It’s strange, isn’t it? When you first purchased that brand new computer it came out of the box and it was so shiny and brand new and just the amazement of the entire family. But now, it’s been a month, it’s not running as nicely as it was, and the family just kind of, well, uses it. It really doesn’t have that sexy feeling any more. Your computer sits in a box in a desk and gains dust over time. It is dying, and it just doesn’t seem to want to work as well as it used to.
It is nearly impossible to say why it wont run as fast as it used to, especially over the extremely short time of just a month. It’s strange, because you really do not think that you could have done anything wrong, why would it just kind of not work any more?! Internet Explorer used to start up instantly, Microsoft Word acted as if it was almost always open, and now, it’s almost like you are loading Adobe Photoshop CS5 (yes, CS5, which isn’t invented yet..) just when you are trying to do something as simple as load up the start menu.
Forgive me while I digress a smidge, I am writing this to show you the absolutely simplest ways to try to keep your computer working as well as possible, with crazy alliterations thrown all over the place and most of the time the things I say will make very little sense if you imagine them literally, so try to be creative with me as I think outside of the box to point out why your computer sucks, because in the end it might help you out a little bit.
Your start menu takes five minutes just to load up, you don’t know what to do in that time, so you just start pulling at your hair and screaming at the monitor calling it a “stupid fat computer that can’t run a mile in an hour!”. We have all been there at some point, it’s okay to let go of some of your anger, but sometimes something like a mini-desk-sized-punching-ball would be better to let your rage out that screaming at your monitor, because for one, the monitor technically is stupid, it didn’t do anything wrong, it is just displaying stuff that your computer is doing down in the box under the desk in the corner of the room. If you can’t find a mini-desk-sized-punching-ball then you should open up your box-like desk and start yelling at the thing that is actually running slow, the computer.
Oh! But when you open up the box you are blown back a second with a waft of hot air, almost as if you were in a movie and some cool explosion just came out of a secret chest and you were blasted backwards, singing all of your eyebrows and raising your skulls internal temperature a few degrees. That was one badass run on! — Anyway, the problem that we just exploded out of was a heat problem. I wrote about this about a week ago, so I guess that is why it is my first topic, so to speak. Heat kills computers, heat does more than kills computers, it buries them six feet under. Putting your computer in a small confined box is basically like making a slow cooker, you might even be able to put some steaks or a nice roast in the little box you put your computer in. Low and slow, that’s the key!.. Heat is probably the second enemy of computers, following closely to dust, which creates heat.
WARNING – SKILLS NECESSARY HERE! If you are to scared to open up your computer in worries of possibly breaking something off the moment you open it, then call a professional!
The home you are probably in right now has insulation somewhere in the walls, normally only on the outside, sometimes, if your house is high end enough, it is also in between each and every wall.. for whatever reason, I am not an architect so I couldn’t tell you. The computer that you have inside that tiny little box has the high end insulation installed, which is weird, because why would you want installation on something that absolutely hates heat? Think of the tiny dust particles that might be building up slowly on your computer as a type of insulation. A tiny tiny, dirty, insulation that you definitely don’t want. Then think of the box that is surrounding your computer as the insulation that is in between each and every room, making it even warmer. The warmer your computer, the faster it will die, the slower it will run, the angrier you will get at Mr. Monitor. The best way to not get angry at Mr. Monitor in this situation, is open up the computer, and clean it out. But I am really serious here, be freakin’ careful. If you break something, don’t blame me. Call me first, I can take care of any dust problem, promise.
So now that we got the heat problem out of the way, let’s talk about the possibilities on the software side of things. It isn’t like your hardware could be completely dead, especially after only a month; unless you had a flood, power outage, or other crazy natural disaster.. like the Haiti Earthquake.
Your hardware is fine, so why does your Microsoft Word still take 15 minutes to load up while you go for a run around the block? It is really hard to say without looking at it and seeing the problems first off. For lot’s of computer nerds, myself included, the problem is evident depending on how many icons are near your clock (bottom right) or how many icons are on your desktop (minimize this page, dont close it!) or maybe by the amount of crazy tool bars you might have on top of your favorite web browser. You might simply have way too much junk installed on your computer, most of it you probably never knew you had, and most of it you probably didn’t even know that it wasn’t necessary to make your computer or certain software run correctly.
If you got your computer a month ago, say, for Christmas, then you probably shouldn’t have too much software installed. But if your family did happen to get a little jumpy then they might have gone a little too crazy on installing of the freeware, installing of the games, and all of the other fun things a PC can do. So who knows, if a computer is being used by three or four different people around the clock, it can add up. So check to make sure you aren’t doing that, and if you are, then start removing programs that you never use. If you are worried that you might really mess up something, don’t worry, call a professional. By the way, that doesn’t mean GeekSquad, I said call a professional.
I really hope you read everything I just wrote, and you didn’t just skim through it. It really means a lot when someone actually reads my writing. It also will mean a lot to you. I hope that these two small suggestions really got to you, I tried to prevent them in a manner that is easy to understand, and I believe I have accomplished that. If you liked this post, please tell a friend or even just a tweet on Twitter would be nice. Thanks for reading!
