Turning Off vs. Leaving On

[candiru]

Is there any kind of general guideline about leaving a computer on vs. turning it off when not using it.

[LMITOUT]

I leave mine on while at home but will shut it off overnight, etc.

You could use the power profiles options in Windows so that it goes into sleep or hibernate mode after a certain length of time. That way if you step away for an extended amount of time it will turn off the hard drives, monitor, etc. automatically and then "wake up" when you return. This will save energy and wear/tear on the hard drive.

[Dbl]

Personally I either shut down at night or put to sleep. I will assume you are using Windows? Windows likes to go through a complete shut down and start up to keep things running smooth. So I usually put the computer to sleep at night when I am done using it and once or twice a week shut down the computer at night so it goes through a start up the next morning.

Difference between sleep and hibernate is the amount of time it takes to get the computer up and running. With sleep its very quick, with hibernate since things are written to the disk it is almost like a cold start.

Somthing else to think about if you go this route. If you send the computer to sleep (everything held in

the RAM), and there is a power failure, all of your work in progress (open documents etc.) in its current state is lost. If you place the

computer in hibernate, everything (as mentioned above) is written to disk and when you start the

computer everything will be as it was when you went into hibernate.

So I generally close and save all work in progress before I put the computer to sleep.

[Shack]

Besides windows hard shut down issues today, it used to be the rule of thumb with older systems to leave them on all the time because of the "wear and tear" on hardware during the shut down and start up. I think that mentality has went to the wayside with how better things are made today.

I just let my laptop run most of the time (or choose a power mode). My old desk tops (IBM, HP) ran 24/7 , unless a required shut down and reboot was needed for a change I did. Now, a shut down and restart is needed for many Windows updates. I research and choose which up dates I will allow, but when you have them set on auto (depending on your settings), if you do not restart your PC for a long period of time, you will find out how many updates have come and gone since your last restart when Windows is restarting.

I think shutting down your PC the proper way every night is not going to be an issue. The start up time of the OS has pretty much dropped down to seconds now, not minutes like in the past. Not letting it sleep or hib. does let items run, but again the ways things are made now-a-days and how fast things change, most PC users upgrade way before you wear anything out, even running 24/7. Today if a running peice of hardware fails on you, I feel it would have happened no matter how long your PC ran between shutdowns and restarts.

[upnorth]

I personally don't shut my PCs down unless I am leaving for a few days. I have worked in IT for 12 years and you rarely see a PC completely fail during normal use. They fail on a shutdown and when you restart them. The watts you burn leaving a normal PC on is pretty insignificant. If you want to shut things down, set your PC to shut the monitor down probably takes more juice than the PC anyway.

[Nick Kuhn]

I leave mine on 24/7. Current uptime is 4+ days, meaning windows update made it reboot.

Shutdown and startup are tough on hard drives. You can set it to hibernate which really won't draw any energy yet is easier on the HD's and also saves some start-up time.

[issx]

I personally don't shut my PCs down unless I am leaving for a few days. I have worked in IT for 12 years and you rarely see a PC completely fail during normal use. They fail on a shutdown and when you restart them. The watts you burn leaving a normal PC on is pretty insignificant. If you want to shut things down, set your PC to shut the monitor down probably takes more juice than the PC anyway.

I am with him on this. Very rarely turn it off. I will restart it a couple of times a week to free up some resources, other than that it stays on.

[Shack]

The only reason I do preach proper shut down and (of course now ) backing up on an HDD is because laptops are becoming more and more the choice of the consumer. With means being mobile and battery life being used more than a conventional plug in.

The other thing that needs to be said about running a PC all the time is power surge protection, even with laptops . We experienced a power surge at my house a couple weeks back that froze my laptop completely. Had to do a hard shut down and that was it I know run my laptop on a surge protected strip all the time. Coincidence, maybe. But never happened before. I learned.

Since then (and after the start of this thread) my idea's on letting my laptop run when not need (like I did) has started to change.

[BobT]

Quote:

esides windows hard shut down issues today, it used to be the rule of thumb with older systems to leave them on all the time because of the "wear and tear" on hardware during the shut down and start up. I think that mentality has went to the wayside with how better things are made today.

