How to make and keep PCs running fast

[GazzaGarratt 11,051]

One of the main reasons I haven't invested in my PC gaming is because of how PCs over a short space of time for me become slow and not running at optimum performance.

 

Can somebody help me out to understand why this would be and what could be done to combat this? I want to understand if its continued maintenance of wiping and starting again or/and if I have to buy new equipment to keep it at the latest and best performance to be expected.

 

I even notice it on my laptop I have today which is only 2 years old but takes forever to turn on. I purposely also didn't download anything on it, not even games so I'd be grateful for your input.

[GazzaGarratt 11,051]

Great convincing people. I geniunely need to know the answer to this if I look into a PC. I'm really not parting with my money until i know what to do on a regular basis.

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[The3rdWalker 1,271]

I'm sorry Lee, I don't have a well thought out answer. I guess I just don't understand how your machines tend to slow like they do. I've mentioned a few times I run a 2010 i3 Gateway laptop that I purchased on black friday for 400.00. That machine ran games I enjoyed for the longest time and I've downloaded all sorts of dumb shit which did not affect run times. The only problems I have finally run into are CPU and RAM issues.

 

I find most people lose speed due to startup. Generally installing a program and they want to make it so the program starts when windows starts, this is fucking nonsense and should go into msconfig> startup or now with win10 task manager> startup and disable everything. Solves boot time.

 

Disposable media to a hard drive: pictures, movies etc.

 

SSD: solid state drives now allow your os to run way more efficiently as there are no moving parts inside an SSD. 

[phil bottle 9,761]

@GazzaGarratt

 

If you're going to buy a PC Lee, buy an SSD, a good CPU and a decent GPU to begin with and it'll last a long time.

 

Rib made some good points, particularly on start up. I'm no expert but here's my take:

 

This summer my PC will be 4 years old. From switching on, to entering my password, to accessing a program/app/internet.... takes about 20 seconds.

 

No joke.

There has been no slow down in all the time I have had it.

 

I put this down to (a) buying decent parts (b) not filling it with shit I don't need.

 

It's main purpose is gaming so I don't have it set up to sync with apps like Dropbox or anything like that and I don't use it to store photos etc.

 

Like Rib says, an SSD as the drive for the operating system is the only way to go. Good thing about SSDs is that the price is much better than when I bought mine. Also playing multiplayer games from an SSD is highly recommended.

 

I do have a 2TB HDD for storing most of my games but games like Battlegrounds, Star Citizen, DayZ etc I keep on the SSD.

 

I've not had to replace anything in 4 years* and - other than a frivolous desire to upgrade the GPU for 4K ultra settings - I don't see any need to replace anything for another 4 years either

 

Here's my main parts:

 

CPU:                       Intel Core i7-4770K (4.3ghz OC)

GPU:                      MSI Twin FrozR GeForce GTX 770 OC 2048MB GDDR5 

RAM:                      Crucial Ballistix Tactical 16GB 

SSD:                      250GB Samsung 840 Series

Motherboard:         GIGABYTE GA-Z87X-UD3H (Socket 1150        

 

This site is also good for looking at what's recommended at the moment and I used it when purchasing my parts. http://www.logicalincrements.com/

 

 

 

 

 

*(other than a new PCI card for the motherboard following a freak lightning strike on my house which fried the ethernet port, cost me about £20. I no longer leave ethernet cables attached to PC or console at night time).

[GazzaGarratt 11,051]

That's a great help @PlasticGaming and @phil bottle.

 

I'll start looking at the SSDs then and my start up menu. I think as I've only ever experienced slow issues over time with my PCs and laptops, it just seems to be expected. It would be ace to keep using my 2 year old samsung laptop for a while though and maybe get that to run quicker is the first port of call.

[Greboth 2,721]

Whats the spec of your laptop?  It shouldn't really matter much as no PC should slow down appreciably unless there is some large software changes.

 

Abother vote for SSD's are great, I run one in my htpc.  A little overkill but it was spare when I dismantled my gaming PC and it does power button to ready to watch stuff in about 20-25 seconds.  I don't think I could go back to a machanical boot drive, they always seem soooooooo slow.

