This is one of the most common things I almost hear on a daily basis. So what do you do first ? Well the first thing I do is open the computer and see how much dust has built up inside. Sometimes computers are like wonderful vacuum cleaners. I have seen some where the dust is so bad it actually looks like a home made filter for a furnace. I have seen the heat sink for the microprocessor packed with dust so no heat will dissipate. Usually if really bad the computer will overheat causing the computer to shut off.
The next step is to get that dust and dirt out of there. I do not recommend using any kind of a brush inside the case because it will not be static safe. You could easily damage the motherboard with esd damage. That is electrostatic discharge damage resulting a bad motherboard as well as other components. What I would suggest is to use an air compressor to blow the dust and dirt out of the case and fans. When you blow out a fan I would use something to keep the fan from spinning. If it spins too fast you can damage it by too much current and also damage the bearings in the fan.
At this point I also check the motherboard for any bulging or expanded capacitors.
There are occasions when the capacitor is expanded at the bottom. The capacitor expands because heat has built up in the capacitor, which results in the visible damage. There have been bad batches of capacitors through manufacturing. An experienced individual can replace the capacitors. Just make sure you have the correct voltage rating and capacitance. I also measure the height and diameter of the capacitor to try and keep it as close to what the manufacturer used. The other reason it may have expanded is from the power in a house for example shutting off and coming back on. The usual surge protector will not protect the equipment from this. They are for protecting from a lightning strike by absorbing to power coming down the line to the system. The best protection is to use a battery back up system that has a built in surge protector. This way if the power goes out then the battery kicks in and you don`t have that sudden on and off surge. Power supplies in systems can cause the damage as well or just a defective motherboard.
The most common cause of slowness may be from a virus, malware, spyware or adware that has gotten into the system. I would recommend using programs such as free malwarebytes, spybot, combofix, super anti-spyware and whatever antivirus program is installed on your computer. I would run all scans in the safe mode. With windows 8 you can set the software to always go to a safe boot with networking. Just remember to reset it when done. This link is good as well as others http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/ss/windows-8-safe-mode.htm . Windows xp, vista and windows 7 can be placed in the safe mode by pressing the F8 key on the keyboard during the post test when the system is first powering on, then choose safemode with networking.
Another item I would check is the hard drive. Usually the manufacture will have a diagnostic partition that may be entered by pressing a certain key at start up. See the manufacturers instructions, because they all vary depending on if it`s a Dell, Asus, Acer, HP etc..... You can also run the test on the hard drive within the system or what I prefer is to use a boot disk such as Hirens, Ultimate Boot Disk or Win & PE. These can be downloaded from the internet and are iso files which will be needed to be burned to a cd disk. Western digital and seagate also have programs that can be downloaded and run as well.
Another item that can cause problems is the amount of system ram memory. In older systems 2gb is usually the most windows xp would use. In Vista, Windows 7 and 8, I would recommend 8gb or more. You can download a free program called Memtest 86+ off the internet and install it on a cd to boot from to test the memory.
Always make sure windows updates are installed and working properly. If problems are not solved I would save all data, Reformat the hard drive and reinstall all software, drivers and components. If you are not comfortable with this, then I would seek out a professional.
Thank You for reading. Any comments or questions are always welcomed. Stay Safe
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