the main sectors of the hard drive, which negatively affects the performance of the system.

First you need to determine the amount of RAM. To do this, go to the “Start” menu, right-click on “Computer” and go to the “Properties” option.
First, go to computer properties
Here we carefully look at the amount of installed memory (RAM), and if it is more than 4 GB, then nothing should be changed. Otherwise, go to “Advanced system settings”.
If you need to increase the paging file, go to “Advanced system settings”
Here, on the “Advanced” tab, in the “Performance” section, click on the “Options” button.
We need a “Change” button in the “Virtual Memory” section
First, uncheck the “Automatically select paging file size” checkbox. After that, mark the “Specify size” marker and set the values larger. The optimal option is 5120 MB for the original size and 7680 MB for the maximum. Now click the “Set” button and confirm by clicking the “OK” button in all the windows we have opened.
Enter new values in the marked fields, click “Set” and “OK”

MSconfig: increasing speed

Some of the installed programs have a bad habit of running in the background, which not only loads precious RAM, but also hides from our sensitive gaze. The volume they occupy individually is, as a rule, not particularly large, but together they take up quite a lot of resources, and by closing the pests, you can significantly relieve the load on RAM.

Using the Windows + R key combination, call the “Run” service, enter the msconfig command in the field and click “OK”.
Using the corresponding request, we find msconfig
In the window that opens, go to the “Services” tab. All processes that are running in the background are marked here. To begin with, in order not to disrupt the system, check the “Do not display Microsoft services” checkbox. After that, with peace of mind, we remove the checkmarks from all remaining items. Confirm the changes by clicking the “OK” button.
Uncheck all services except system ones (and important ones, like antivirus)
Don't forget to uncheck all the boxes in the "Startup" tab. Essentially, this is copying the actions that we have already carried out previously using CCleaner; but, if for some reason you were unable to turn off autoloading then, now is the time.
Uncheck all startup programs and click OK

Overclocking the CPU: video instructions

Nothing worked, and all other methods of increasing performance did not help? In this case, you can take extreme measures: for example, overclocking the processor. By overclocking it, that is, increasing the clock frequency, you can increase performance several times and equalize the characteristics of your processor with a more powerful line (however, this will require some effort and cooling costs). You can learn how to do this from the video below.

Overclocking the video adapter: instructions with video

If the performance of the processor is quite satisfactory for you, but you are a gamer and have problems with graphics, we have good news for you: it is not only the CPU that can be overclocked! The video below is dedicated to overclocking a video card. Speeding up an existing video adapter will certainly be cheaper than buying a new one, spending a decent amount. True, here you also need to take care of cooling.

But don’t forget: overclocking a computer is one thing, but making sure it doesn’t burn out after that is quite another. So approach such things responsibly and take care of your equipment.

So, we have carried out all possible procedures to speed up Windows 7, and now our system is running as fast as possible. Unfortunately, there are no other ways that are guaranteed to increase overall performance: well, perhaps changing components for your PC. Be happy and don't forget to defragment.