The Simplest & Free Ways To Speed Up Your PC

[Picture borrowed from anime 'Initial D']

Your PC gets slower and slower each day due to the amount of junk files piling up. The best way is to do a clean format of your PC and start over. However if you don't want to do that and just want to make use of some of the available resources to speed up your PC, here are some tips for you.

Do backup your important files beforehand just in case. I'm not responsible for any data loss so please follow this guide at your own risk :)

All software used below are Free!

• The most noticeable speed improvement comes from defragging your harddisk. Get Smart Defrag (guide) and perform 'Deep Optimize' mode. It will take a while if you haven't defrag your harddisk for a long time, but believe me it is worth it.
• Clean up junk files/temporary internet files by running CCleaner (guide). While at it, run the built-in Registry cleaner also to clean up your registry for minor speed improvement.
• Since Antivirus is a must these days, selecting a light-weighted one that doesn't hog your system resources is crucial in making sure your PC to perform at its best. My Antivirus of choice will be Avast (guide) as it is uses very little RAM but offer very good protection. Perform a full system scan with Avast to make sure your PC is virus free.
• The next big thing that slows down your PC tremendously will be Spyware. Spyware are sneaky little programs that run in the background, consuming RAM and sending data without the consent of the user. Install Malwarebytes (guide) and do a full system scan to clear any Spyware on your PC.
• If your harddisk is separated into multiple partitions. Make sure the primary partition (where you installed your Windows on, normally drive C:) has enough free space because it will slow down your PC otherwise. I would say leave at least 2GB of free space in drive C: at any time. You might want to read this guide and this guide to squeeze out some free harddisk space.
• Go to control panel's Programs list and remove programs that you never use.
• Manage your startup programs (guide here) and remove those that don't need to be run on startup. The less programs the faster your Windows boots up and less RAM usage at any given time. The most common 'useless' startup programs are from Adobe, they like to run some updater/reader/whatever during startup just to annoy people :(
• Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open task manager. From there click on 'Processes' tab to see all the running processes at that time. You may close unwanted programs to free up RAM but don't do it if you're not sure what it does. Google the process name if you want to find out more about it.
• For some debatable minor speed improvement (close to nothing?), try to reduce the amount of icons on your desktop. Also, removing the wallpaper and use a static color background instead might help as well.

That's all for now, leave me a comment and let me know the results! (either minor improvement or huge improvement). Do let me know any other free ways to speed up your PC and I'll add it here if appropriate.

Good luck and all the best!