Kevin: Come on. This game is so slow. Get over here. Go this direction. Come on.
Randy: What the heck is up?
Kevin: Well I'm trying to play this game but it's all slow. See? Look at this. Everywhere I
try to get him to move, he goes slow, the thing moves wrong... Randy: Aren't games supposed to be fun?
Kevin: When they're working right. That's the idea. Randy: Yeah, that's pretty bad.
Kevin: So...I don't know. What do I do with it?
Randy: Well...
I mean is it just your game? Have other things been acting up or going slow?
Kevin: Well I got the PC about a year ago,
and over time it's gotten a little slower I guess. Especially when I'm online and doing
things like playing a game, it's gotten a LOT slower.
Randy: Well that's pretty choppy. I imagine you've got some
some stuff going on behind the scenes. Things building up, files building up.
I think it's time to clean your computer up a little bit.
Kevin: So like while I'm in the game, clean it? What do you mean? Randy: No, clean it up on the inside.
You probably have a lot of files that have built up over time.
There could be other things running in the background.The more things you install...
Kevin: So you're saying it could be my fault.
Randy: No, I'm not trying to lay blame here. Kevin: Okay well lets look and see. I'll close this game. Lets find out.
I'm just going to close down these things then, get them out of the way so you can show me
what I need to do next.
Randy: Well you said it was getting slower when you were connecting to the internet? Kevin: Right.
Kevin: Okay, well that to me,
you want to be very cautious because there might be a virus on your computer.
Viruses are very bad.
Do you have virus protection installed? Kevin: I'm pretty sure I do.
I have a thing here. I think it's called Microsoft Security Essentials.
So lets open it.
Randy: That's good because if you had a virus you could
potentially be infecting other people's PC's, because if you have a virus
it'll want to copy itself to others on the internet.
So when you go to connect to the internet, if your internet gets really
slow, it's because it's sending itself out trying to look for other computers to
infect.
But it looks like your computer's protected, up-to-date, you've scanned recently...
Kevin: Well I just let this thing go.
It just runs on its own. I never really scan any stuff. It just does it, so
hopefully I'm up to date. That's the idea I think.
Randy: Well that's good.
That's what you want. Kevin: Well that's one thing I've always wondered, is I've heared
of like adware, spyware, and you go online you see all these people. I'm afraid they're
probably giving me
some kind of virus if I went to their site but what are those things? Adware, spyware...
Randy: Adware is just software that is paying for itself through
advertising, meaning that when you connect to the internet it downloads
some advertisement
and that's what
takes a little longer when you connect because it's downloading stuff.
Spyware though is one you want to be concerned about because it's software that could
potentially be sending other people your information.
Kevin: Oh, that's not good. So does this catch it or do I have to download some other utilities?
Randy: Yeah Microsoft Security Essentials is pretty good at catching stuff like that.
Kevin: So I'm scanned. It's not this that's causing my problem. This is green. I have green.
Randy: Yes you have green so go ahead and close that down. Kevin: All right so I'm getting rid of that.
Randy: Right and I noticed you said you closed the programs earlier? You didn't
actually close them. You minimized them. Go ahead and bring them back up again.
Kevin: Yeah I guess that I was just trying to get them out of the way...
Randy: Yeah well they're not really out of the way because if they're
still open they're still taking up your system resources.
Your system resources are valuable because every little bit of memory
that is being used by something else can't be used by that game you were playing.
That's why you were getting so frustrated, right?
So go ahead, to close them down click the X. You acutally have to close
them down. Kevin: I guess I didn't close any of them.
All right I think I'm closed now. Randy: Yeah but you still have a lot of stuff open.
Kevin: So these things count too?
All this stuff counts?
Randy: Yes, every little bit counts. Everything that you see on the screen is
taking up memory.
I notice one in particular here,
down in your systems tray. It looks like you have
peer to peer sharing software. File sharing software. Kevin: Yeah well, I like to download mp3's
What can I say? I like music.
Randy: That one in particular, when you have peer to peer sharing software installed,
if it's just sitting in the background
running and you don't know about it,
it's probably using up your internet to support
other people's connections.
Kevin: Even when I'm not just downloading my own files? Randy: That's correct.
That's the default status for most
peer to peer
sharing software. Kevin: So if it's on is it on right now if it's down here?
Does that mean that it's running right now? Randy: Yes. Kevin: Well I guess that's not a good thing.
Randy: Well if you're not using it, then just uninstall it or
shut it down. Kevin: Shut it off? Just right-click
and close or something? Randy: Well it depends on the software. If you can shut it down
from within the software's menu options?
And in shutting it down I mean actually preventing it from opening with
Windows.
Kevin: Oh so you mean like when I start Windows it's coming on and loading then?
Randy: Correct. That's when most of these types of things start. Like I notice here you have
looks like an HP... Kevin: Yeah all this stuff up here just comes in as part of my desktop when I load it.
