So, last month we installed Speccy, a small piece of software that will help you understand what hardware you have inside your computer with a view to reviewing this information to get the best speed out of your system.
This month we will review the information you found and see if there are any quick wins to speed up your computer.
Ok, click on the operating system option on the left and have a look at which operating system you are using. Hopefully you will have Windows 7, 8 or 10 – if you do then great, you have a modern computer that is worth investigating further.
If you don’t then you likely have Windows XP or Vista and I’m afraid that this series isn’t for you. Of course these computers can be upgraded but we will be concentrating on modern computers. If you’re happy with the computer then great, but if you’re not then you really should consider upgrading to a newer computer.
Click on the RAM option. This is where most people get some benefit from upgrading. Check if you have any “free memory slots”, if you do then this means that you can add additional RAM memory into your computer. Generally speaking the more RAM your computer has, the quicker it will go. RAM is used by your computer to hold your open programs whilst you’re using them. Most computers that are sluggish benefit from an upgrade of RAM. Another thing you can do is open up all of the programs you usually use (Facebook, email, etc.) and then look at the “memory usage” figure. If this is high (i.e. over 80%) then your computer is running at the limit of what RAM it has installed – the more programs you have open (or the more tabs that you have open in your web browser) the more RAM you need. If you need to get a quote for more RAM then click back to the “summary” page and the type of RAM you have in your computer is displayed. Next month we continue our journey into your computer hardware with a look at Storage and CPU.