When I picked up my Dell in March, 2007, I looked into the various power options in my Vista system. From the support pages I learned that the PC is best left turned on 24/7 with one exception. They did recommend shutting it down at least once a week to allow the OS to dump certain cache files and such. It also recommended configuring the PC to turn off hard drives and monitors and go into sleep mode after a relatively short period of non-use. What's nice about this is that when I return I'm up and running in less than 30 seconds because I don't have to wait for it to reboot.

One of the advantages of leaving it on is that it allows the OS to perform scheduled maintenance processes during the night. For example, my PC checks for software updates at 3:00am runs various malware scans during the night as well.

I scheduled a task to automatically shut it down once a week.

[Shack]

The more I ask around about this, the more I am getting the "Turn It Off" answer.

Back in the day with my old desk tops and their hardware, turn off was a 50-50 gamble if the system would boot up again. Thus I ran then 24/7 and probably cost my parents more money than I think Plus some of the programs took days to load. heck AOL on 600-1200 baud dial up took like an hour to just get to the main menu

I will dig into what the OEM manufactures have to say when I get some time, but here are some articles about should I or should I not shut down my computer at night:

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Is it better to turn my computer off when I am not using it or leave it on all the time?

2008 HowStuffWorks

In some cases, leaving your computer on is the better option. See more laptop pictures.

This is one of those questions where there is no single right answer. In other words, it depends on how you use your computer.

There are at least three situations that force you to leave your computer on 24 hours a day:

* You are on a network, and the network administrators back up files and/or upgrade software over the network at night. If that is the case, and you want your machine backed up or upgraded, then you need to leave it on all the time.

* You are using your machine as some sort of server. For example, HowStuffWorks has a machine that creates the images for the How Webcams Work article. It needs to be on 24 hours a day. If your machine acts as a file server, print server, Web server, etc., on a LAN (local area network) or the Internet, then you need to leave it on all the time.

* If you are running something like SETI@home and you want to produce as many result sets as possible, you need to leave your machine on all the time.

If you do not fall into any of these categories, then you have a choice about whether or not to leave your machine on.

One reason why you might want to turn it off is economic. A typical PC consumes something like 300 watts. Let's assume that you use your PC for four hours every day, so the other 20 hours it is on would be wasted energy. If electricity costs 10 cents per kilowatt-hour in your area, then that 20 hours represents 60 cents a day. Sixty cents a day adds up to $219 per year.

­It's possible to use the energy-saving features build into modern machines and cut that figure in half. For example, you can have the monitor and hard disk power down automatically when not in use. You'll still be wasting $100 per year.

­ The argument for leaving your computer on all the time is that turning it on and off somehow stresses the computer's components. For example, when the CPU chip is running, it can get quite hot, and when you turn the machine off it cools back down. The expansion and contraction from the heat probably has some effect on the solder joints holding the chip in place, and on the micro-fine details on the chip itself. But here are three ways to look at that:

* If it were a significant problem, then machines would be failing all the time. In fact, hardware is very reliable (software is a whole different story, and there is a lot to be said for rebooting every day).

* I don't know a single person who leaves the TV on 24 hours a day. TVs contain many of the same components that computers do. TVs certainly have no problems being cycled on and off.

* Most vendors will sell you a three-year full-replacement warrantee for about $150. If you are worried about it, spend some of the money you are saving by turning your machine off and buy a service contract. Over three years, you come out way ahead!

Quote:

Should I Turn My Computer Off at Night?

For example, computers connected to the Internet via DSL or cable modem are vulnerable to hacking if they are still connected. You can either turn off the connection or turn off the computer. You may need to keep the computer turned on, conversely, if the computer is used as a fax machine as well.

However, if you work from home and log into a business, you should definitely turn off the computer at night, or at the very least, log out from the business. Not only does leaving the computer on threaten the security of your personal computer, but it could also give hackers entry to your business.

