eWorld Help

All guides Laptops and desktops

My computer has become very slow

حاسوبي صار بطيئاً جداً

Three causes account for almost every slow machine, and you can check all three in ten minutes.

What to do

  1. Restart it properly, not sleep, not close the lid. A machine that has been on for weeks slows down on its own and a restart costs nothing.
  2. Check free space on the main drive. On Windows open This PC, on a Mac open About This Mac then Storage. Under ten per cent free will slow any machine down.
  3. If space is the problem, the Downloads folder and the Recycle Bin are the usual culprits. Empty the bin, then sort Downloads by size.
  4. Look at what starts with the machine. On Windows press Ctrl, Shift and Esc together, then the Startup tab. On a Mac it is System Settings, General, Login Items. Turn off anything you do not recognise as essential.
  5. If the machine is more than five years old and still on a mechanical hard drive, nothing above will fix it for long. A solid state drive is the single most effective upgrade there is.

These are the usual causes and the safe order to check them, not a diagnosis of your machine. If a step does not match what you are seeing, stop and ask.