By Jack Harper | Editor

It happens all the time and to everyone. Even if you buy a new computer and use it very religiously, not installing any more programs than you need and deleting them methodically, etc., within a short time your computer is going to start behaving erratically. It will begin functioning slowly, for starters. Programs will take much longer than they should to load and the computer will take a long time starting up. All these problems are indicative of several things. The following are four main reasons that are the main causes for a computer running slow. Read them and understand how to fix these issues.

Registry is loaded beyond capacity.

Your computer’s registry is the place where programs store their files that they will use later. When you launch any program in Windows, it will first check the first in the registry and that is what will help it to load and function properly. But as time passes and you use your computer more and more, there will be an increasing number of files stored in the registry. This can cause your computer to run slowly because programs will take much longer time to find the files that they need to launch. Not just programs, but even the applications within the programs will run slowly.

As a solution, download and install a registry cleaning software like Error Nuker, Registry Easy or Reg Cure on your computer. Perform a scan with them once a week on your computer and fix the files that they show as old and useless.

There are spyware and adware applications on your system.

Spyware programs are those that get installed automatically on your computer without your knowledge and then relay information from your computer to the server from where they have been sourced. Yes, you guessed it right – these are a means for identity theft and Internet crooks all over the world are trying to infiltrate computers with these programs. Adware are similar kinds of malicious programs. Though the problems can be much large with these programs, they can also have your computer running slow.

These problems are easily fixed up. There is no dearth of programs on the Internet that can help block spyware and adware forever. One example of an application that can do both is Spybot Search and Destroy.

There are viruses on your system.

If a virus has somehow lodged itself on your computer, then it will cause a lot of harm. Among everything else, it will reduce the speed of your computer. If you find your computer running slow, installing a good antivirus like McAfee or Norton can help immensely.

You need more memory.

The speed of your computer is directly proportional to the free space available in the memory area of your computer. As you install more and more programs, the available memory becomes less and programs take longer to load. There are two options for you to solve this problem. First, you can delete some applications to free up space. Two, you can add another memory chip to the computer. But you must know that along with this, you need to install a registry cleaning software application.