I’m sure that every one of you have experienced Computer running slow using any version of Windows. Now I write few steps for trying to speed up your PC by cleaning cache and drives and by fixing disk or system errors.
This shouldn’t be the solution to your problem with your PC and there are lot of other things to do if you want to speed up your PC, but these ones are my first choice when I try to speed up a PC.
If you know what you are doing, let’s have a look at the quick version below, if you need more information I suggest to read all the article.
Quick procedure
- Clean Drive and system files:
- Drive Properties, Disk Cleanup, Select everything, OK
- Drive Properties, Disk Cleanup, Clean up system files, File todelete and OK
- Scandisk: chkdsk c: /r (cmd or PS as administrator)
- Check File system: sfc /scannow (cmd or PS as administrator)
- Defrag: Drive Properties, Tools, Optimization
- Clear free space (optional): cipher /w:c (cmd or PS as administrator)
Clean Drive and System Files
This is the first thing you have to do when your computer running slow: clean your drive! Even if it is not “full” it could be useful to delete temporary files, cache, recycle bin, old updates files…
It is very easy to do.
Open File Explorer, right click on C: Drive and then Properties
Disk Cleanup and select all
Now click OK and process will start cleaning temporary files.
When It is completed we can repeat opening File Explorer, right click on C: Drive and than Properties, Disk Cleanup but now we choose Clean up system files and then File to delete
So we have deleted also systems temporary files.
These are the basic steps in order to clean and speed up your PC, now we can do something more.
Scandisk (chkdsk)
Scandisk is a took that check your drive and correct damaged sectors (if possibile) or mark them as corrupted.
To run scandisk open Power Shell or CMD as administrator and type the following command:
C:\Users\admin>chkdsk c: /r
/r means that you want to correct disk errors automatically.
It is possibile that you need to reboot your PC to start scandisk; remember the scandisk could take hours!!!
Fix File Systems Errors
Another important thing to do is fix and clean system error.
Open powershell or cmd as administrator and run:
sfc /scannow
It takes time to be completed (about 30 minutes, more or less, it depends by your system)
Defrag
Defrag keeps your data physically ordered in your drive. It makes you drive faster.
To run Defrag Open File Explorer, right click on C: Drive and then Properties and Toos and click on Optimize
Even this operation will take time (about 30 minutes)
Clear Free Space (Optional)
This operation is optional but i usally do.
It clean all free space in your drive, yes, I wrote “free space”.
As you maybe know free space in your drive could not be really clear but it could have some data from your deleted files. If you want to clean this space you need to run this command that overwrite all drive sectors than shoud be free writing Zeros, Ones and casuals. It is like a low level formatting.
Open Power Shell or CMD as administrator and run this:
cipher /w:c
it takes hours!!!