Why do computers become slow after a while, even after factory reset or hard disk formatting?
In: Technology
One major reason is your computer is doing different things. This is especially true if you are running modern software or using the WWW. For example, Wirth’s Law says that software is getting slower faster than hardware is getting faster, so your computing experience should be getting slower as time marches on. If your computer is from 2011, it probably runs software from 2011 well, as that software was written efficiently. Modern software in generally is written less efficiently as programmers use easier tools to write software in. On the WWW side, web pages are orders of magnitude more demanding for computer resources than they were even just a decade ago.
Part of it can be the hardware itself, though. One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that your CPU can just be running slower now (at a lower clock speed). The reason is that old computers fill up with dust or their fans stop working well. When your computer gets too hot, it automatically slows down the CPU (called “throttling”) to keep from overheating. If your computer is dusty or your fans have not been lubricated recently, it’s possible that your CPUs are essentially permanently throttled due to not being able to dissipate heat.
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