There are few things as annoying as a slow running computer. Whether your trying to watch a movie, listen to music, type an email or writing a document, a slow running computer is a sure sign that something is wrong with your machine.

Like a lot of things in life, as a computer ages, the slower it gets due to uncontrollable factors such as a slowing hard drive, or more demand on existing hardware.

However, more times than not, your computer slowing down can be attributed such as:

1. Your version of Windows is out of date

The majority of the computer industry uses Microsoft Windows computers which goes through a major change every 5 years or so.

You don’t necessarily need to buy the latest and greatest operating system such as Windows 7 or 8. But it is necessary, for your computer to function optimally, to keep your operating system up to date with the latest patches through Microsofts automatic updating platform.

This not only insures you have the latest operating system software on your computer, by you also have the latest security patches to combat and vulnerabilities which can be exploited by unwanted annoyances or people.

2. Overheating of your processor or computer

Most things electrical don’t like the heat. It makes it worse when you live in North Queensland where it is already hot so you get that extra heat, bonus!

Your computer has a CPU (Central Processing Unit) which does all the thinking for your machine. Electrical currents flow through the CPU and causes it to get very hot.

Depending on the age of your computer and what you are asking it to do, your computer could be suffering from over heating.

Without the use of a good fan and proper air flow having an overheating computer can cause major speed and performance and very noticeable speed reduction.

3. Your computer needs a reboot

If you use your computer as some soft of storage device to stream media or act like a server which usually requires your machine to be on for a long time with out rebooting, sometimes a simple reboot can make your computer run faster.

So many things may have been started and stopped or still running, requiring memory allocations and all sort of complications which can easily be remedied with simply turning off your computer and starting again.

Note: Reboot just means to turn your computer off and then back on again.

Also if your computer has been running for a long time without a restart, you mat have installed or uninstalled certain software in most cases needing to restart your computer in order for those application to run properly or remove themselves completely from your computer or running processes.

4. More space needed on your hard drive

Most computers need about 15% of free hard drive space to run well.

You hard drive is usually your c: drive and this is where you store all your information, operating system, software, movies, pictures etc.

Your hard drive is one of the single most important components of your computer and need to run well for yuor computer to function best.

As well as storing files, your hard drive is needed for temporary file allocation and used as virtual memory in the form of a swapfile helping programs on your computer run faster and properly.

5. Hard drive corruption

Your hard drive becoming corrupt can be a major issue for anyone who not only worries about the speed of their computer, but for people who value the information already stored on it.

A corrupt hard drive can sometime also result in total loss of data, another reason to always back up.

Hard drive become corrupt for a lot of reasons such as:

• Power surges
• Operating system bugs
• Virus and infections
• Registry errors
• Adding and removing programs
• Not turning your computer off properly
• Over heating
• Failing hardware components

Although the list is every growing and endless, these are the main reasons I see computer hard drives becoming corrupt.