Keep your Computer Running Fast in your Rental Apartment in Gainesville, Florida

Have you ever wondered why your computer slows down after years of use? Well, as a computer ages, the information it stores can become disjointed. Think of your computer as having an attention span (a processor), short- term memory (RAM), and long-term memory (hard drives). When any of these is overloaded, your computer has to slow down, to sort everything out. Unlike a person though, computers have ways or reorganizing their information when they need to, allowing them to speed back up.

Whether they live in a rental apartment in Gainesville, Florida or a single-family home in Silicon Valley, many people don’t realize that information doesn’t get stored neatly on a hard disk. Even though you see one file on your computer, the actual electrons that make up the file may be spread across hundreds of separate places on your hard drive’s disk. This is called fragmentation, and it can serious slow down how fast your computer can retrieve your stored information. Windows and most other operating systems include a defragmentation or “defrag” program which reorganizes your files so their parts are located closer together on the disk, allowing you hard drive to read them faster – and possibly freeing up some space on the disk, too. It’s important to note that you’ll still need around 15% of your hard drive space open to perform a defrag, so if your hard drive is jam-packed full, you might have to delete some files to get the defrag utility to work. Also, defrag can take several hours and you won’t be able to use your computer during that time; so you may want to try letting it run overnight when possible.

Other problems can occur when your RAM and processor, together called your system resources, are overworked. All programs, no matter what they do, use system resources to get their work done. If your computer has too many programs running, it can be like you having 20 people talking to you at the same time; you simply can’t pick out anything coherent until you slow them down and listen to each one individually. The best way to deal with this problem is to exit programs when you’re not using them.

Another issue is viruses, spyware, and worms. These programs hijack your computer and run in the background, which can slow your computer down by taking up most or all of your system’s resources. Therefore, always use security software to protect your computer against outside attacks. Make sure to check for updates on your security software daily, so that your computer is as ready as it can be to block nefarious programs.

Residents at Bellamay Grand don’t have to panic if their computer breaks down, however. Our business center has a printer, copier and Internet-connected computer that can help when time is of the essence. For more information on our tech-friendly community, contact us today.