At times, we may notice that our computer is slow or that it does not meet our efficiency expectations. If our PC has Windows 10, we can improve and speed up your performance through a few tweaks which we will show you below.
The best and fastest solution to accelerate the performance of Windows 10, would be to change its components for more efficient ones, but if we cannot afford it, we can make some adjustments to the PC without spending a single euro.
In general, Windows 10 operating system works quite well on any computer, especially if it has, at least, 4GB of RAM. Still, it can also give good results with lower RAM.
Evidently the performance of this operating system depends on the hardware of the computer on which it is installed. With a good performance processor (8 or 16 GB of RAM), Windows 10 will have a perfect, fast and efficient operation.
How to speed up and improve the performance of Windows 10
Next, we will show you the adjustments that you will have to carry out to speed up windows 10 to make the operating system even faster.
Set up your battery and power plan
El energy it is a key factor that directly affects the performance of the PC and its components. Have a good configuration of the power plan of our computer, as well as the autonomy y temperature of the PC will be essential to improve its performance.
Therefore, higher energy consumption, less autonomy and higher working temperature. Although, in general, the performance should be higher.
In Windows 10, we can configure and choose between different power modes:
- So that reduces performance to lower energy consumption.
- Mode balanced which adjusts performance and power consumption.
- Way of high performance which increases energy consumption.
Depending on the mode we choose, our computer will show a greater or lesser performance, as well as a lesser or greater autonomy. Its working temperature will also be affected depending on the energy mode that we select.
How to change the power plan in Windows 10
To change the power plan in Windows 10, we will follow these simple steps:
- In the lower left search bar of Windows, we write «Edit Energy Plan ».
- Select the option "Change Advanced Power Settings".
- Here we must choose one of the predetermined plans. We can also create a custom power plan.
Optimize the storage units of our PC
Another adjustment that we can carry out on our PC to make Windows 10 faster is to optimize the storage units. These drives are key to the overall performance of the computer.
Windows 10 has a built-in tool that allows optimize our storage units in a fast, safe and simple way, since it works both for units HDD as in SSD drives. Let's see the steps to make these adjustments:
- In the lower left Windows search bar, we write "Defragment and Optimize Drives" and we select the first result.
- We select the unit that we want to optimize.
Disable / remove apps that run from startup with Windows 10
Often times, when we install an application in Windows 10, it can give us the option to configure it to load from startup and run when we start our computer. The application will be active in the background, or what is the same, it will consume energy and resources of the PC.
This can be useful for some applications, but sometimes, there are other applications that consume energy and do not have a real utility, especially if we only use them occasionally. Here we show you how disable applications to stop consuming resources, improve performance and timeouts:
- In the lower left Windows search bar, we write "Task Manager"
- We enter the tab «Home»And we right click on the programs we want to disable.
- In the «Startup impact » We can see those applications that have a high, medium or low impact on startup time.
Managing Power Consumption of Applications with Task Manager
Another of the key elements that can cause our computer to go slow is the energy consumption of the applications that we have installed on our equipment. We often install applications on our PC that consume more power than we expected, even when they operate in the background.
In fact, some applications often consume more power than anticipated. because they are a virus, especially if we have installed them from unofficial websites. Some applications can consume a large amount of PC resources. If to that we add a lack of storage space, our PC will be slow and its performance will be poor.
With the Task Manager, we can get rid of the applications that consume resources without offering a real utility to free up space and improve the performance of Windows 10. We will tell you how:
- In the lower left Windows search bar, we write "Task Manager" or we access it with the keys Ctrl + Alt + Del.
- Here in Processes, we will get a list of applications. We keep an eye on the resource consumption of each application (RAM, CPU usage, Disk, Network…).
- We will see if there is any application that is consuming more energy than normal. If we select the application, we can make it stop consuming energy by clicking on Finish homework y we will free up RAM.
If we see that the application reopens and continues to consume energy, we can remove the program from the PC. To do this, we will do the following:
- In the lower left Windows search bar, we write "Add or Remove Programs".
- We select the applications that we want to uninstall by clicking on them.
Remove viruses or Malwares from the system
As we have mentioned, a virus or Malware can cause our system to malfunction and its performance to be unusually low. For it, we will have to look for and eliminate viruses or Malwares from the system.
With Windows Defender we can perform a full analysis for remove malware from the system. To access Windows Defender, we will do the following:
- In the lower left Windows search bar, we write "Windows Security".
- Here we can customize protection settings and run a system scan.
We can also make use of tools such as Malwarebytes Anti-Malware o Comodo Cleaning Essentials to find and remove viruses or Malwares from the system.
Enable Windows 10 fast startup
With the quick start of Windows 10 we can improve the system's startup speed and, with it, improve its performance. To activate the quick start, we must do the following:
- In the lower left Windows search bar, we write "Energy options".
- We click on «Choose behavior of the on / off buttons ».
- In the section of Shutdown settings, we will find the option to activate the quick start.
Configure the Windows 10 interface (disable visual effects)
We also have the option to configure the Windows 10 interface to speed up its performance. With this, we will disable options such as effects or animations. This will give us a more sober aspect of the system, but faster and more fluid.
Thus, we will make a personalized configuration adapted to our preferences, although Windows also offers us default settings. To carry out this configuration we will follow these steps:
- We press the keys «Windows + R » to open the window "Run".
- We wrote sysdm.cpl on the console.
- In the section "System properties" we came in "Advanced Options, Performance, Configuration ».
- We came in "Adjust for Best Performance » and we choose the settings.
Use Windows 10 Disk Cleanup
When the storage space is almost full, the performance of our PC can be affected, in addition We will not be able to install new applications, save photos, files, documents, etc.
To free up space, we will uninstall the applications that we do not use and those files that we do not need. The disk space cleaner allows us to select the drive we want to clean. To use this tool we will follow these steps:
- In the lower left Windows search bar, we write "Disk Cleanup".
- We choose the unit where we want to free up space.
We can also use the tool "Free Up Space Now", a more thorough cleaning of the unit. To do this, we will do the following:
- In the lower left Windows search bar, we write "Storage Settings".
- We enter "Free Space Now" and choose the data we want to delete.
Deactivate Cortana
Another method that can help us free up space and accelerate the performance of Windows 10 is disable Cortana, Windows 10's useful voice assistant but also resource consuming to function.
Often, we do not overuse Cortana, so deactivating it will allow us to improve the performance of the PC. To disable the wizard, we will type «Cortana » in the search bar at the bottom left and we deactivate Cortana in Notebook or Settings.
Reboot the system
Sometimes the fastest, safest, most efficient and sometimes least used option is to reboot the system to improve its performance. If we have a PC with 4GB of RAMit's memory is likely to fill up quickly. Windows will automatically use the hard drive instead of the RAM, reducing the performance of the PC.
Some programs when we close them do not disappear completely, they continue to consume power and RAM in the background. To avoid this, a good solution in reboot the system to free up all memory and speed up performance.
As you can see, there are a multitude of settings and configurations of Windows 10 to accelerate the performance of the operating system of our PC. Leave us in the comments if you know more methods, we will be happy to listen to you and add them to the list.