Why Computers Slow with Age

Computers age slowly, until one day the lack of performance becomes unbelievably noticable. In that regard, they are sort of like small children – over a year or two, they grow many inches, yet we don’t notice unless we stop and take a step back and have that eye-opening experience. There are a number of factors that contribute to the slow decline in system performance – hard drive fragmentation, increased system requirements, and automated programs make our short list. If you ever wondered this for yourself, here are a few tidbits to tickle your “why are things the way they are” curiosity.

Hard Drive Fragmentation – files stored on your computer are put together in blocks of data. A single word document could have many hundreds or thousands of blocks. Since hard drives are a mechanical device, a physical arm has to traverse across the drive, reading each of these blocks to open programs or perform actions on your machine. If those blocks are located far from each other, or fragmented, the hard drive takes longer to perform its intended action. By defragmenting a drive, those blocks stack neatly together, and allow the drive to read files in one continuous flow, much like watching the needle of a turntable.

Automated Programs – Each software you install (read: printer drives, gaming software, coupons, etc) has a feeling of entitlement. Once installed, they position themselves to load automatically each time your computer starts. Many of these programs are used very infrequently, and even the ones that aren’t don’t necessarily need to load automatically upon system start (why not just start them manually when you need them?). If your system feels like you need a coffee break after a restart, this could very well be the culprit.

Increased System Requirements – A few years ago, many system manufacturers were battling for business with price wars. A good deal may have been had, but even so, a trade-off for that rock-bottom price may have occurred at the expense of system resources. And as Operating System creators (Microsoft, etc) release service updates (Think Windows XP Service Pack 3) more of those system resources are needed to just start your computer system, leaving fewer and fewer resources for your other programs.

All three of these issues, for the most part, can be remedied. Of course, much like surgery after an accident, it may not be that spring chicken you once enjoyed, but it will function noticeably quicker and to your satisfaction. Our technicians here can always assist you with a system tune-up.