You got that new PC home and it worked so fast.  Programs opened in the blink of an eye.  Web pages loaded the instant you clicked on a link.  Everything was just…. perfect.  Then, several weeks or months went by and you started to notice a different behavior from your computer.  It certainly wasn’t getting any faster.  What happened?

There are a number of factors that could cause your PC’s ailing performance.  When working on any PC, I tackle several key areas, including Disk Defragmentation.  Performing this task, usually referred to as a “defrag”, is one of the quickest and easiest ways to get a performance boost from your old PC.  But why?

Hard disks are by far the slowest component in your computer.  CPU and memory work much faster than hard disks because they do not have moving parts.  Therefore fragmented disks often become a bottleneck of the system performance.   Besides causing slowdowns, fragmentation makes the disk drive heads move too much when reading files which leads to freeze-ups and system crashes.

What can you do?  There is a built-in defrag program built into Windows (which works just fine) but after some research and testing of our own, we have found that the best defrag program available today is Auslogics Disk Defrag.  Not only is the program extremely easy to use, but it is fast and FREE.  Now, where do you go from here:

STEP 1: Download the program from the Tools page on JumpstartMyPC.com (under System Performance)
** You can also visit Auslogics web site for information and a link to the download.
STEP 2: Install the program (double-click and answer a few simple questions)
STEP 3: Open the program, choose which disks you want to defrag and click Defrag.

Auslogics Disk Defrag is a great, FREE program

The first time you use this program, it might take a while to complete the process.  This might be 30 minutes to an hour.  We recommend you run the program and walk away.  Come back later to find your PC working better than before.  This won’t solve all your PC issues, but it is a good start.

Not so fast..  You aren’t done yet.  Want to keep those disk drives defragged?  Use the schedule function of Auslogics Disk Defrag (Settings/Program Settings/Schedule) to Schedule local disk defragmentation for a weekly defrag.  You can set this action to occur as often as you like, but we recommend that you schedule it for a time when you won’t be on the computer.  Also, keep in mind that your computer will need to be turned on and logged in to accomplish this task.  Read our future blogs for information on the importance of keeping your PC on!

Tags: Auslogics Disk Defrag, defrag, defragmentation

This entry was posted on Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 9:13 am and is filed under PC Support. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.