Following you'll find a list of non-techi ways you can increase your pc's performance. Did you know, no matter how fast your cpu or how much ram you have, Windows like's to have at least 25% of of the hard drive free?

So have a good look through My Documents and particularly My Pictures. If there are a lot of files in there taking up valuable hard drive space you're much better off to burn them to a disc and delete them from your hard drive. Better still, invest in an external hard drive and start yourself a regular backup procedure. Only keep files on your local hard drive that you will need to access. Try to think of your files in 3 categories.

1. Files I should delete - when I started optimising my pc I found a oad of files I had downloaded that were actually freeware so there no need to save them, just bookmark the page where you downloaded them. That way you'll always have access to the latest version and save disk space at the same time.
2. Files to archive - These are the kind of files you should copy to your external hard drive or CD-R. Photo's that aren't great but you don't want to delete, reference material you just can't let go of... etc etc. You get the idea.
3. Files to keep nearby. The stuff you want to access more than say... once a month. Files you use regularly. Back them up AND keep them on your local hard drive. This includes favourite photo's and documents you need to keep at hand.

Be sure to also un-install applications you are not using. Go to Control Panel>Add/Remove Applications to see what programs you are using and what programs you should remove.

Use a good defragmenting tool. Your computer needs to keep organised. I don't mean keeping your own files and folders organised either. Behind the scenes needs to be kept tidy as well. There are some great applications out there that will do the job - The built-in defrag tool that comes with Windows isn't one of them. Use Diskeeper or similar.

When you install and un-install software, the operating system needs to re-arrange files to accommodate the installation. Creating, saving and deleting files messes up the order of things as well.

You know when you walk into a messy shed and it takes ages to find and/or access anything. Its the same for your computer. By running a good defragmentation tool your system will be kept organised so when you ask your computer to do something such as 'Start' or 'Open this file' it can quickly access all the information it needs to quickly.

A good defrag tool will run in the background, scheduled to run without you having to worry about it.

Another commonly over looked procedure. Windows likes to keep lots of temporary files, your browser also like to keep quite a list, not to mention cookies, History, cached pages and the list goes on. They're a great idea but if you're having issues with your system performance the first to do is to free up some hard drive space and this is the quickest way to do it. Again, it's about cleaning our your pc and removing files that just don't really need to be there.

Beware: there are a lot of dodgy programs out there claiming to be the answer to increasing your pc's performance. Only use trusted sites and trusted software.

Any programs here will increase your pc speed.

With applications and files getting bigger nowadays, no matter how healthy your system is, it needs to be up to the task in the first place.

You should have at least:

• 1G of Ram
• 80G hard drive (with 20G free)
• 1.6G CPU

To check your specifications go to: Start>Control Panel> System.

When you install an application, all too often their default settings will be configured to launch when you start your computer. This not only adds to the amount of time your computer takes to start but the application will also be running in the background so it adds to the load on your cpu therefore drastically reducing the performance of your pc.

You can use something like Startup Inspector but the Registry cleaning applications I have receommended will take care of it for you.

I'd love to know if this information actually helps. Is it clear? Was it useful? Would you recommend it to friends? Feel free to comment.