Why Do PCs Get Slower Over Time?
We perceive computers slowing down over time for many reasons.
The first is deceptively simple. When a PC or any other computing device is new, it is usually faster than other PCs around it...other PCs at work, your home computer, etc. Over time all those older computer are replaced first, resulting in the original computer being relatively slower than others you use.
Over time, as software is added to a computer it takes up disk space and RAM. Large companies with popular software may assume a commonly used program should be loaded at boot time so it seems to "open faster." This of course makes booting/logging in slower and uses more memory. As memory fills up, the computer either can't open other programs or swaps the least-recently-used program out to disk (its swapfile) to make room for newer programs. Using the swapfile is dramatically slower than using RAM.
Windows (and other operating systems), security software, programs, etc. all tend to get larger over time, so take up more memory...the same result as above. Web browsers take up quite a lot of RAM especially if one keeps multiple tabs open.
As your hard drive usage nears its capacity, Windows takes longer to write to it. Even solid-state drives use "wear leveling" as each sector has a limited number of times it can be written...so the drive will move rarely-written sectors around so a given sector can be written to some more. As the drive fills up, more movement is necessary.
Some CPUs will deliberately slow down if they are overheating and can't be cooled fast enough. This may be a physical problem if enough dust, carpet fiber, or pet hair has been sucked into a PC and is clogging its fan or heat sink, or vents on the case.
If your PC is old, especially if it has a spinning drive, Windows may be spending time re-reading and re-writing the drive, if it encounters a drive sector that isn't functioning correctly. That means the drive is failing. You are making backups, aren't you?
This one is less common, but if your computer is infected it might be used for mining cryptocurrency. Symptoms would include constant high speed fan noise and higher than normal CPU usage.
November 2024
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