Tips for Optimizing my PC

[Soviet Heavy]

So, I'm trying to clean up my Laptop, which has become rather cluttered with junk over the year. I already run CCleaner and Defraggler on a regular basis, and I use Norton's Registry Cleaners too.

Is there any other ways I could be optimizing my Laptop to run it's best?

 

[Kathinka]

depending on how cluttered it is, it might be best to go with the kill-em-all approach.
backup stuff you need, format and reinstall OS. yes it takes a while, yes it's some work. but it will get everything cleaner than anything else you could do.

if that's too extreme, you could try clearing out the msconfig, tons of useless stuff acumulate there over the months and years..

 

[CrawlingPastaHellion]

Doing a fresh Windows reinstall works best, honestly.

Also you could make an image of your system afterwards, restoring it takes only minimal time and minimal input from the user.

 

[Omnific One]

Helpful hint: registry cleaners are not worth the danger that they pose to the stability of your system. Seriously, there is little to no performance gain from cleaning it, and one wrong move can seriously mess up your system, to the point of needing to wipe your HDD and reinstall Windows.

 

[Henkie36]

By hand is the best way. I have let my computer defrag over and over again, used the auto clean a few times, and still it was running slow. So when I had some spare free time, I decided it was time to take a look in what crap there was on my pc. Deleted over 20 gigs of crap I had never used and most of which I'd forgotten I even had it. Just go into Documents and look through every folder for stuff that you don't want. This sounds really boring because it is, but at least it's thourough.

 

[Luciean]

Personally I would restore the system to factory default settings or reinstall windows from a backup image, partition or disc. Backup your data first, obviously.

If you cannot reinstall windows for whatever reason, use a program to completely uninstall any unused programs. Then run CCleaner again.

Hope that helps.

 

[Iron Lightning]

Overclock that ***** if you haven't already done so. You should also keep about 10% of your hard drive space free.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

By hand is the best way. I have let my computer defrag over and over again, used the auto clean a few times, and still it was running slow. So when I had some spare free time, I decided it was time to take a look in what crap there was on my pc. Deleted over 20 gigs of crap I had never used and most of which I'd forgotten I even had it. Just go into Documents and look through every folder for stuff that you don't want. This sounds really boring because it is, but at least it's thourough.

Well, there's a bunch of stuff in there I'm not sure about, but it also has a lot of saved games data in there I want to keep, and I don't know if I should mess with the Microsoft Folders.

 

[viranimus]

Speed? Honestly... I would start by looking at the number of running processes.

Windows XP can operate on about 15 processes. Windows 7 can operate on 30-35. The lower the number of running processes the faster the machine will run. So once you identify a process that is unneeded and draining performance resources away, remove it from the computer. (Unless it happens to be an important process that only gets situationally used.

Bout the best I got.

 

[CrawlingPastaHellion]

Speed? Honestly... I would start by looking at the number of running processes.

Windows XP can operate on about 15 processes. Windows 7 can operate on 30-35. The lower the number of running processes the faster the machine will run. So once you identify a process that is unneeded and draining performance resources away, remove it from the computer. (Unless it happens to be an important process that only gets situationally used.

Bout the best I got.

I thought he was asking about cleaning the system, not optimizing it. If he was interested in optimizing as well, yes, that is the first thing one needs to do. Kill all the unwanted/unneeded run-on-windows-boot programs. "AnVir Task Manager" is great for performing such tasks. To quickly kill a process I would recommend "ProcessKO". The fastest process killer to my knowledge.

 

[Iron Lightning]

Overclock that ***** if you haven't already done so. You should also keep about 10% of your hard drive space free.

Overclock a laptop...

It can be done. Check out this video (warning: loud music):
Of course, laptops are really prone to overheating because of their shitty cooling. It can still be done if you're careful, though.