Sleep mode on computers still uses some electricity, and the most economic thing to do is to turn off the computer at night, especially if you're is penny pinching. Saving electricity also has environmental benefits. Older computers may not have the sleep feature, so if you have an older computer you might want to turn it off to save money. Obviously, laptops, which run on a battery, will have a longer battery life if they are turned off when not in use.

You may turn off the computer out of the common misconception that this will protect the computer from power surges. Actually, this is not the case. Even when people turn off their computer, the computer is still vulnerable to power surges if it's not hooked up to a surge protector. Be sure to purchase a good surge protector and do not skimp on money in this case. Find a well rated one that will protect your computer whether off or on from power surges.

Some computer experts suggest that certain programs benefit from getting a break at night, like Windows®. Turning off the computer at night may help eliminate crashes during the day, since the program is rebooted when the computer is turned on again in the morning.

If you aren't concerned about money, computer security, and crashes, then you don't have to turn off the computer at night. But, since at least one of these issues is usually a concern, you might want to turn off your computer at night.

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Should you turn your computer off at night?

By Stephen Amontis

One of my friends asked me one of those classic computer questions, and this time I decided to answer it with some care:

I have often heard it is best not to power down your system at night, any of you IT guys have an opinon on this? I always shut my rig down at night, but it is a new computer and I don't want to damage it by turning it on and off all the time, so what say you?

I've been a computer technician for 20 years, and a network engineer for 12 years. I also worked as an auto mechanic for 10 years prior to getting in to the computer field. Computers and cars have alot in common, for example most mechanical failures in both cars and computers occur during start up. Generally, when someone tells you they've had a failure, you'll often hear, "It was fine last night, but when I started it up today..."

Cost

That being said, I never leave my computer on when I'm not using it. The main reason is it is a huge waste of energy. That 450 watt power supply is no different than a light bulb, so imagine running a 450 watt bulb 24 hours a day.

Computing Unplugged estimates that a typical PC with a large power supply, a good video card, and a few hard drives adds $10-15/month to your power bill when running 24/7.

Also, manufacturing processes have changed and most equipment today is designed to be turned on and off.

Wear and tear

The next thing to consider is the wear and tear on things like drives when running your computer 24 hours a day. Your car is most likely to be damaged when you start the engine, but you wouldn't leave it running 24 hours a day.

That's because the gas costs would be astronomical and leaving it running puts a lot of wear and tear on moving parts like bearings and lubricant. These are generally same type of bearings and lubricant you might find inside your hard drive or the fans in your computer.

Rebooting is good

Another thing to consider is the operating system. Unlike expensive server operating systems, consumer operating systems (like Windows XP) are not meant to run for days or weeks or even months without being restarted.

Many of the write and save operations of modern-day operating systems occur during shutdown. It's important to run your computer through the shut-down process to make sure many of your settings get written to the OS and registry.

Rebooting is good for system updates

How about system updates? As anyone knows that runs a computer nowadays, updates are a way of life. Most people have Automatic Updates turned on for their computer. But did you know that most of those updates don't take effect until you restart your system, even if they don't prompt you to restart?

So if you go for months at a time without a restart, you may as well not even do the updates. The other possible issue is if you have not restarted your system for a month and suddenly you are experiencing a blue-screen or problem on boot-up, you now have to retrace what you have done over the last month to find the culprit. If you shut down every night it is much simpler to find the problem.

[Ralph Wiggum]

I've got a 5.5 year old Compaq desktop. I've shut it down at night since the day I bought it, and it is still running strong

[Dbl]

This was in my latest issue of PC World written by Jason Cross just to add more perspective.

Quote:

Shutting down your PC at the end of the day is so 20th century. What you probably should be doing is putting it into sleep mode. You'll save that interminable wait for your system to boot up, and it won't destroy the Earth or your bank account with a dramatic change in energy usage. Allow me to illustrate.

