acooling08 Posted 29 December 2011 Share Posted 29 December 2011 My laptop is about 3 or 4 years old now and is becoming pretty sluggish especially when on the internet. There are various websites claiming to speed up your PC by removing corrupted files, errors etc. But it's a real pain trying to find out which is best. I've tried a few that insist they are free but after going through the whole install and scan process they ask for credit card details to remove all the crap the scan found. Can anyone recommend a genuinely free and worthwhile download to speed up my PC for free? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danny. Posted 29 December 2011 Share Posted 29 December 2011 Try CCleaner - http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner Also make sure your drive is defragmented, defraggler is good for this - http://www.piriform.com/defraggler Both are free (you don't need the paid support option), just choose free, been using these apps for years and they work great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
accessory Posted 29 December 2011 Share Posted 29 December 2011 Try CCleaner. (http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner). It's done the job for years on my PCs. Echo Danny's words on Defraggler too... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m00nie Posted 29 December 2011 Share Posted 29 December 2011 make sure you antivirus (avast is one of the best free ones, nod32, kaspersky(can be ot free from barclays) , norton for paid) is up to date, run a scan. use either spybot search + destroy, lavasoft adaware, or malwarebytes, update and scan for spy/malware then as above use ccleaner. use it to clear up and fix registry issues. can also use ccleaner to stop some things starting up at start up. ask yourself if you really use them, if not no point having them run Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyT Posted 29 December 2011 Share Posted 29 December 2011 I swear by Advanced System Care. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haydos Posted 29 December 2011 Share Posted 29 December 2011 Format. I don't understand why people don't do it more; It takes a few hours tops (most of that you don't actually have to do anything) and unless you have hundreds of programs which you would need to reinstall then it's a great way of basically resetting your computer. Just back up your personal files and any install files you wish to keep and go nuts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexikokopops Posted 29 December 2011 Share Posted 29 December 2011 Try CCleaner - http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner Also make sure your drive is defragmented, defraggler is good for this - http://www.piriform.com/defraggler Both are free (you don't need the paid support option), just choose free, been using these apps for years and they work great. I see they do a Beta version for the Mac - have you tried this Danny or would you just recommend just going straight for this one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexikokopops Posted 29 December 2011 Share Posted 29 December 2011 I see they do a Beta version for the Mac - have you tried this Danny or would you just recommend just going straight for this one? Following on from this I just used CCleaner and managed to delete 6-7 gig of crap . Just under 6 gig of that was "Miscellaneous Cache". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coale39 Posted 29 December 2011 Share Posted 29 December 2011 Following on from this I just used CCleaner and managed to delete 6-7 gig of crap . Just under 6 gig of that was "Miscellaneous Cache". Thats your Porn gone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DB11 Posted 30 December 2011 Share Posted 30 December 2011 Following on from this I just used CCleaner and managed to delete 6-7 gig of crap . Just under 6 gig of that was "Miscellaneous Cache". Assuming you used default settings, you'll get a better result if under options and advanced you untick "Only delete files older than 24 hours" and on the general cleaner, under 'Advanced' tick every box except 'Wipe Free Space' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DB11 Posted 30 December 2011 Share Posted 30 December 2011 I swear by Advanced System Care. The registry is designed never to be touched or 'cleaned' so you should not use programs that say they clean the registry up. The registry is just somewhere you should not go unless you know what you are doing, and even then you should do it and not get a program to do it for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danny. Posted 31 December 2011 Share Posted 31 December 2011 I see they do a Beta version for the Mac - have you tried this Danny or would you just recommend just going straight for this one? I've never used Ccleaner on a mac so no idea what it's like, will check it out in the new year. iDefrag isn't a disk cleaner tho but a defragmenter - so the same thing as defraggler rather than Ccleaner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexikokopops Posted 31 December 2011 Share Posted 31 December 2011 I've never used Ccleaner on a mac so no idea what it's like, will check it out in the new year. iDefrag isn't a disk cleaner tho but a defragmenter - so the same thing as defraggler rather than Ccleaner Gotcha. I used CCleaner and it got rid of a lot of crap for me, so that's good. I haven't tried it with DB11's recommendations. I think I'll give iDefrag a go to, just to get things up and running again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lavrentis Posted 31 December 2011 Share Posted 31 December 2011 Format. I don't understand why people don't do it more; It