Slow Computer Emergency Repair Kit.
Written on 6:27 PM by Unknown
Is your slow computer driving you nuts?
Speed up your computer
and prevent it from crashing,
with no technical knowledge what so ever.
PC boot times that drag, getting stuck at login, programs that crash, web pages that take forever to load up ... the list goes on. It gets so frustrating that you just want to kick your stupid slow machine and vow to never touch computers again! Especially if you've lost valuable data, not to mention wasted time.
I actually broke my computer monitor once. Yup, it was 2 AM and I had just lost an English essay I was writing for class. I had a buggy Windows 98 system that constantly crashed, and though I was saving every couple minutes, when I rebooted after it crashed, the document was completely gone. Forever. I shambled into class a couple hours later with no essay and a sore fist.
My next computer was a gleaming, brand new Windows XP machine. Guess what? After a year, it was slowing to a crawl, and began crashing. Gee, thanks Mr. Gates! By then I had started my own web design business, so my time was extremely valuable. I did this part-time after work. One productive hour a night turned into three frustrating wasted hours, and I found it took twice as long to load up my email than actually reading them! I had to always backup my work to CD, fearing that my system would crash at any moment. I constantly went to bed angry and frustrated, which is certainly NOT a good way to get a good night sleep.
What a nightmare!
I constantly checked online looking for solutions to my slow computer. Forums, newsboards, I tried figuring out why I always seemed to buy computers that sucked.
More hours were spent every night reading little bits of information and trying them out. Some worked, some made things worse. Here's what I found:
* Most websites that offer free information offer only specific advice - "try this, if it doesn't work, try this." My evenings quickly turned into a scavenger hunt, and sometimes the information screwed my computer up even more.
* Other websites say it's the registry. The problem is that it's not ONLY the registry. That's only one specific problem (see the point above). Even worse, I did try a registry cleaner once, and my computer would no longer start. THAT WAS SCARY, and I had to take it to a technican.
* Too much techno jargon - I've come across way too many sites where the support staff ask me to do stuff that makes me go "Huh?" Then I look stupid to them, and their responses are either chiding or abusive. I didn't need that, I just wanted my freakin' computer to work, and I needed it in easy steps!
Because I am a web designer, I have crossed paths with many computer experts. A old computer repair friend's story blew me away when he said that he charged $150 to tune up people's slow computers on site. And it only took him 17 minutes to fix each one!
Before moving to another city, I begged him to teach me his techniques, as I still had constant headaches with my own computer. He agreed, teaching me the step-by-step checklist he uses to fix people's computers. I couldn't believe how easy it was!
With his list, and another two years collecting all the tips and advice I found, I revised, refined and simplified my own techniques to keep my computer in optimum shape.
I have a notoriously bad memory (just ask my wife), so if some computer problem again happened down the road (which it did), all I had to do is go back to all the notes I collected. Viola, problem fixed!
Then one night I got a call from one of my clients complaining about his slow computer. Since I was his web designer, he figured I was the "computer guy" to call. I fished out my notes and took him step by step through the techniques that worked for me, in the exact order that from experience I knew worked best. The phone call lasted twenty minutes. And guess what?
He emailed me the next morning thanking me and offering to buy lunch. His computer was completely error-free and blazing fast, just like new!
