Booting up a computer is often an annoying and time consuming procedure. This is especially true if your computer is bogged down with unnecessary programs, settings, and useless hardware. When your computer takes too long to start-up, it is often indicative that your computer generally has a lot to manage, just to get started. This can damper your user experience and is often very frustrating. If this sounds like a situation you encounter while booting up your computer system, these tips will help you.

Defragment And Clean up Unnecessary Hard Drive Usage

Each application you install and every website you go to creates extra files on your computer. These files are more often than not, unnecessary. Eliminating these files is a simple process. Start by going into the "My Computer" folder, then with your right mouse button, click on your main hard drive, then press settings. From there you will see a button that says "Disk Cleanup". Once the disk cleanup button is pressed, the rest will be done on its own. With disk defragmentation, it basically organizes your computer's hard drive, which will make your computer spend less of its time searching for files that it needs. While you are in your hard drive's settings window, you will see a tab that says "Tools", click on it, then you will see a button that says "Defragmentation", the defragmenting process takes a while to finish once it is started, but it will make everything on your computer run much faster.

There are also system utilities programs that will do this for you as well as cleaning up, and getting rid of temporary or unnecessary files which will leave your computer less cluttered and more efficient. Advanced System Optimizer is probably the most well known program. See a review here.

Eliminate Unnecessary Programs at Start-Up

The annoying programs that get in your way when you start up your computer can be stopped. Simply click on the "Start" button at the bottom left of your screen, from there click on "Run..." Once you are there, type in "msconfig" and press Ok. Next, you will see a window with tabs. Click the tab that says "Startup." You will then be presented with a list of applications that you can check off. Check off the unnecessary applications that always start up when you boot your computer. Doing this will significantly speed up your computer at start-up and also in general performance.

Update Your Ram

Unlike most computer hardware, ram is relatively cheaply priced and one of the best ways to speed up your computer. A stick of ram can range anywhere from $20 to $200, the lower priced ones can easily get the job done effectively. Although ram is quite easy to install, it requires opening your computer. So, if you're very inexperienced, don't try to do it yourself.

Always Keep Your Spyware and Virus Scan Up-To-Date

Viruses, Trojan horses and spyware all significantly slow down a computer. It is important to eliminate these malicious applications because they pose a significant threat. Even if your computer does not experience any of the harmful side-effects of these viruses, their CPU usage while dormant is still extremely high.

Changing Your BIOS Settings

Making a simple change to your computer's BIOS settings can greatly speed up your system's boot-up process. Check your computer's manual for instructions on how to enter its BIOS settings, because accessing them is different on many computers. Once you find out how to access your system's BIOS settings, the rest is fairly easy. Look for a menu option that says "BOOT", from there look for an option that says "Quick Boot" and enable it. This option will allow your computer to bypass the standard and unnecessary tests that your computer does before starting.