 

I would also look at if there are any programs you can remove that you no longer use.  Look in to stopping certain programs running at start up - it wont really make your pc faster but once you hit windows it will be ready to use quicker so will feel faster.  Also, look at your task manager to see if anything is using alot of cpu/ram.  If you don't know what some of the processes are google is your friend.  Some programs like using a lot even when just running in the background.

[tronic44 3,642]

Now this is going to be hard but you're going to have to stop watching porn 😄

 

Looks like everyones ones covered everything I'd say and great rid of programs you don't need and stop the ones you do from starting up straight away.

 

A good test is to start your laptop, then get up task manager and see what your RAM and CPU is running at. If half your RAM is getting gobbled up by it just sitting there then the chances are it's going to slow down when you run extra shiz.

 

In terms of buying computing shiz, always look buy good parts that aren't going to be obsolete in a years time. Someone at work was looking to buy a gaming laptop, the one they had chosen was good but I suggested to wait another month and save up more so they could by the version up. A lot of issues is people say they want to use it for gaming but then end up putting all sorts of software and going on to all sorts of funky sites. Phil's done it right, he's kept his a gaming computer. This also helps him to narrow things down if stuff starts going wrong.

 

Sorry saw this post the other day but was just finishing up lunch and was going back to work.....then forget 🙈

[J4MES OX4D 10,035]

Slowdown used to be a problem on PC's in the past and you'd have to manually ensure your device was free of unwanted programs, extentions and full of other collated crap you may have used in the past and forgotten about. Nowadays; PC's tend to be auto-optimised against such things where even anti-virus programs will happily remove any unneccessary background crap that you may not know about even when your computer is idle. Were kind of at the stage where computers run themselves and you can do what you want headache free. I'm still running off a 2011 HDD at the boot takes about 15 seconds and everything else is just as rapid. Just ensure that devices are updated and are clean of unknown programs or harmful infections. 

[The3rdWalker 1,271]

I would also chose against a gaming laptop.


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[tronic44 3,642]

7 minutes ago, PlasticGaming said:

I would also chose against a gaming laptop.


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Yeah I agree, the only reason I got one was because I don't have room for a PC at the moment.

[GazzaGarratt 11,051]

@J4MES OX4D my last PC is 8-10 years old so I see your point about new PCs.

 

Thanks @Greboth. I'm away right now but when I'm back home tomorrow how do I see my spec on my laptop?

 

@phil bottle @tronic44 @PlasticGaming If I do decide to start gaming again on PC then I won't do it on a laptop. Just need the right sized high performing one just for gaming.

 

And Rich....will keep it porn free unlike yours 😉

[tronic44 3,642]

Dont get me wrong, I love my laptop and you can get some insane laptops that'll beat most computers but they'll cost a fortune. I spec'd one up for work, duel graphics cards, all the RAM in the world etc Think that was about £4K 🙈 But that's almost at the point where it's so big and heavy it's no longer a laptop 😄

 

No porn? Ya crazy fam! 😉😄

[crispymorgan 1,056]

Gaming and laptop should never be used in the same sentence.  Unless that sentence is explaining how crap gaming laptops are.  I have a good laptop with a decent GPU, it gets SO fucking hot, and it isn't that good at games.

 

My advice would be to have a look at PC part picker and have a bash at the entry level gaming build.

[The3rdWalker 1,271]

The problem with laptops is you cannot change components easily or at all. Hard drives sure but a desktop allows you to switch in and out of hardware so you don't have to eat 1,250.00 every six years.


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[J4MES OX4D 10,035]

On 4/15/2017 at 2:50 PM, PlasticGaming said:

The problem with laptops is you cannot change components easily or at all. Hard drives sure but a desktop allows you to switch in and out of hardware so you don't have to eat 1,250.00 every six years.


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Plus an £800 PC as a laptop equivalent probably costs about £1900! Sometimes I wish I had a gaming laptop but in money terms it's just not viable. 