Randy: Right, and so
going into the options and preventing them is the best way. Kevin: All right so how do I do that so
I don't have to just keep closing them every time it opens up, because I could click the X but
what do you do to stop it?
Randy: Well it depends on the software. The best method is to go in into the softwares
menu options and if there's an option in there for preventing
the software from opening, use it. Kevin: Okay but what if it's not? Randy: You can also use
Microsoft
Configuration Utility. MSCONFIG
Kevin: Okay yeah I think that's familiar. I used that
a long time ago. I was told by a friend that I could make my PC start faster
if I removed Startup items. Is that what we're talking about it?
Randy: That's what you're doing. You're removing Startup items.
So Just type MSCONFIG into the search line.
There you go.
One thing that I like to do is just go right to Diagnostic startup.
That will prevent all of your startup items from loading,
and then if you click the startup tab... Kevin: Okay, when I did this I had done
selective startup and I went through and I chose what I wanted to start with it or what I
didn't want and things like that. Randy: Right. It depends. You can do it either way. Kevin: But I'm trying diagnostic. Okay.
Randy: Diagnostic
just prevents everything from starting. Hit your startup tab. There you go.
Kevin: Oh, so there's nothing checked. When I do it there's... Randy: Yeah so you just go through check the ones that
you know and want. Kevin: Okay.
Randy: And you can make that a little wider so that you can actually read
what it is.
Go ahead and
I would keep
Microsoft Security Essentials. You know you want that because that's your
virus.
Kevin: What about services?
Randy: There's a little button down there that says "Hide all
microsoft services". I'd recommend doing that
just because if you prevent some of those essential services from starting you might have
problems, such as your audio.
Kevin: Yeah well I don't want to shut off the sound.
Randy: And that's exactly what will happen in this so you need to go through and...
Kevin: Get the right things? Randy: Yep.
Kevin: So right here I proably want my game console because I think that's the game I was playing.
So I'll probably check that.
All right so I just click Apply and go from there?
Randy: Well look here there's one called NVIDIA display driver service. You might want to have that.
That's your graphics card. Kevin: Okay, so if I click Apply and I
start this all up and it comes back and it's not
like the way I want it? Randy: Then you can come back in here and then
put it back to the way it was. Kevin: Okay, so I just click here and just do that again,
like, go back and change some of the startup items or something. Randy: And I noticed
that now it's switched over to selective startup.
Kevin: Oh, because I made selections. Randy: Because you added selections. That's correct.
Kevin: Okay, so whatever I do here it's not going to kill my PC. I can just come back and
add some more checkboxes and then do it again to get it how I want. Randy: Or just put it back to normal
startup to bring it back to the way it was. Kevin: Okay, cool.
All right, I'll just click Apply then.
Randy: And then OK. It's going to restart your computer.
Kevin: All right. Okay.
Randy: And then Restart.
Kevin: All right so we're back. It's restarted. Randy: You notice a lot of things are missing now.
Things that
were there there before that aren't there now. Kevin: I'm missing my little
Media Center thing here. Randy: Right so all those
programs were once taking up your valuable memory that your game could
be using,
now they're not they're taking that memory.
But while we're here you should
go ahead and uninstall
the things that you're not using any more to give you more disk space.
Kevin: Okay so like these icons here that come on the desktop, I've never done anything with them.
Is that what you mean? Just remove stuff like programs I don't want? Randy: Yeah, if you don't want it, don't use it. Uninstall it.
Kevin: All right so I'll just put it in the recycle bin. All right, that did something?
Randy: Um, yeah that did something. It moved it into the recycle bin, but it didn't uninstall the program so
all the hard drive space is still taken up by that program still being there.
So you need to actually go into the Windows uninstaller. Kevin: So throwing it away
isn't getting rid of it. Okay so what do I do then? Randy: You just
removed the desktop icon. Click Start,
and then go to Control Panel. That's where the uninstaller is.
And under Programs you'll see "Uninstall a program".
There you go.
Kevin: So I look in here for that program.
Randy: Go through the list, select what you want. Kevin: There it is.
All right now I just click Uninstall on it?
Randy: Yep, and then follow the screens. Kevin: All right so just click Yes and follow what's in there.
So that's going to uninstall as it goes through here.
Okay, so then what? I've uninstalled some programs. Randy: Well, you've uninstalled
a program. There's a lot more programs on the list. You can just go through here and
go shopping.
There are some that are more important than others.
For example, if you see one in they're called Python don't uninstall it
because it's a script that HP puts on some of its PC's.
Other than that, if you're not using the software program just uninstall it.
You'll get a lot of important hard drive space back.
Also you have these things called temporary files. You mentioned that your
computer was getting slower over time. Kevin: Right.
Randy: So if you have your temporary file directly, this is the directory where
software programs will
temporarily install
files while they're installing themselves,
but a lot of times those files are left behind.
