CompuClever Blog

Optimize Windows performance by cleaning your hard disk

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It’s becoming easier and easier to fill up the space on the hard drive of your computer. People are increasingly using their home computers as media centers, for example, and download movies, television programs, and music. As well, as computer power and performance has increased over the past few years, software programs have gotten bigger, and take up more space on your computer. Finally, we all love to take photos and videos, and to store them someplace, and that someplace is our PC.

Eventually, we all find ourselves running out of hard disk space.

The obvious solution is to purchase additional storage. However, there are ways to squeeze more room out of your existing hard drive. Saving hard disk memory on your PC is important, because your operating system needs on-board memory (besides RAM) to function at its best.

So, before you go out and purchase a new portable disk drive to take some of the strain off of your poor hard disk, what are some ways to perform hard drive cleanup and optimize Windows performance?

First off all, it’s important to know that every time you open a software program or browse the internet, information is stored on your computer. Continue reading...

How to protect your PC from viruses

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We’ve all been there at some point: our computer has suddenly become slow, or perhaps unwanted popups are appearing even if you haven’t navigated to a new page. There’s a million-and-one symptoms that point to one awful cause: you’ve downloaded a computer virus.

While there are plenty of tools out there that can help clean your PC if you’ve downloaded a virus or some malware, it’s a cumbersome process that can be by turns annoying and even annoying. Once your computer starts acting funny, it makes you wonder if the hardware itself has been damaged, or if you have somehow leaked information onto the internet. Contracting a computer virus can be a traumatic experience that’s best avoided in the first place?

But what’s the best way to avoid computer viruses?

Just like in real-life, computers contract viruses via “vectors” or by common pathways, much like human being contract colds. Here’s a couple of common vectors and how to protect against them:

Clicking on malicious links

One of the most common “vectors” is by clicking a link on a website that activates malicious code in your web browser, which then (speaking in very general terms) infects your computer. You may see an an ad prompting you to download a security patch for Windows, or it may be a “warning” that  you’ve got a security threat (possibly a virus) on your computer, but if you click on the button you can get “help” immediately. Continue reading...

How to fix wireless internet problems

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It’s a common issue: you’ve paid $75 for a new wireless router, you’ve set up a home wireless network, but you have problmes connecting your laptop or home PC to the network.

The most basic (and most time-consuming) way to fix wireless internet connectivity problems is to restart everything:

  1. Unplug (power down) your modem
  2. Unplug (power down) your router
  3. Turn off your computer

As a rule of thumb, when trying to fix wireless router connectivity issues, you should wait at least 10 seconds before turning your modem back on, and then powering up your router. This is because the modem itself will save in its memory network information (such as IP addresses), and sometimes this network information may be causing the wireless router problem in the first place.

After 10 seconds or so, the modem has completely powered down and information should be fully removed. Some modems routers also actually physically reset various switches.

After everything has been powered down:

  1. Restart (power up) your modem.
  2. Wait for about 20 seconds (or until your modem is fully powered up), and then power up your wireless router.
  3. Restart your computer.

This usually is enough to fix wireless connectivity problems. If you’re still having problems, use an ethernet cable and try connecting your computer directly to the modem. Continue reading...

Core i3, Core i5, Core i7: what’s the difference? And which is right for you?

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We’ve come a long since an Intel 386 processor chip was considered the defacto standard for home computer CPUs (you’ll recall that the CPU is a “processor” or “chip” that acts as your computer’s engine).

Since the 386 days, PCs have moved on to be powered by Pentiums, Atoms, Celerons and everything in between.
However, if you go computer shopping these days, you’ll most likely encounter 3 different names: Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7. What’s the difference, and which one is right for you?

Generally speaking, Intel’s Core series of CPU microprocessors are faster, more powerful variations of the earlier Celeron and Pentium chips. They actually started out as “Core 2” “Core Duo” and other confusing names, but the Core i3, i5, and i7 are yet another generation of this chip.
As you might expect, the higher the number of the chip, the more powerful it is. So, the Core i3 is an entry-level chip, while the Core i7 is considered to be quite powerful.

But which one is right for you?

The answer, of course, depends on what you want to use your computer for. If you do any kind of video processing at all, you’ll probably want a more powerful chip. Continue reading...

How to speed up Windows startup

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If you’ve owned your computer for more than six months, it’s more than likely that it’s taking longer and longer to start up every time you press the “On” button. With the newer Windows 7 operating system, it generally takes between 30 and 50 seconds from bootup until the login screen (where you enter your username and password) appears. Once you’ve entered your credentials, it may take another minute or so for your computer to be ready to use. That’s a total of at least 90 seconds! That may not seem like long, but the seconds can drag on.

And remember, as a rule, the older it is, the longer it takes your computer  longer to start up.

So, what causes slow Windows startup times?

One cause of slower startup times is the number of new programs you’ve installed in your computer since you bought it. Every time you add a new program, new files are added to the system registry. The more registry files there are, the slower it can take for a computer to start up. Registry files also become “fragmented” or dispersed inefficiently throughout the system, and this can also slow computer startup speeds.

So regularly maintaining your registry may help speed things up at startup. Continue reading...