How to Fix a Slow and Lagging Windows 10 System

Windows 10 is great and there’s no doubt that Microsoft is pushing a lot of updates to make it even better. But, a lot of users regularly complaint about the slow and laggy Windows 10. There is no denying that a lot of Windows 10 users, or even users who are using other Windows OS, will face the slow computer issue. You will notice that your machine was really fast when you installed a fresh copy of Windows or when it came out of the box. But, now your machine is really slow. This lag in the machine won’t cause any major issues but it will make your overall Windows experience quite annoying. The slow and laggy Windows will definitely waste a lot of your time and might cost you some money especially if you are using it for business purposes.

The lag and slowness isn’t always caused by the Operating system, there can be a lot of various different reasons for the slowness of your Windows. The lag issue might be because of the low RAM or because of a virus/malware using up your resources or it might simply be because of a heavy program running in the background. Since there are many reasons for this, there are a lot of solutions as well.

Method 1: Turn off Unwanted Programs

The first that should be done in a scenario where your system is really slow is to get rid of unwanted programs. There are a lot of programs that runs in the background and uses a portion of your resources. These programs can cause a lot of lag in your Windows especially if there are quite a few of them.

Keep in mind that we aren’t talking about the viruses or other malicious programs that runs in the background. We are talking about regular programs that a lot of users use on daily basis like Adobe Creative Cloud or your antivirus program or OneDrive. These programs usually comes with a default setting to start on your computer startup. So, these will start running in the background as soon as you log in to your computer. A lot of these can easily be disabled if you aren’t using them.

1. Press and Hold CTRL, SHIFT and Esc key simultaneously (CTRL + SHIFT + ESC) to open the task manager
2. Click on the Startup tab
3. Now look at the programs mentioned there. There should be a few of them. Select the one that you don’t use regularly and click on Disable. Repeat this step for every program that you see in the list.

Note: If you want, you can open the program that you see in the startup and turn off the automatically start on startup option. The option’s location will vary from program to program but these options are usually in the settings and can easily be found. Just uncheck that option and save your settings so you don’t have to disable the program on every startup. Do this only for programs that you don’t want to start when your computer starts.

Check Antiviruses: You should also try to disable your anti-virus for a few minutes and see if it changes the speed of your system. Most of these anti-viruses takes up a lot of resources. The anti-virus programs scan files and websites before opening them so a lot of resources are being taken by them, continuously. Almost every anti-virus has an option to disable it for a short amount of time e.g. 10-15 minutes. Just right click on your anti-virus icon from the system tray (bottom right corner of your desktop screen) and select Disable. You will probably see an option of disabling the anti-virus for 10 minutes or until the computer restarts.

Note: The Disable option will vary from anti-virus to anti-virus. But, there should be an option in your anti-virus settings somewhere.

Method 2: Check Drivers

This method is for people who experienced the lag after a Windows 10 update. You can follow the steps given below even if the problem didn’t occur after a Windows 10 update but the chances of this working will be high for those who recently installed the Windows 10 update.

Basically, Windows 10 favors its own generic drivers over third party drivers a lot. So, there is a chance that Windows 10 might replace your old drivers with its own generic set whenever you install a new update. There’s also a chance that your drivers might be outdated and that’s what might be causing the lag.

The drivers that you should check are the display drivers. These drivers, if problematic, can cause slowness and lag on your PC.

Follow the steps below to check the drivers of your computer.

1. Hold Windows key and press R
2. Type devmgmt.msc and press Enter

3. Now, check your important drivers especially the Display Drivers. Double click the Display Adaptors and then double click your display device as well

4. Click on the Driver tab

Look at the information provided there. If the driver provider is changed then that means the slow and lag is because of the changed driver. Just simply click on the Uninstall button and follow the on-screen instructions. Once the driver is uninstalled, you can download and install your third party drivers.

If the problem isn’t solved by replacing the driver or the driver wasn’t changed then you might try to update the driver as well. Go to your manufactures website and look for the latest driver versions. If you find any updated driver then download the driver file and follow the steps given below

1. Hold Windows key and press R
2. Type devmgmt.msc and press Enter

3. Double click the category of the device you found the latest drivers for. For example if you found the latest drivers for your display device then double click the Display Adaptors.
4. Right click your device and click Update Driver Software…

5. Select Browse my computer for driver software

6. Click Browse and navigate to the location where you downloaded the driver, select the driver and click Open
7. Click Next and follow any additional on-screen instructions

The problem should be gone once you’re done updating the drivers.

Method 3: Scan for Viruses

A lot of the times, the slow and lag on your Windows is caused by the viruses. Viruses and malwares usually install programs on your computer and those programs runs on the background. These programs uses the resources of your computer as well as your internet resources especially if they are sending important information back to the attacker. If your internet is unusually slow as well then that is a good indicator that you need a proper machine scan.

Open your Antivirus program and perform a deep scan of your system. Do not perform a quick scan as that isn’t as efficient as a deep scan.

If you don’t have an antivirus program installed on your machine then we will recommend Malwarebytes. It is a very popular and very good anti-malware software that is trusted by many. You can download it by clicking here and download a free version.

Method 4: Fragmentation

Note: If you have an SSD then skip this method. There is no point in defragmenting your SSD.

This is another very important thing that is overlooked in most cases. Fragmentation happens over time which cause your computer to slow down. Now, what is fragmentation? Basically, the files on your drive gets fragmented on your hard drive. This means that parts of your files are spread far apart on your hard drive. Another way to look at it is that the parts of your file aren’t at a single place on your Hard Drive. This slows down the PC because the computer has to gather the parts of the file from the entire Hard Disk.

Fragmentation happens over time because the more a file is read, modified and overwritten the more fragmented it will get. That is why your computer might be really fast in the beginning but slowed down after some time. This maybe because of the fragmentation especially if you don’t de-fragment your Hard Drive on regular basis.

Windows comes with its own de-fragmentation utility that fixes this problem. So, you can run that tool and solve this issue. Follow the steps given below to perform de-fragmentation on your system.

Note: Defragmentation takes a lot of time so make sure that you don’t have to do anything else on the computer.

1. Hold Windows key and press R
2. Type dfrgui and press Enter

3. Select the drive that you want to defragment and click on Analyze. This will show you the status of your drive and how much the drive is fragmented. A rule of thumb is that you should defragment if the drive is more 10% fragmented. However, there is no hard in defragmenting even if the drive isn’t fragmented to 10%

4. Once the Analyzing period is finished, you should be able to see the fragmentation status of your drives. If the drive you selected is heavily fragmented then select your drive and click on Optimize. This will start the defragmentation process

You can take a break while the Windows defragments your drive. Once it is done, you will be able to see the results and the status of your drive.

Method 5: RAM

Sometimes the problem might simply be with your computer’s capacity. You system will obviously be slow if your computer doesn’t have enough RAM to work with. Even if your computer isn’t slow, it is recommended to have the maximum amount of RAM that your PC can support (or at least have a decent amount of RAM). This is mainly because having sufficient RAM does wonders for your PC. Also, RAMs are very cheap these days so a few dollars are worth the speed that you will get for it.

Upgrading your RAM will solve the problem if it was caused by not having enough resources. Programs like anti-viruses takes up a lot of resources. Having enough RAM will make sure that your system is running fairly quickly even with the anti-virus enabled.

So, go to your computer manufacturer’s website and look at your model. Check to see how much RAM do you have and how much is supported. If you have space and the money then upgrade your RAM. Because, there isn’t anything else that you can do if the problem is because of the hardware limitations.

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