How to make your pc run faster!

"This is not my article"
I read this at http://www.easycomputertips.com/article-makeyourpcrunfaster.html


Introduction

If you find your PC is slower at handling everyday tasks it may be because over time, computers get cluttered with unnecessary files that need cleaning out. A slow PC can also be because your software or hardware is outdated, but there are certain steps you can take to improve performance.

This guide shows you how to give your slow PC a speed boost and also to keep your computer free of clutter.
Causes Of A Slow PC

There are many possible causes of a slow PC. Because your computer is constantly working with files - moving, copying and deleting from place to place - it will eventually get cluttered with leftover files, some of which are not needed and just take up valuable disk space. You only have a certain amount of disk space available on your hard disk, and as it fills up the computer can begin to struggle to find room to perform its tasks.

If your PC crashes or freezes up, it may be a symptom of a slow or cluttered PC.

The brain of your computer is the Processor, and it may be that your processor is too slow to run today's demanding software. The processor can also struggle if you have multiple programs running at once - for example, if you have Word open to compose a letter while downloading a file from the Internet and also playing a song through your media player.

RAM is the temporary memory the computer uses to do its calculations. If you do not have enough RAM, your programs will run slowly.

Other components of your PC can contribute to poor performance, particularly your Graphics Card when it comes to running media and games software. Some hardware needs special programs called Drivers and these need to be kept up to date.

You may also have programs running in the background using up memory that you are unaware of, and in some cases, the problem may be a malicious program such as a virus or spyware.
Solutions

The following is a list of tweaks and tips that can be used to help improve the performance of your PC.
Maintenance

Sometimes, slowdown is caused by physical problems with your PC and its hardware. One example is your PC becoming too hot. It may be that there is a build up of dust which is preventing the cooling fans from doing their job. Your PC should be positioned in a cool place and its air vents should not be blocked.

Always turn off and unplug your PC before you clean it. A can of compressed air can be used to blow out the dust.

Like any piece of equipment, hardware components can start to wear out over time and eventually they will need replacing, usually with a newer model. You should make sure after replacing or upgrading components such as RAM memory or Graphics cards, that they are firmly in place in their slots.
Remove Unwanted Programs

There is a lot of software on the average PC which is unnecessary, and has usually been installed and then forgotten about over time. It is good practice to clean your PC of unwanted programs regularly.

Click on the Start menu then Control Panel. Switch to Classic View if you are in Category view, and double-click Add or Remove Programs. Look for programs that you don't use anymore, click to select them and then click the Remove button to uninstall them.

When your PC starts, Windows loads lots of programs including some you may not be aware are running. Often, these are necessary so that Windows and security software such as anti-virus and firewall can function properly. Sometimes, however, programs that are not necessary can be running in the background using up memory.

Hold the CTRL and ALT keys down and then press the DELETE key once. This brings up the Windows Task manger window which allows you to see at a glance all the programs currently running on your PC. The Applications tab will list programs such as Internet Explorer, Word and any folders you have open. Click to select a particular program and then click the End Task button to stop it.

Another way to stop a program running is if it has an icon on the Taskbar. Usually you can right-click the icon and select to Quit, Disable or Shutdown.

These methods will stop the program running for now, but it will probably start up again when you restart your PC. To prevent it from running completely, you may need to remove it from the list of programs Windows is instructed to run on startup.

To do this, click on your Start menu and then on Programs. From your Programs List, hold your mouse over Startup to see the programs currently set to start when Windows does. Right-click any of the programs and click Delete to remove them from startup.

However, not all startup programs are shown in the Startup folder. To see the others, click Start menu then Run and type 'msconfig' then click OK. This brings up the System Configuration Utility window. Click the Startup tab then un-check the boxes next to any programs that you don't wish to run automatically when Windows starts.
Disable Unnecessary Processes

The Applications tab in Windows Task Manager only shows the main programs that are running. However, this is not everything: there are also various Processes that run too. Click on the Processes tab to see them.

Many of the processes listed in Task Manager will be legitimate tools required for Windows and other programs to run properly. But you may also find some here that you don't need (and sometimes you may find a process belonging to a harmful virus or spyware program).

The information given here shows you the name of the process and also how much processor (CPU) time it is using up as a percentage of the total available. You can also see the amount of memory the program consumes.

You can right-click on any process and choose End process to stop it running temporarily, but it will most likely start up again when you restart your PC. You should be very careful when ending a process that you do not stop a process that is required by Windows.

You can identify what a process is for by using the Web. Type the name of the process, such as "svchost.exe" into a search engine and see what people have to say about it. If they say it is not required it should be OK to stop it. They may also give instructions on how to remove it permanently so it does not reappear in future.

There are many useful web sites for identifying processes, including:

* www.liutilities.com
* www.processlibrary.com
* www.neuber.com

Remove Malicious Programs

It is important that you use up-to-date security software to detect and remove malicious programs.

Virus programs can slow down your PC and cause unwanted behaviour, even damage to your data. Read this guide to using an anti-virus program:
Check For Viruses

Spyware tracks your movements on the Web for advertising purposes, but can affect your PC's performance as well. Use anti-spyware programs to remove it, as explained in this article:
Remove Spyware

* slow pc
* registry cleaning
* games software
* symptom
* ram memory
* security software

Clear Out Junk Files

Any time you visit a web site, your computer needs to download the page along with any pictures displayed on it. To prevent your computer having to download the same files again each time you visit the same web site, your web browser will keep a "cache" of stored files it will retrieve if the site hasn't changed since your last visit.