[cyberninja2601 1,106]

 

 

Lee,

 

A number of things that slow down a PC regardless of how good it is

 

1) Installing new drivers that are optimized for a different operating system. Right now Win10 is the latest. If you are running win7 (which is much better) your laptop will slow. Microsoft almost does it intentionally to get you to upgrade

2) Anti Virus and blocker SW. It's great but it makes everything slow. You are better to setup the SW to run at night or something than setup for host intrusion. Host intrusion checks every file all the time and therefore makes things slow

3) use a disk utility to defrag your disk. Data is not stored contiguously on a disk drive. It's stored where ever there is room which means that the disk is seeking the data all the time. That's why SSD are better because the access time is faster. However if you defrag and make the data more or less contiguous it improves performance. You would see that as your computer gets older because you have put more data on the disk so it's harder to find contiguous sectors. Think of it has having each ingredient for a recepy  store on a different room and trying to cook compared to everything stored in the fridge. If you were to cook the same thing, it would faster with the fridge

4) run the task managed (cntl + alt + del) and have a look at what uses up your CPU %. See if the process makes sense or if it's some Bullshit driver that was installed without you knowing and it will slow down the machine. Especially some of (diddums freeware, sorry Dave but some of your suggestions have made me reinstall the operating system, that talking application for example).

5) Finally make sure you run an Intel CPU, none of that AMD shit that Rob wants people to buy

 

 

 

[GazzaGarratt 11,051]

I've attached my Laptop standard info. Its pretty basic but only a few years old. @cyberninja2601 you'll be happy as its Intel 

 

My CPU % is not taking up by anything. I don't have anything installed on this but just seems to be slow on start up. Based on what you've all said theres not much point looking to use this for gaming anyways.

[phil bottle 9,761]

That's a decent enough processor, when you check the Windows Experience Index which ones give you the low score?

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[cyberninja2601 1,106]

5 minutes ago, phil bottle said:

That's a decent enough processor, when you check the Windows Experience Index which ones give you the low score?

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What he said. 

 

It should brake it down for you. Including HD and Graphics

 

 

[Diddums 4,346]

Ahem. 

 

 

Hi. 

 

 

First off, I'm still running an i5 2500k at stock clocks. This CPU will sit at 4.4ghz all day long with a decent cooler. That said, I've had no need to overclock it. I've also got 8gb of RAM which is the same age as the CPU. I have an ageing AMD R9 290 4gb which still plays everything I want at good settings. It's only when I start exploring the depths of 1440p that I need to start cranking things down. I have a Samsung 850 EVO 250gb SSD which still loads from boot to desktop in about 15 seconds despite being about three years old. 

 

This bullshit where people seem to think that you need a million gigawatts of CPU power and 15 GPUs to run a game needs to come to an end. The fact is that Intel are dragging their heels as AMD are offering no competition, so their CPUs today are only marginally more powerful than those of 5 years ago. Intel is instead focussing on Hyperthreading and energy consumption. I'm sure they have an entire arsenal stashed away somewhere in case AMD gets serious again, so they'll rip AMD to shreds. 

 

That means that a decent 5 year old CPU will still keep up with the latest stuff today. Granted when you push tech to the limits the newer stuff will spank it but for everyday gaming it's fine. Granted GPU tech has jumped quite a bit recently over the last year, especially with the 1070 and 1080s but even then, you're going to need to crank a pretty hardcore game to max settings to stress them. At 1080p, even a 970 will still max out most games. 

 

The thing is this: spend £1k today and have a rig which will last you a few years and then upgrade the whole thing when you're done. Apart from people who play at 4k, multi monitors, 3D and other specialist shit, a single GPU system with 4 cores, 8-16gb of RAM and an SSD will be perfectly adequate for years to come.

[The3rdWalker 1,271]

rule of thumb: i5 for gaming, bump to i7 if you plan to game and stream at the same time.

The Ryzen 5 series CPU is marginally stronger than the i5 which is going to put it in most gaming builds now.

Driver support has always been the heel of AMD products.


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