Tech Table Tuesday, July 15, 2014
July 15, 2014
Justin: Welcome to MPA’s Tech Table. I’m Justin.
Diana: And I’m Diana.
Justin: And we’re your hosts. We’ll be serving up a heaping spoonful of all things tech.
Diana: We promise it’ll be easy to digest.
Diana: It’s Tuesday!
Justin: Happy Tuesday!
Diana: [LAUGHS]
Justin: Absolutely.
Diana: I was not ready for the record button today.
Justin: Oh, we’re having a wild time here today. Boy let me tell ya. Boy howdy.
Diana: Yeah. So Tuesday.
Justin: Tuesday.
Diana: And what do we do? We have Tech Tips.
Justin: We talk about…yeah, we have a tech tip. And, so, people ask our tech team often why their old computer is so slow, and why it can’t be made as fast as it once was. You know, it used to be you could say speed up my computer and there were ways to do that. And now technology moves so fast you just literally can’t get it sped up to the point that it should be after a while. So, Diana, take it away here. Explain this…
Diana: Well here are some possible causes for the reason why your computer might be running a little bit slower than you are used to. There could be a slower boot due to installed software.
Justin: What’s a boot? A cowboy boot?
Diana: [LAUGHS].
Justin: No, that’s not what you mean?
Diana: No, boot up. Like starting up.
Justin: Ah yes, starting up.
Diana: So if you install software, device drivers or other applications that request to be loaded upon your computer’s boot up, naturally your computer will start slower, because all of those other things are starting up with it.
Justin: Right, exactly, like security software, such as firewalls and antivirus applications, they all must start up immediately to increase that security. And, you know, so it just slows down your computer, and so it just takes forever to load. I remember I used to have so many applications…
Diana: Yes.
Justin: And on Windows you would see them all down along the bottom. And, you know, it would just be like oh, there’s that one…okay that loaded. Okay, there, that loaded.
Diana: Yeah.
Justin: Okay, that loaded. Okay that loaded. Oop, error, that one wont load. [LAUGHS] You know, I mean, yeah, so that could really slow down the boot up. Absolutely.
Diana: Yeah, and some software partially loads at boot so that when you launch the application it seems to start faster.
Justin: Yeah, interesting.
Diana: Even if you don’t, you know, open it later, it’s partially already…
Justin: Yeah, even if you don’t…yeah, if you don’t even use it that session.
Diana: Now another reason why the slower overall experience due to installed software.
Justin: Right.
Diana: Just as loading those applications slow your computer’s boot time, they also may require additional CPU cycles, causing your main applications such as web browsers or word processors to run slower.
Justin: Right. Plus, more tasks require additional RAM, which requires your computer to use your hard drive as virtual memory. So, you know, you can offset…you can help offset this, somewhat, by installing additional RAM, if supported by your computer. And that’s what a lot of people do is install more RAM, but you know, eventually, you just can’t install more RAM, and the rest of the system just doesn’t help if you do that. And so, yeah, it’s tricky. So try to keep down the number of applications, installed software, that you have on your computer. And a lot of times I suggest, if you have…if you are using a computer in our industry, the music industry…if you’re using it for recording, you have to get a huge computer, or just get one dedicated machine.
Diana: Right, just use it for that.
Justin: To use for this one application because it takes so much space.
Diana: Yes.
Justin: Yeah, so, you know, if you’re in a specific industry you might try that.
Diana: Yes. Now something else, thinking about hard drive fragmentation. As you write and delete files on your hard drive, the locations of files become scattered throughout, and files themselves can then become fragmented. This causes longer time to seek for and actually load the individual files, slowing down your computing experience.
Justin: Oh, that’s interesting.
Diana: Mm-hm, I had never thought about that one.
Justin: It’s true. They become fragmented. That makes sense.
Diana: Yes. And a few other possible issues, quickly, might be updates might be needed, possible hardware problems, or the dreaded malware.
Justin: Right. You know, so if it’s too slow, just talk to your computer technician and ask him what you might do to fix it if there’s any remedy for it.
Diana: Yes.
Justin: And there may be. Until next time…
Diana: Take care.
Justin: Tech Table was brought to you by MPA of Bloomfield, Iowa, and God’s Country Radio. You can visit us online at askmpa.com.
Diana: If you have questions or comments, please send them to questions@askmpa.com. That’s questions@askmpa.com
Justin: And thanks for listening!
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