Here are five simple tips to quickly speed up your laptop

However, there are simple tips you can follow to see a quick performance boost on your machine, which can be handy when you’re out with your laptop and need to get stuff done fast.

Quit foreground, background programs that are not in use

Programs that are not in use right now, but are running regardless, are the prime reasons for your laptop’s resources being spent for the wrong task. Close any program windows that are not necessary to the work at hand and you should see an almost immediate increase in performance, especially if you have an older, not-so-powerful machine.

Not all programs can be simply closed by hitting the ‘X’ button. You may also want to keep an eye on what’s running in the background. You can do this by hitting Ctrl+Shift+Esc and seeing what’s running in the Windows task manager. You can also check your system tray by hitting the upward facing arrow on the right side of your taskbar to see if any programs are running in the background.

Here’s how you can close a program from the Windows Task Manager. (Express Photo)

Close unnecessary browser tabs

If your work involves having a browser open at all times, you may want to keep the number of open tabs at a minimum if your machine is not fast enough. Remember that the more tabs that are open in a browser window, the heavier the toll on your RAM and processor.

Restart your laptop

A simple restart once a while can do your older laptop more good than you think. Restarting clears the temporary cache memory and allows your laptop to quite literally start fresh. Note that if you have programs that start along with Windows, simply restarting could be counterproductive unless you do something about those programs first.

Keep an eye on startup apps

Startup apps will silently build up over time and will not only affect your laptop’s boot time, but its general performance as well. These programs also mean your resources will be used behind these programs, probably without you realising it.

You can check for programs that start along with Windows by hitting Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open up the task manager, going to the expanded view and navigating to the ‘Startup’ tab.

Uninstall programs you don’t need

This one is quite simple but one of the most effective methods to free up resources. If you find yourself repeatedly closing programs when they auto-start and not opening them for a long time, you might want to consider uninstalling programs for the time being. These can be work-related programs, games or any other software.