I have a fairly high-end system at home. It's a Core i7 920 based PC with 6GB of RAM, a high-end GeForce card (sometimes it's a Radeon, I go back and forth), and a reasonably quick Seagate 7200.10 hard drive. I'm running the final release of Windows 7. This is how long it takes me to shut down and boot:

Shutdown: 0:16

Boot: 1:06

Shutting down is pretty fast, but booting up is painfully slow. Bear in mind, this is what I call "true" boot-up time. It the time from when I press the power button to when I'm at a usable desktop (where you can actually click on things and get a response). Like your system probably is, it's not totally clean. I have Dropbox and my antivirus software loading at boot. Here's the numbers to go into sleep mode, and wake from sleep:

Sleep: 0:18

Wake: 0:02

That's right two seconds to get to a truly usable desktop waking from sleep mode. Shutting down takes a couple seconds longer, but waking my computer up is almost instantaneous. Not to mention that I can wake up my PC by tapping the keyboard, instead of reaching down to press a small power button.

But what about power, you ask? Am I running up my power bill? As long as your system BIOS supports the S3 ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) mode, no. The S1 mode leaves the CPU and RAM powered up, the S3 mode powers those down. Our article from a couple years ago on how to check and change your BIOS sleep state is still relevant. My high-end system uses some 120-130 watts just sitting at the desktop (not including monitor), and uses 1 watt when powered off (most computers draw a very small amount of power, even when off, so they can do things like turn on when you press the power button). In sleep mode, my system draws a whopping 5 watts. Five. What does that different of 4 watts mean to you?

My computer is running a lot more than the average person's, so let's just suppose your system is turned off 16 hours a day. That 4W difference works out to a whopping 1.92 killowatt-hours (kWh) per month. According to the Department of Energy, the average price for electricity in the U.S. is 11.59 cents per kWh, so sleep mode costs you 22.2 cents per month. The average home in the U.S. uses 936 kWh per month, so 16 hours of sleep mode a day would be a 0.21% increase in monthly power usage. That's what we call a "rounding error."

Of course, some systems use a little more power in sleep mode, but it's almost always under 10W. We have more on how to change the function of your computer's power button here. You probably don't want hibernate mode, which dumps the contents of your PC's RAM to the hard disk and then power off your PC, so you can resume right where you left off (with programs open and so on). With the large amount of RAM in today's systems, this can be a pretty slow option.

You should also make sure your BIOS and Windows are both up to date. Sleep mode has been finicky in the past, but motherboard manufacturers and Microsoft have worked out most of the kinks by now. If you don't update your BIOS and OS, it might not work right.

All that being said I still follow my regimen I stated earlier. I use some very CPU intensive programs that have inherent memory leaks. The only good way to dump all of that is to go through a re-start. So after 8 or 10 hours of say graphics work I likely will shutdown my computer at night to clear Windows. Windows is considerably easier to live with if it gets a normal shutdown and start up on a regular basis unlike a server which is designed to operate full time.

Components these days are so much more reliable than in the past that going through shutdown startups likely will not have a major impact on component life. The most common reason a computer would not start on power up for many years was the....power button. Cheap lousy power button. I haven't seen or heard of that being an issue in many years.

Bottom line do what makes you happy and if you have a regime you follow for whatever reason you likely will not have major issues one way or the other or create more global warming due to excessive energy use.

[BobT]

The first article claimed that you could cut the energy consumption in half by using the right power scheme.

The 300w usage while running is rather close however, I'll use my Dell PC for reference, when I put my PC to sleep, put the monitor to sleep, and turn off hard disks, my PC uses approximately 3.8w. Quite a bit less than half. In fact, that's less then the average night light.

If my PC is sleeping an average of 20 hours/day, those 20 hours at $.10/Kw works out to about $.23 per 30 days.

20hr * 3.8w = 76w/hr per day

76w/hr * 30 = 2,280w per month

2,280 / 1,000 = 2.28kw

2.28kw *.10 = $.228

$.228 / 30 = $.0076 per day (less than a penney a day)

It takes about 5 minutes to boot up. It takes about 30 seconds to wake up. The time it would take to boot up once a day is more valuable to me than that.

[LMITOUT]

Windows is considerably easier to live with if it gets a normal shutdown and start up on a regular basis unlike a server which is designed to operate full time.

