Top 15 Best Tips To Make Your Windows Laptop & PC 100X Faster 2021

It is sure that all the laptops and computers will experience slower speeds at some point in the future as software becomes more hardware intensive and the way your Laptop or PC behaves to these changes can have a significant impact on its performance. 

Note that you should beware of those "Speed Up Your PC!" ads for registry cleaners, which often lead to malware. Microsoft categorically does not support the use of registry cleaners for Windows 10.

Be warned: There could be trade-offs. More speed could mean less battery life in the case of a laptop, or you may have to give up a beloved program that’s bogging things down. You’ll have to decide what sacrifices you’re willing to make in order to make your Windows PC or laptop faster. 

In this Laptop & PC speed-up guide, we'll walk you through 15 ways you can try to speed up, optimize, and improve the performance of your computer – whether it has an older or modern hardware configuration. We hope that these tips & tricks will help you speed up your sluggish laptop and make it faster.

1) Restart Device 

Source: Wikihow

Although it might be obvious, it's not the first thing that comes to everyone's mind, but shutting down and restarting your device is among the first things on the list you want to do to improve the overall experience. 

When you shut down or restart, the system will close all the running applications and processes & the data stored in memory will be cleared, which should help resolve the most common performance issues caused by keeping the operating system running for a long time. 

2) Change Power Settings 

Source: Windows Central

If you’re using the Windows “Power saver” plan, you’re slowing down your PC or Laptop. That plan reduces your PC’s performance in order to save energy. (Even desktop PCs typically have a “Power saver” plan). Changing your power plan from “Power saver” to “High performance” or “Balanced” will give you an instant performance boost.

Desktop users have no reason to choose “Power saver,” and even laptop users should consider the “Balanced” option when unplugged — and “High performance” when connected to a power source.

3) Install Latest Update

Microsoft is always proactively releasing updates to fix problems, add new features, and patch security vulnerabilities. While sometimes updates are the reason for things not working correctly, maintaining the update can speed up your computer.

Install Cumulative Updates
On Windows 10, updates happen automatically, but depending on the update or how the device is configured, they don't always download and install as soon as they become available. If your computer is running slower than usual, it could be possible that an update is available to improve performance. 

Source: Windows Central

Upgrade to Latest Version
If the device has an older release of Windows 10, upgrading to the most recent version can speed up the performance or introduce new features that could make you more productive to get work done faster.

Source: Windows Central

Update Device Drivers
If your computer is running slow because of a compatibility issue or a poorly designed driver, you may be able to resolve the performance issue by downloading and installing the most stable or pre-release version of the driver available from the manufacturer support website manually. 
Quick note: Whenever possible, it is recommended to use the manufacturer support website instructions to complete this task.

Source: Windows Central

Update applications
Outdated apps can slow down a computer, and usually, this is due to bugs or compatibility problems with a new version of Windows 10. 
While apps you install from the Microsoft Store can update automatically, many traditional desktop apps need to be updated manually. If you have an app causing performance problems, you should check your software support website for a newer update and the instructions to install it.

Source: Windows Central

4) Perform Malware Scan 

Source: PC World

When a device starts to operate slow, this could be a sign of a malware infection. Usually, viruses, spyware, and other malware types are known to take up many system resources making a device unusable. 
Although Windows 10 comes with Microsoft Defender Antivirus, it does not guarantee that malware will make its way into the system. If you suspect the computer has been infected, you should try running a full virus scan. 
In case, your PC is attacked by some rogue virus and Windows Defender is unable to remove it then we recommend installing Malwarebytes to clean up your PC. Malwarebytes will speed up Windows 10 and also remove malware and rogue programs. 

5) Disable Startup Apps

Source: Business Insider

Startup programs are basically applications that start running the moment you turn on your Windows 10 PC. These apps eat away at your computer resources and slow down Windows significantly. 
The biggest problem with these startup programs is that they make your Windows 10 PC slow to boot as there are too many apps gobbling up your PC resources. 
If you want to speed up Windows 10, you should disable all these applications running at startup or those you do not use regularly.
Once you have disabled it, the device should now start faster than before. Of course, the improvement gain will vary depending on the apps you disabled and hardware configuration.

6) Disable Search Indexing 

Source: Online Tech Tips

Although Windows 10 search is an important feature to find apps, settings, and files, the indexing process can sometimes consume many resources that can negatively impact the experience – especially on low-end devices.
The reason I am recommending you to disable indexing is that having good performance all the time outweighs searching quickly once a day. So the bottom line is, if you are using an old PC with low configurations, then go ahead and disable indexing to speed up Windows 10 PC.
Note: The popular myth is that disabling indexing turns off Windows search. But that is simply not true. You can still search on your Windows PC, however, it will be a tad slower.

7) Disable Background Apps

Source: Windows Central

On Windows 10, certain applications can continue to run tasks in the background even when not using them. If you want to speed up your device as much as possible, you can decide which apps can operate in the background or disable the feature to block all apps. 
Once you have disabled the background apps, the apps will not waste any more resources when you do not actively use them to increase system performance.
The option is only available for Microsoft Store apps. If you have some traditional desktop apps that run in the background, you will need to change the application settings.

