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My computer is so slow!
It must be too full of
stuff, so I’m going to start deleting my photos and music.
This is something
I hear almost every day.
Trust me, deleting things from your
computer will NOT make it any faster.
The confusion
comes from the word “memory”, we use the term to describe two very
different things; the RAM and the hard drive.
People think that if there is too much in memory then the computer
will be overworked and slow down. This is only half true, the
computer will only slow down if the RAM is too full.
Let me use an
analogy to describe the different types of memory. The RAM is like
your desktop and the HARD DRIVE is like your filing cabinet. RAM
plays the role of your temporary work place, like a desktop, while
the HARD DRIVE plays the role of
the filing cabinet where everything is permanently stored.
Imagine you have
a small desk and a large filing cabinet. The desk quickly gets
cluttered and your work is slowing down because things are getting
buried and you’re trying to do 5 things at once. Then your neighbour
the “computer guy” comes over and says “you
seem a bit slow today, why not clean out your filing cabinet, then
you’ll have more room to work”.
Sounds silly, but
this is what happens when you delete files in hopes of speeding up
your computer. Your computer would not be any faster or slower if
you had 5 or 50,000 photos in your picture folder. But if those same
pictures were RUNNING in the background as a slideshow while you
were working on some other project at the same time, then it would
slow down because of the multi-tasking. It’s like having a small
desk with a pile of work on it, then someone throws a phonebook on
top of the pile, naturally your work would slow down considerably.
So the question
is “how do I clear off the desk without losing files from the filing
cabinet?” The simple answer is “turn
stuff off!” Turn off the slide show, the music program, the
email program, the download program, turn everything off. Then you
will have a nice clean and fast desk. (RAM)
I just counted
the running tasks on my computer, at the moment there are over 50
programs running! But this is not a problem because I have a more
powerful computer than most people. The average computer does not
have enough horsepower to keep that many tasks running smoothly, so
that list of programs would need to be
cut way down. Turning off
programs is not always as easy as it sounds, most of the running
tasks are essential while a few are optional, and some of the
optional ones I really like to keep running. So how do you know
which to keep and which to turn off? That’s where a professional
comes in, a simple tune-up by a certified pro will make a big
improvement and you won’t lose any files!
So don’t delete
your stuff, in-fact you should be making extra copies of everything!
(another story). Reduce the number of running programs, or buy a
faster computer, or call Webspinner Computer Service for a
tune-up.
604-318-1035
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