That's why I shut mine down every night. Sometimes there is nothing like a good reboot to fix annoying little problems or laggy response. The reboot time is minimal and I typically will hit the power button as I'm walking by and go take care of something else before coming back and sitting down at the PC. By then everything has run its start-up routine and system checks so it's ready to go.

[mrklean]

i always turn mine off, plus you never know the cords, battery, anything can get hot and then your house is on fire.

[Steve Foss]

Anyone have shutdown/sleep perspectives on a Mac? I'm running a G4 laptop with OS 10.5, and I generally shut down at night. It's also set to sleep after only two or three minutes of inactivity to save juice.

[Shack]

Quote:

It takes about 5 minutes to boot up. It takes about 30 seconds to wake up. The time it would take to boot up once a day is more valuable to me than that.

5 minutes to boot up vista? You must be running every program at start up. I will time my toshiba, but maybe 40-60 second and I am at my desk top. I feel in the next couple years OS boot time will be just as fast as coming out of sleep mod.

5 minutes is waas too long.

[BobT]

Maybe it just seems like five minutes. It can be amazing how long a minute takes when you're waiting for it.

Maybe I should time both sequences once just to find out how long it really takes.

[BobT]

Shack, you read me like a book didn't you? Yep, you got it! I ran a test.

I shut down my PC and then rebooted. 2m:22s to completely bootup from the time I pressed the power button. Then I let it set so it would shut processes down and go to sleep mode. 6s to restart from sleep mode from the time I pressed the spacebar.

Right now I modified the built-in high performance power scheme so it turns off the monitor is 3 minutes, turns off the hard disk and goes into sleep mode in 5 minutes.

Is 2m:15s worth more than 7/10 of one penny? I like to think so. I like the way I've got ours set up. I guess that's the bottom line. If you're happy with how your PC is functioning then you're doing it the right way.

I think it's important to completely shut down periodically but every day may not be necessary unless you use your PC a lot, really a lot, during the day in which case shutting it down can be beneficial.

Even when Vista gets updates that require reboot, it automatically shuts down during the night for me. The next day I'll see a message that tells me it had to shut down to install updates. That's one of the things I like about the way I've got this one set up. Most of the maintenance is done while I'm dreaming.

[Shack]

Bob, I am going off track of the start up, leave run shut down debate

IMO even 2m:22s for Vista is to long. It caught my eye and I figure (depending on your PC's systems) something is happening that that does need to be during start/boot up. Something like a disk check, multiple programs starting up that are not needed at OS boot-up time.

I think statuesque is about 90 seconds for Vista. Here is an article from Microsoft about Vista Start-up and things to do to speed it up: The first part is what I had in mind Bob.

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Optimize Windows Vista for better performance

Applies to all editions of Windows Vista.

Which edition of Windows Vista am I using?

In this article

* Delete programs you never use

* Limit how many programs load at startup

* Defragment your hard drive

* Clean up your hard disk

* Run fewer programs at the same time

* Turn off visual effects

* Try restarting if there's a problem

* Add more memory

* Check for viruses and spyware

* Check your computer’s speed

* Disable services you don’t need

* Check for updates from the manufacturer

* Don’t settle for slow

No matter how fast or shiny computers might be when they are new, they all seem to get slower over time. That state-of-the-art PC you bought last year might not feel like such a screamer after you install a dozen programs, load it with antispyware and antivirus tools, and download untold amounts of junk from the Internet. The slowdown might happen so gradually you hardly notice it, until one day you’re trying to open a program or file and wonder, "What happened to my poor PC?"

Whatever the cause, there are a lot of ways to help speed up Windows and make your PC work better—even without upgrading your hardware. Here are some tips to help you optimize Windows Vista for faster performance.

Delete programs you never use

Many PC manufacturers pack their new computers with programs you didn’t order and might not want. These often include trial editions and limited edition versions of programs that software companies hope you will try, find useful, and then pay to upgrade to full versions or newer versions. If you decide you don’t want them, keeping the software on your computer might slow it down by using precious memory, disk space, and processing power.

It’s a good idea to uninstall all the programs you don’t plan to use. This should include both manufacturer-installed software and software you installed yourself but don’t want anymore—especially utility programs designed to help manage and tune your computer’s hardware and software. Utility programs such as virus scanners, disk cleaners, and backup tools often run automatically at startup, quietly chugging along in the background where you can’t see them. Many people have no idea they are even running.

