Lots of variables I accept 《edited to remove personal view》
After say, five years, their performance is noticeably slower than it was when they were new, and the question is not in reference to increased graphical demands from games. The question is referring to day to day operations, web browsing and so on. Moving parts are limited, could they be the cause?
Thanks in advance
In: Technology
Hardware does degrade with time. Not the moving parts, the actual circuits suffer when they get hot.
Also thermal paste ages, and your computer will cool less efficiently so it has to slow down not to overheat.
Software becomes more demanding with each update.
Even websites get more demanding slowly as the designers expect people to have better hardware. (You wouldn’t assume someone with a 56k modem tries to load your website in 2021)
And this isn’t a windows specific issue.
There are lots of reasons.
One reason is the registry. The computer has a list or index that it references. This list gets longer each time you install something new, run and update etc.
With spinning disk drives files get fragmented. Each time your file grows it needs more space. Part of the file remains in it’s current location and the rest goes to the next available slot. With time and hundreds of thousands of files it adds up.
Another part is the person sitting in front of the computer and your expectations changing.
Software bloat is another thing. Programs generally get larger and require more resources as time goes on due to updates. Generally software does not get smaller or more efficient unless it has limited resources.
Bloatware, added programs, registry entries, updated programs requiring more processing power, and if no hardware maintaince, dust can build up and slow down the machine. More variables but I think those are the biggest.
Mainly they get loaded down with junk. Windows runs a lot of tasks in the background and these tasks can use the CPU and memory. Windows also has a registry that can get messy. A lot of people install a lot of junk with Windows or don’t uninstall the junk that comes preloaded with it. They also download and install programs without realizing it, never clear their browser cache, never defrag their conventional HDDs, and so on.
If their computer does start suddenly running slow, they don’t make any effort to pinpoint the problem. They don’t retrace their steps or roll back updates or check for viruses and malware.
I typically do a barebones Windows install or a highly customized one and keep my systems maintained and have never had a slow down issue I couldn’t pinpoint and resolve.
What finally does the system in for me, if it’s not a hardware failure that is not worth fixing, it’s that the web sites/applications
I use no longer support the browser versions the system has and the system will not support the newer browsers. Kind of dumb because I don’t do anything online that I didn’t do 10 years ago, but the industry propels it’s profits via planned obsolescence.
People are putting down some reasons like software demands and bloat and whatnot that can legitimately slow down your system, but no of the are the real issues.
The main issue is simply that your life becomes inundated with faster systems. Even if you don’t use those systems directly, you will slowly notice the effects of improved technology as it gets used around you.
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It’s a combination of factors:
More tasks / software bloating – The strongest of these is that normally you are asking your computer to do more tasks than before – some of this is subtle stuff brought in with Windows Updates and especially Chrome updates. Chrome started nice and efficient and a hell of a lot faster than Internet Explorer but has slowly gotten fatter and fatter. But it’s not solely the browser’s fault. As PC Processing Power, PC Memory, Browser Stability and internet speeds have all generally increased so websites have gotten more and more resource intensive (especially with the copious amounts of various advertising they force on you). The same holds true for a lot of software out there – that as PCs become more powerful so the software changes to leverage more of that power.
Security, security, security – A HUUUGE part of OS, browser and software updates is security based. It’s very, very seldom that security updates result in increased speed or performance.
Failure Rates – RAM, CPUs, GPUs, HDDs, SSDs all have failure rates and these tend to get worse over time especially if there’s significant heat in your system. I not talking total failure I’m talking bad sectors, I’m talking memory parity errors. Modern day OS and firmware do an immensely good job at handling this invisibly. Often you may not be aware that you have bad sectors at all. The sector has been discretely marked off limits and a replacement sector has been allocated. But when that happens it’s basically introducing a permanent fragmentation onto your drive.
OS / Registry scarring – Back in the good of days of Windows 98 it was a pretty regular thing to reformat your system at least once a year – sometimes due to a complete OS crash – but often wanting to have a clean version on because over time you add and remove programs, you get the occasional virus, you run registry cleaners and you install a ton of updates and well as any tinkering you may have done yourself in the registry. This all leads to the registry and system files not functioning as well as it should. Registry cleaners are a mixed bag – they spot a lot of problems but their solution is to delete the problems.