8) Disable System Visual Effects

Source: Into Windows

On Windows 10, you will find many visual effects from animations to shadows to more advanced visuals elements, such as blur and transparency, reveal highlights, and part of the Fluent Design language.
Although these effects can make the experience more visually appealing, they also require system resources that can slow down computers with older hardware. However, you can disable these effects to save resources and make Windows 10 seem a little faster.
Once the visual effects are disabled then interacting with elements (windows and menus) will feel more responsive.
A quick tip: Using this option will also affect the way fonts are rendered. If you want to keep fonts crisp and more readable, select the Custom option, clear all the settings, but leave the Smooth edges of screen fonts option checked.

9) Clean-Up Hard Drive Space

Source: Windows Central

Whether it is a traditional Disk Hard Drive (HDD) or Solid-State Drive (SSD), it's never wise to use a device with a hard drive almost full because it will affect performance.

If the device has relatively new hardware and you notice apps, managing files, and other tasks are struggling to complete, it is likely because the drive is running out of space. Typically, this becomes more evident after 70 percent of the total capacity has been used.
One way to prevent the storage from impacting performance is to use Storage Sense to delete temporary and unnecessary files to reclaim space.

10) Use Drive Defragmentation

Source: Microsoft Support

If you have a device with older hardware with a traditional rotating platters hard drive, organizing the data can increase the machine's responsiveness. 
After you complete the steps, the utility will rearrange the files to make them accessible more quickly the next time they are needed, translating into noticeable performance improvement. The only caveat is that the process can take a long time depending on the amount of data stored on the drive, (If you have an older system, it is best to leave the process running overnight.)
If you have a device with an SSD, using the defragmentation tool will run the trim command to inform the storage device of the blocks with data that can be safely erased. This process can significantly improve performance because the drive won't have to erase the blocks during the writing data process.

11) Uninstall Unnecessary Software & Apps

Source: Business Insider

Usually, new devices come bundled with many applications you do not need, including the usual bloatware and system tools you will never use and will only waste space on the hard drive and resources. When you are trying to increase the system performance, you should always remove those non-essential applications.

12) Turn Off Tips & Notifications

Source: Windows Central

It may seem odd for a tips article to tell you to turn off the Windows Tips feature, but it can reduce processing that Windows needs to do to display relevant tips for your system. The same can be said for Notifications. If Windows doesn't need to generate a notification, your computing will go faster. Simply open the Settings app's Notifications & actions page to change the notification settings. You'll see a list of individual apps that can send notifications, and you can uncheck those you don't want to hear from. If you have a lot of these, too, go through the list and you're bound to find sources from which you have no need to be notified. The distraction savings alone can speed up your PC use, if only in terms of your perception of computing speed. An easy way to pause notifications is to tap the Focus Assist button in the Action Center. This also makes it easier to re-enable them later.

13) Install Quality & Verified Apps Only

Source: Digital Citizens

Here it's a well-known piece of advice. Old and poorly designed apps and apps that load unnecessary features can negatively affect performance. Also, just because an app comes from a known company does not mean it's a good app. 
If you want to keep your device in a good healthy and snappy, only install good apps. Typically, you want to install apps available from the Microsoft Store, which have been checked for security and performance.
If the app is not available in the Microsoft Store, then download the installer from the trusted source & confirm that they were designed for windows only, and follow the vendor support website step to install and configure the program.

14) Upgrade System Memory 

Source: Windows Central

Insufficient system memory can also be why your desktop or laptop is running slow, especially if you work with multiple apps and many open tabs in the web browser.
If you want to determine whether your computer needs more memory, you first need to find out the total amount of memory installed on the device and how the system is using it. 
To view the total amount and current memory usage, You can open Task Manager, then click the Performance tab & Click on Memory from the left pane. On the right, check the total amount of RAM in the top-right corner, and in the bottom-left corner, under "In use (Compressed)," you can find the out total amount of memory currently in use.
If the total amount of "in use" memory is constantly high (around 80 percent), then it's time to add memory sticks.
Although the process to add more memory is relatively straightforward, finding a compatible kit can be tricky. Always remember to use Task Manager to find out the type of memory you need and if there are any slots available. It is also recommended to check your device manufacturer's website to find more specific information about the memory requirements. Then you can choose any Memory Stick according to your system requirements.

15) Upgrade to Faster Drive

Source: Beebom

I believe Windows 10 is a great operating system — almost as good as the macOS — but it has been marred by sloppy hardware over the years. Most of us use Windows 10 on a mechanical hard drive (HDD), which is quite slow, and further results in sluggish performance. However, swapping it with a modern-age solid-state drive (SSD) speeds up Windows 10 to a far greater degree. SSD is much faster than HDD because of its flash memory chip.   
If you have done everything mentioned in this article and still your Windows PC is slow, it’s simply because of the old hardware. As they say, you cannot replace the hardware with software. You should consider replacing the HDD with an SSD. I am confident you will notice a sea-level change in daily operations and overall tasks & in the future, always prefer an SSD laptop over an HDD one.