Even if your PC is older, it might contain manufacturer-installed programs that you never noticed or have since forgotten about. It’s never too late to remove these and get rid of the clutter and wasted system resources. Maybe you thought you might use the software someday, but never did. Uninstall it and see if your PC runs faster.

For instructions, see Uninstall or change a program.

Limit how many programs load at startup

Many programs are designed to load automatically when Windows starts. Software manufacturers often set their programs to open in the background, where you can’t see them running, so they’ll open right away when you click their icons. That's helpful for programs you use a lot, but for programs you rarely or never use, this wastes precious memory and slows down the time it takes Windows to finish loading.

Decide for yourself if you want a program to load at startup.

But how can you tell what programs load automatically at startup? Sometimes this is obvious, because the program will add an icon to the notification area on the taskbar, where you can see it running. Look there and see if there are any programs running that you don’t want to load automatically. Position your mouse over each icon to see the program name. Be sure to click the Show hidden icons button so you don’t miss any icons.

The Show hidden icons button in the notification area

Even after you check the notification area, you might still have missed some programs that load automatically at startup. You can find and disable them using Windows Defender.

The Software Explorer screen in Windows Defender shows which programs automatically start when you launch Windows

If you’re unsure about whether a program should open automatically at startup, you can try disabling it, restarting your computer, and then using the program. If that causes any problems with the program, you can go back and re-enable it to start automatically.

For instructions how to use Windows Defender to check for programs that open automatically, see Stop a program from running automatically when Windows starts.

NoteSome people prefer to manage which programs load at startup using the System Configuration tool. For more information, see Start System Configuration.

Degfrag Your Hard Disk

Fragmentation makes your hard disk do extra work that can slow down your computer. Disk Defragmenter rearranges fragmented data so your hard disk can work more efficiently. Disk Defragmenter runs on a schedule, but you can also defragment your hard disk manually.

For more information, see Improve performance by defragmenting your hard disk.

Clean up your hard disk

If you want to reduce the number of unnecessary files on your hard disk to free up disk space and help your computer run faster, use Disk Cleanup. It removes temporary files, empties the Recycle Bin, and removes a variety of system files and other items that you no longer need. For step-by-step instructions on how to do this, see Delete files using Disk Cleanup.

Run fewer programs at the same time

Sometimes changing your computing behavior can have a big impact on your PC's performance. If you’re the type of computer user who likes to keep eight programs and a dozen browser windows open at once—all while instant messaging your friends—don’t be surprised if your PC bogs down. Keeping a lot of e‑mail messages open can also use up memory.

If you find your PC slowing down, ask yourself if you really need to keep all your programs and windows open at once. Find a better way to remind yourself to reply to e‑mail messages than to keep all of them open.

Turn off visual effects

If Windows is running slowly, you can speed it up by disabling some of its visual effects. It comes down to appearance versus performance. Would you rather have Windows run faster or look prettier? If your PC is fast enough, you don’t have to make this tradeoff, but if your computer is just barely powerful enough for Windows Vista, it can be useful to scale back on the visual bells and whistles.

You can choose which visual effects to turn off, one by one, or you can let Windows choose a bunch for you. There are 20 visual effects you can control, such as the transparent glass look, the way menus open or close, and whether shadows are displayed.

The Performance Options dialog box lets you turn on or off up to 20 visual effects

To adjust all visual effects for best performance:

1.

Open Performance Information and Tools by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking Performance Information and Tools.

2.

Click Adjust visual effects. Administrator permission required If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

3.

Click the Visual Effects tab, click Adjust for best performance, and then click OK. (For a less drastic option, select Let Windows choose what’s best for my computer.)

Try restarting if there's a problem

This tip is simple. If your computer seems to be running slowly and closing all the currently running programs doesn't help, trying restarting your computer. Restarting can fix performance problems where the exact cause is hard to pinpoint.