takes a few hours tops (most of that you don't actually have to do anything) and unless you have hundreds of programs which you would need to reinstall then it's a great way of basically resetting your computer. Just back up your personal files and any install files you wish to keep and go nuts. Agree totally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danny. Posted 3 January 2012 Share Posted 3 January 2012 not my idea of fun though, spending hours reformatting and reinstalling everything. fortunately, every machine I use from work to home and laptop is a mac and doesn't need anything doing apart from a defrag every 6 months or so - I suppose PCs corrupt/slow down over time, but surely there must be easier ways that wiping it all and starting again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nothin2seehere Posted 10 January 2012 Share Posted 10 January 2012 Just a quick word: don't waste your time defragging. If you really want to do it, Windows XP+ has built in de-fragmentation tools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christoph Posted 11 January 2012 Share Posted 11 January 2012 Download windows, reboot it, bang you have a fresh laptop again. Also it doesn't take nearly as long as you think. Just back up the stuff you need. Download everything your going to use (Winrar, Chrome, VLC player, flash etc), download all of them, then put it on usb stick, then once you've rebooted it, you stick it and install everything and it will probably take about hour or two max, but it will make a world of difference compared to just defragging it which doesnt really do much, especially to a laptop thats 3-4 years old. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DB11 Posted 11 January 2012 Share Posted 11 January 2012 Download windows, reboot it, bang you have a fresh laptop again. Also it doesn't take nearly as long as you think. Just back up the stuff you need. Download everything your going to use (Winrar, Chrome, VLC player, flash etc), download all of them, then put it on usb stick, then once you've rebooted it, you stick it and install everything and it will probably take about hour or two max, but it will make a world of difference compared to just defragging it which doesnt really do much, especially to a laptop thats 3-4 years old. Probably the most important thing that you've missed out, is drivers!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danny. Posted 11 January 2012 Share Posted 11 January 2012 Just a quick word: don't waste your time defragging. If you really want to do it, Windows XP+ has built in de-fragmentation tools. Defragmenting massively speeds up a system if you aren't running off an SSD. Also windows built in defrag is pretty rubbish compared to 3rd party tools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christoph Posted 11 January 2012 Share Posted 11 January 2012 Probably the most important thing that you've missed out, is drivers!! Hey thats why I put etc! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nothin2seehere Posted 13 January 2012 Share Posted 13 January 2012 Defragmenting massively speeds up a system if you aren't running off an SSD. Also windows built in defrag is pretty rubbish compared to 3rd party tools. You can waste your time with it if you want. There's a reason why a sysadmin doesn't defrag a massively utilised fileserver (10s of millions of files and thousands of users): it doesn't help. It's a good placebo though. Anyway, to those suggesting reinstalling, it's a very good option. I'd like to recommend this website: http://ninite.com/ Awesome for getting common software reinstalled after you've reinstall your OS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DB11 Posted 13 January 2012 Share Posted 13 January 2012 You can waste your time with it if you want. There's a reason why a sysadmin doesn't defrag a massively utilised fileserver (10s of millions of files and thousands of users): it doesn't help. It's a good placebo though. Anyway, to those suggesting reinstalling, it's a very good option. I'd like to recommend this website: http://ninite.com/ Awesome for getting common software reinstalled after you've reinstall your OS. Pretty good directory that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danny. Posted 16 January 2012 Share Posted 16 January 2012 You can waste your time with it if you want. There's a reason why a sysadmin doesn't defrag a massively utilised fileserver (10s of millions of files and thousands of users): it doesn't help. It's a good placebo though. Which file systems are you referring to? I've defragged about 5-6 macs running hfs and each one has immediately seen huge speed improvements (90-120sec boot ups going to 30-40secs, apps taking 20 secs to open down to 4-5). Never took much note with ntfs or fat tho, only have one windows machine and that runs an SSD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whoareyaaa Posted 17 January 2012 Share Posted 17 January 2012 Tune up Utilities is a quality program. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parafox Posted 19 January 2012 Share Posted 19 January 2012 The registry is designed never to be touched or 'cleaned' so you should not use programs that say they clean the registry up. The registry is just somewhere you should not go unless you know what you are doing, and even then you should do it and not get a program to do it for you. So DB11 are you saying DON'T use CCCleaner? I've used it for nearly a year once a week in the belief that it's a registry cleaner... am I doing wrong and putting my shiny new laptop at risk? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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