All of us who have owned a PC for a decent amount of time have experienced it: lag. Follow these three simple steps to speed up your computer. Slowing of computer function, lagging program access, and overall decrease in computer function occurs as your computer accumulates files and your hard drive and registry become littered with empty spaces, compacted and fragmented files, and errors.

Free Up Disk Space
First and foremost, you want to free up disk space to make room on your hard drive. Using the Disk Cleanup tool, you can delete unneeded files from your computer that are clogging up disk space.

• To get to Disk Cleanup, go to the Start menu.
• Select All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and click Disk Cleanup.
• Specify which drive you want to be cleaned (usually C:) and click Start.
• When the Disk Cleanup is complete, it will show a list of suggested files for you to delete.
• Under the More Options tab, you can also remove unneeded programs that take up disk space.

Defragment Your Computer
Speeding up access to data will greatly improve program function and computer speed. Disk Defragment is a utility that defragments, reorganizes, and compacts contiguous files to create more disk space and clean up your hard drive.

• Follow the same directions for Disk Cleanup to get to Disk Defragment in the System Tools.
• It’s a simple utility that starts with the click of a button, but may take up to many hours if your computer hasn’t been defragmented in a while.

Maintain Your Registry Files
The third and most important step in speeding up your PC is to make sure your computer’s registry is clean and error-free. Broken, missing, and duplicate registry keys can hinder your PC’s performance and cause harmful damage to your files. Keep your registry clean to avoid harmful crashes and speed up your PC. Download and utilize a good registry cleaner to speed up your computer and keep it error-free.