Hack of the day: Speed up your slow laptop and improve its performance

'The Times of India' brings you 'Hack of the Day'—a new weekday series of quick, practical solutions to everyday hassles. Each hack is designed to save you time, money or stress, using tools and features within your reach—from government websites to everyday apps. In simple terms, it's simple fixes for smarter living.'There is a particular kind of frustration that comes with a slow laptop. You sit down to do something straightforward, and instead of getting it done, you spend the next ten minutes watching a loading spinner, waiting for tabs to open, or listening to the fan spin up like a small aircraft preparing for takeoff.

It is tempting to assume the machine is simply too old and needs replacing. In most cases, that assumption is wrong. The majority of laptop slowdowns are software problems wearing the costume of hardware problems. Before you spend money on a new machine, there are several things worth trying, and most of them cost nothing but a little time.

Start with what launches when your laptop turns on

Startup programs are one of the most common and least obvious causes of a sluggish laptop.

Over time, every app you install tends to quietly add itself to the list of things that launch automatically when your computer boots. By the time you have owned a laptop for a year or two, dozens of programs may be running in the background before you have opened a single thing intentionally.On Windows, open Task Manager, go to the Startup tab, and look at what is listed there. Disable anything that is not essential to your daily work.

On a Mac, go to System Settings, then General, then Login Items. Remove everything you do not recognise or actively need at startup. The difference in boot time and background resource usage can be immediate and significant.

Clear out what you are not using

Unused applications take up storage and occasionally run background processes even when you are not actively using them. Go through your installed apps and uninstall anything you have not opened in the last few months.

Then clear out temporary files, which accumulate quietly over time and can consume several gigabytes of storage without contributing anything useful.The built-in Disk Cleanup tool present in Windows handles this issues well. Also, the Storage Sense feature in Settings set to do it automatically going forward. Whereas, on a Mac, the storage management section present under About shows you what it’s taking how much space on the device and it also allows you to clear caches and remove redundant files.

Update everything

Companies roll out operating system updates which include performance improvements and also bring efficiency fixes which we overlook and also dismiss the notifications. The same applies to hardware drivers, particularly graphics and chipset drivers, which can have an outsized effect on how smoothly the system runs day to day. Check for pending updates and install them before drawing any conclusions about the underlying hardware.

Change your power settings

Usually laptops come with a default setting of balanced or power-saving mode. This mode deliberately limits the performance of the processor in order to extend the battery life. So, if your laptop is usually plugged in or you need maximum performance in some particular task then, it is advisable to switch it to high-performance power plan in Windows settings and remove the artificial celling. On a Mac, this setting its automatically handled.

However, disabling the Low Power mode can turn helpful if you want to achieve similar results.

Rule out malware

In case your laptop has become dramatically slower and if the slowdown happened suddenly rather than gradually, then there are chances that it is carrying some kind of malware. The malware is consuming resources in the background which is causing the slowdown. So, it is important that you run a full scan using a reputable tool before spending time on hardware updates.

Then, and only then, consider hardware

If you have tried all the above mentioned steps and still the laptop is struggling and is not working fine, then the problem may be of hardware. In order to sought the issue, adding RAM can be the most impactful upgrade for a device which slows down under multitasking. Also, it is one of the most affordable fix for many laptops. On the other hand, replacing or spinning hardware drive with an SSD can be a transformative fix of your laptop still has one.

After these changes you will notice a considerable shift in the speed of the laptop. One of the most important things which everybody forgets is dust. Many a times, dust gets accumulated in the laptop vents which restrict the airflow and causes the processor to overheat. This further leads to thermal throttling and the chips deliberately slows itself in order to avoid any kind of damage. In this situation using a can of compressed air directed at the vents can restore performance that no software fix would have touched.