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Add more memory

This isn’t a guide to buying hardware that will speed up your computer. But no discussion of how make Windows run faster would be complete without mentioning that you should consider adding more memory to your PC.

If a computer running Windows Vista feels too slow, it’s usually because the PC doesn’t have enough memory. The most sure–fire way to speed it up is to add more.

Windows Vista can run on a PC with 512 megabytes (MB) of random access memory (RAM), but it runs better with 1 gigabyte (GB). For optimal performance, boost that to 2 GB or more.

If you're going to the trouble of opening up your PC case to add more memory, you might as well boost the total to at least 2 GB. Especially if you're the sort of person who keeps a dozen e‑mail messages, ten browser windows, and six other programs open at once—all while instant messaging.

Another option is to boost the amount of memory by using Windows ReadyBoost. This feature allows you to use the storage space on some removable media devices, such as USB flash drives, to speed up your computer. It’s easier to plug a flash drive into a USB port than to open your PC case and plug memory modules into its motherboard. For more information, see Using memory in your storage device to speed up your computer.

Check for viruses and spyware

If your PC is running slowly, one dreaded possibility is that it might be infected with a virus or spyware. This is not as common as the other problems, but it is something to consider. Before you worry too much, check your PC using antispyware and antivirus programs.

A common symptom of a virus is a much slower-than-normal computer performance. Other signs include unexpected messages that pop up on your PC, programs that start automatically, or the sound of your hard disk constantly working.

Spyware is a type of program that is installed, usually without your knowledge, to watch your activity on the Internet. You can check for spyware with Windows Defender or other anti-spyware programs. For more information, see How to tell if your computer is infected with spyware.

The best way to deal with viruses is to prevent them in the first place. Always run antivirus software and keep it up to date. Even if you take such precautions, however, it’s possible for your PC to become infected. For more information, see How can I tell if my computer has a virus?

Check your computer’s speed

If you try these tips and your computer is still too slow, you might need a new PC or some hardware upgrades, such as a new hard disk, faster video card, or more memory. There’s no need to guess the speed of your computer, however. Windows provides a way to check and rate your PC’s speed with a tool called the Windows Experience Index.

The Windows Experience Index rates your computer on five key components and gives you a number for each, as well as an overall base score. This base score is only as good as your worst-performing component sub-score.

Base scores currently range from 1 to 5.9. (There is no score yet of 6.0 or higher, although Microsoft plans to raise the ratings in the future as hardware improves.) If your PC is rated lower than 2 or 3, it might be time to consider a new PC, depending on what tasks you want to do with your computer.

For more information, see What is the Windows Experience Index?

Disable services you don’t need

This is the most technically advanced of all these tips. If you don’t want to mess with anything too advanced or complicated, you can skip this one.

Windows has more than 100 services running quietly in the background with names such as Network Access Protection Agent and Shell Hardware Detection. These typically launch when your computer is started and they run until your computer is shut down. Some secure Microsoft services cannot be disabled, but most others can be. Many software companies also install their own services, some of which you can disable to conserve memory and processor power.

You should not turn off a service unless you understand what it does and are confident you don’t need it. Explaining what the many services in Windows do is beyond the scope of this article, but there is plenty of information about this on various websites.

For an overview from Microsoft, download the Microsoft Word document on the Services in Windows Vista website.

Check for updates from the manufacturer

Have you visited the support website of your computer manufacturer to see if the company has released any updates for your specific model? Computer makers often issue software updates for programs they shipped with a PC, especially if the PC is relatively new.

You might be surprised how much information you can find by checking with the manufacturer. If other users are reporting the same problem you are having, the manufacturer might have already issued a fix, or at least provided information about the problem.

Don’t settle for slow

[LMITOUT]

I just timed my laptop which is running Vista and it took 1:41 to boot to the Windows screen, but it is still doing start up checks, etc as I type this. Tis the reason why I like to boot and walk away and come back when it's ready.

My desktop running XP is much faster at boot up.

[Sonicrunch]

I let it run. It does its backup during the night. It defrags at night. etc, etc,

[crothmeier]

i never shut mine off. i bet (pending power outages) it hasnt been shut off in 8 months.