The computer has taken on a very important role in the lives of 100% of the working population. It stopped being just something to wonder at and has become an application that is an extension of everything that a businessman, an educator, a parent and a person who wants entertainment depends on. We spend thousands of dollars on computers and no matter how high-end we go, a slow computer will always become a reality within a few months, years if we're lucky. A lot of us don't think about constant maintenance when it comes to the computer and we often either don't know how to fix a slow computer or we can't fathom what happened to make it slow down to a crawl. The answer is simple, a computer is like a car and every once in a while it needs a sort of tune up to avoid various problems that occur over time. Here are some tips and tricks on how to fix a slow computer.

Defragment your data. It is perhaps one of the easiest ways to fix a slow computer and the tool is even placed conveniently in the programs bar, so there is no excuse for you to not use it. What happens is that every time the computer starts up and executes a program, parts of the information gets stored in different sectors of the hard drive and over time, this problem becomes compounded. So, Windows has to reorganise all the information every time to execute a program, start the computer or even do something as simple as a command line execution. You can easily solve this problem with a simple defrag of the disk.

Also, have a look at your start-up menu and view how many programs you really need to take up the start up time of the computer. A lot of the problem boils down to Windows reallocating programs to the start up because of the command line in the program itself. Investigating this and removing a host of unnecessary programs you don't need at start up will speed up your computer.

Have a look at your registry as well and that could be the cause of the massive slowdowns of the computer. The registry is the nexus of the computer, the brain which determines how it runs and what it does, even its speed. A lot of the time, stuff like malware, viruses, adware and normal junk build-up in the registry will cause its indexes to be cluttered with invalid entry strings, program associations and even registry keys which are blank and unusable. This slows the down the process when Windows refers to the registry for key instructions on how to handle a program load or execute code functions within the Windows environment. Putting it simply, the registry, this small file that contains loads of binary data is the be all and end all of Windows and cleaning it out with a registry cleaner and making sure it is impeccable will ensure your computer's speed is at lightning speed. With these tips and tricks to fix a slow computer, you will have your machine running at optimal levels in no time.