Why are my office computers slow?

“Why are my office computers slow?”

Well, Gary, there can be many reasons for your office computers running slower from hardware faults to bloatware and operating system updates. So, we’ll quickly cover all three of these in brief and help you to identify the problem.

When hardware has a fault, such as when there is a problem with the computer’s disk drives or in the RAM, then your computer will run at a slower pace than usual. This can be remedied by replacing any damaged components with new ones. It’s generally good practice to keep updating your office hardware to make sure they keep running smoothly. If you are trying to run hardware intensive programs such as graphics or 3d modelling, you should update your computer hardware much more regularly as advancements in graphics push components harder.

The second problem you could be encountering is bloatware. Bloatware is software that is not relevant or is of a malicious nature on your computer. Ranging from spyware to malware, or as simple as installing Minecraft on the office computers, installing too much software can make a computer run significantly slower especially if it’s all running in the background. We recommend opening the task manager via holding control-alt-delete to take a look at what’s running in the background.

Lastly, another problem you could potentially have is operating system updates. These are essential to the secure running of your network and computers so should never be dismissed, however, as new features are introduced and old ones phased out this does mean that they can get more resource heavy and increase load times.

There are a few ways you can improve the running speed of your computer: Uninstall those unwanted programs that aren’t necessary to free up disk space, delete cookies and browsing data, change the background image on desktop to a small and simple image, check the fans are clean and not obstructed or try restarting the computer.

“Oh! That’s great, thanks, but now nothing’s showing up on the screen…”

Ah, oh dear. Well, Gary, that sounds like another GFAQ in the making. We’ll answer this question (and many more, we’re sure…) next time.

In the meantime, if you or your IT department are looking for assistance with your IT services, consider giving us a call like Gary and outsourcing to one of our experienced IT  consultants. We can even be your IT department if you don’t have one. External or on-site, find out what AAG-IT can do for your IT services today on 0114 352 0688.