Top Recommendations:
Antivirus – check that you only have one anti-virus on your system and that’s it’s not McAfee. Multiple antivirus apps will interfere with each other. These days Windows Security is an excellent choice for your antivirus needs.
Switch to an SSD – If you haven’t switched yet and you can afford it I would highly recommend it. It’s faster and doesn’t suffer from fragmentation (assuming you don’t live with your system drive 99.95% full). HDDs are still good for storage drives but your system and games should be running off an SSD.
Clean install – Especially if you’ve upgraded between windows versions or even between major builds you will be surprised how much better your PC will run on a fresh system. This goes well with upgrading to an SSD. Download the USB installer from Microsoft’s website and get a completely fresh version of Windows with no manufacturer bloatware on it. Do make sure that you’ve backed up EVERYTHING you need: files, passwords, websites.
Remove software that you’re not using – especially any software that installs it’s own services. I try where possible to use portable versions of applications – that way you know that they’re not cluttering up your registry, system files and services. Also always check if there isn’t a default windows app that does what you want already.
Hosts file – Use your hosts file to block advertising sites – this is fairly technical and I don’t recommend for the average user but it’s preferable to using ad blocker software. It’s a fast, nasty but uncomplicated firewall essentially. What I do when I find a website that’s running slow it I analyze that particular website on webpagetest.org – I identify the external links which are causing delays and block those via my hosts file.
Upgrade you memory – definitely these days if someone has only 4gigs my instant recommendation is upgrade, upgrade, upgrade. Running Windows 10 you want 8gigs minimum.
It’s not just windows or PC and laptops. Every tech will eventually slow down. Your phones running Android or IOS will slow down too. As you use your tech, install, uninstall, update, etc, there’s always installation failures, leftovers from bad uninstalls and many more. All of these crap will cause problems, read / write errors that will lead to a overall slower performance of your tech.
Most of that comes from installing more and mere software. A bit more comes from updates to the OS itself.
I have run into a number of really old Windows PCs that were doing things like controlling a machine and often not connected to any network. These thing worked as well as the day they were first put into use since nobody did anything with them other than the single static program to control that one machine.
On the other hand PC used by actual people will over time have more and more software installed on them get frequent updates to installed programs and drivers and the OS itself.
Lots of software has pieces of it starting up with the computer and running in the background taking up resources.
For example the sort of software packages printer manufacturers want you to install can be extremely annoying that way.
Less computer savvy users may end up getting tricked into installing all sorts of malware like seemingly helpful tools that promise to download things for them, but really just waste resources and spy on them.
Antivirus, while necessary is also a big resource-hog.
It also doesn’t help that some program like your average webbrowser are not the same as they were years ago. Features get added and improved and all sorts of bells and whistles may be added to the program so that the current version from today takes up more resources than the one from a few years ago.
If things get too bad a clean install might make your computer run again, perhaps not like new but at least a lot faster than before. Of course that would be an extreme step since you would first need to backup all your data and later reinstall all the programs you actually need.
The only issue I had was HDD just getting old. I have a 12yo laptop, I’ve given it to my mom like 6-7 years ago. She recently complained it got really slow, bearly woking. Just bought cheapest SSD, poped it in there, fresh windows, it runs like it’s new. Also Ive cleaned it the first time, and changed thermal paste. It was cleaner than I expected after 12 years of use.
This is just pure speculation/experience from my side. (and you have much more detailed stuff about everything else from others).
However, it mostly comes down to heat, the more tasks, the more heat on the components, the more heat the faster the components degrade.
Based on your question. The most important component is the CPU, or rather the degradation of it. Because that will cause the computer to “act slow” (degradation of other components will more often cause other kinds of issues).
And for the past 15 years. I’ve used water-cooling for the CPU. An the PC is still “new” 7-10 years later. Now there are a lot of people who would argue that there are air-cooling system for the CPU that are just as good because they keep the same temperature (or even better). But CPU still degrates waaay faster in my experience. I don’t know what it is about water-coling systems fi its that they can cool the component down more evenly when load change or something like that, no idea.
And as I said, just my experience. But water-cooled CPU in a Windows PC gives the PC years longer life span.
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