If the files kind of
build up over time and get too many, then it takes a lot longer for things to
install and for
other software programs that use that directory. Kevin: So it's like plaque buildup or
something. It just keeps building up over time. Randy: Exactly, so brush your
computer's teeth
by going in and removing that. Microsoft has a great tool called the
Disk Cleanup Utility that gets rid of a lot of temporary files.
Kevin: All right so let's clean up these disks. What do I do? I'm assuming I'm clicking Start and going somewhere?
Randy: You assume correctly.
The Disk Cleanup Utility, you want to click Start then go up to Accessories.
Find Accessories from the Start menu. There it is.
Okay, and then go down to system tools
Kevin: All right.
Randy: And there you should see Disk Cleanup.
Kevin: Ah, there it is.
And I just select my C drive.That's the drive I'm on.
Okay, and it's doing stuff already.
It's scanning
for something.
It's calculating right now.
Randy: Yes, right now it's going through and it's
looking at all of the different types of directories and
what files are in there. Kevin: It's trying to find the source of
the plaque? [laughs]
Randy: So if you look through here,
it's going to do some recommendations. Some of them that are
already selected.
Off to the right you'll see that it lists the amount of space that you can gain by
cleaning them up. And if you look there's 13.9 megabytes
by cleaning up the temporary files.
There's thumbnails, there's setup files,
things like that. This was actually pretty clean but you can get back
14 megabytes of space by leaving that checked. Kevin: Get rid of that temporary stuff. Okay.
So I just check the things that I want
it to clean out.
Randy: Right, and you'll notice Recycle Bin is one of them.
So go ahead and
select the ones that you want, and just click OK.
Kevin: "Are you sure?"
Yes I want to delete the files.
All right so
looks like the files are all gone we've wiped all that stuff out, the temporary
files and all that.
Randy: Yeah, you're getting closer. Kevin: I'm not done?
Randy: Well, you gotta ask yourself,
are you a hardcore gamer?
Kevin: I want a game to work well. As you saw, I don't do well when they don't.
Randy: All right, to better blow the brains out of your zombies or whatever it is you're doing
you can go and adjust Microsoft's visual properties,
the visual settings,
because
I guess there's a lot of things that goes on in Windows. The smoothing
of fonts,
animating menus,
things like that.
That all takes up
processor time and memory as well. So one thing that you can do, Windows makes
it easy so you can just go in there and turn all those things off before you
play a game.
Kevin: So if you don't like the fancy features, or if you don't
want them so much but you want
your game to run better and whatever, it just turns off some of this stuff.
Randy: Yeah, you can turn them back on later if you want them back.
So to get there
click Start,
right-click on Computer,
go to Properties, there you go,
Advanced system settings.
Look at all those things. Kevin: Wow, I guess there's a lot that is running that you don't even
think about. Look at all that stuff checked. Randy: But if you're just going to play a game, just select where it says
adjust for best performance
Kevin: Woah, everything goes away.
Randy: And then
say Apply. You'll notice things you look a little different.
Kevin: Okay it's changing,
changed the gray bar down here, and Start button changed. Okay so I click OK,
and OK again.
Randy: That's correct.
Kevin: All right so,
is that it or what? Anything else? Are we done? Randy: Well, your background also takes up a little.
I mean, if you're really hardcore and you want every last
ounce of memory,
go in there and right-click on the Windows Display desktop
and click Personalize and select a blank background. You do that by
clicking desktop background.
This can give you another megabyte or so in memory.
And then where it says Picture Location
click the drop down there,
select
solid colors,
and then click Black, because black is the new pink.
Kevin: Hey! The background is changed. It's black and it's looking good. I can already tell
by my mouse. I don't think it's
ever moved this fast. It's looking good. I'm eager to play my game now.
Randy: Well don't play your game just yet.
When you actually launch a game, most games have advanced display settings
themselves so you can go in there and
tweak the performance of the game.
So typically when you use a lower display resolution,
the game doesn't look as crisp but it plays a lot better.
It's a lot more smooth.
So you wanna try to find a comfortable display resolution that you can use for
your game. There's also lots of nice visual effects that you can
usually play around with
like shadows and things like that. You can either turn them off or you can have
them on.
Just experiment with it. Have fun. Kevin: Yeah I know my game does have some of
those settings so I'll have to play with them,
but I'm betting it's going to be much better. I can just tell, I mean
this makes me so happy just seeing how fast it's going to right now.
Randy: Well good. Kevin: Cool, so anything else? Is that it?
Randy: No that's it. You should be able to play your games in
record time now and blow up all kinds of zombies. Kevin: Oh cool. So here we are. We just
showed you how to speed up your computer, make it boot faster, run better
when you're playing games,
and we taught you how to do it for free. You don't have to pay anyone to do this. You can do this yourself with these
same easy steps and then
you can kill zombies quickly too.
So I kinda want to get to that right now, so why don't you beat it.
I've got some enemies to destroy. Randy: All right yeah go have fun.