Although this means web pages appear faster, over time your cache can eat up a lot of disk space and slow your PC down.

Whenever you delete a file, it is moved to the Recycle Bin first, to give you the chance to change your mind. But the Recycle Bin uses disk space too, so if you leave lots of files in there you are wasting precious space.

You can read this article to find out how to clear out junk files, empty the Recycle Bin, defrag your hard disk, remove old system restore points and get rid of temporary files stored by your web browser:
Clean Out And Clean Up Files - Disk Cleanup / Defragmenter

It is also possible to use compression software to reduce the amount of disk space your files take up, without losing any of the data they contain:
Compress Files With WinZip
Clean The Registry

The Registry is where Windows stores information about your programs. Over time, this too can get cluttered and may affect performance.

You can use a Registry cleaning tool such as CCleaner to remove redundant program entries.
Streamline The Windows Interface

Windows XP (and the new Windows Vista) has a number of effects that make working with files and folders on your screen more pleasing to the eye, such as smooth animated menus and transparent windows.

However, these use the processor too which means they can cause slowdown. Right-click the My Computer icon on the Desktop and click Properties. Click the Advanced tab and under Performance, click Settings and you can choose to switch off some of these effects.
Tweak The Page File

When Windows uses up all the available RAM memory in your computer, it turns to the hard disk for help and uses a Page File as extra space to work with. If the Paging File is too low, Windows can run slowly.

Right-click the My Computer icon on the Desktop and click Properties. Click the Advanced tab and under Performance, click Settings then Advanced and you can Change the Virtual Memory settings.

The System managed size option lets Windows determine the best settings for you, but you can choose to set your own Custom Size if you wish. Type in the amount of disk space you want it to use.

There are varying opinions on what is the best setting, but many recommend putting it at 1.5 times your RAM - so for example if you have 512MB of RAM, you would set both the Initial and Maximum size boxes at 768MB. Click the Set button to accept your changes and see if performance has improved.

If you have plenty of RAM for your computer to use, then setting a large Page File is unnecessary and will just waste space on the hard disk. You should not disable the Page File completely though, as certain programs require it to run properly.
Update Drivers And Windows

In order to make your hardware work properly, Windows needs special programs called Drivers. Read this guide to find out about updating your drivers, which can often fix problems and make your programs run better:
Update Your Hardware Devices

It is also important to ensure your Windows system files are up to date. This can help fix problems and protect against security threats. Read this guide to downloading these updates:
Update Windows
Speed Up Games

Games performance, especially for demanding 3D games, is very dependent on hardware, specifically the graphics card and also your processor and RAM memory. If you want to run the latest games at their highest quality settings, you will need to have powerful hardware.

However, there are things you can do to help your current PC run games better. First, make sure you have the latest drivers for your graphics card by visiting www.nvidia.com for Nvidia GeForce cards or http://ati.amd.com for ATI cards.

Most PC games include display options in their menu screens. You can often choose from a simple performance setting - for example: Low, Medium or High, or you can get more involved with advanced options. Some games let you tweak or switch off things like shadows and other special effects that can put a strain on your system.

Often, it is a case of experimenting to get a good balance between visual quality and performance. A common setting to tweak is the resolution: choosing a higher resolution will mean clearer, more detailed screens but can cost performance. You can only go up to the highest resolution that your monitor can support.

When playing games, you should make sure not to run other programs in the background, especially anti-virus software, as these can contribute to slowing down your game.
Upgrade Hardware

Upgrading hardware such as RAM or the graphics card is a common way for PC users to improve the speed of their machine.

PCs bought from stores will often only have integrated graphics cards which are not powerful enough to run demanding applications such as the latest games. Many users later choose to replace these on-board cards with a better graphics card from the Nvidia GeForce or ATI Radeon ranges.

Sometimes you will not be able to get the most out of your brand new hardware without replacing other components which support it too, such as the PSU (power supply unit). You will also need to make sure any new hardware is compatible with your current PC's specifications before you buy it.

More advanced users can investigate the technique of "over-clocking" hardware to squeeze as much power and speed as possible from it, but this must be done with caution as it can cause physical damage to components.

Windows Vista users can take advantage of a new feature called ReadyBoost which enables you to plug in a USB memory stick which the computer can use as additional RAM memory.
The Windows Experience Index

A new feature for Windows Vista is the Windows Experience Index, which is aimed at helping users understand how well Vista and the software running on it will perform on a specific PC.

The PC is awarded a score based on its hardware configuration. When buying certain software, you will see a recommended Windows Experience Index score that a PC will need in order to run the program properly.
More Information

There are many sites on the Web with advice about improving performance and tweaking your PC. One of the best sites to check out, which has useful guides for tweaking your system settings and improving performance of specific games, can be found at www.tweakguides.com.

There are also many programs available which claim to be able to boost your PC's speed, however it is worth doing some research first as sometimes these programs can actually have a detrimental effect.

If you are looking at upgrading or buying new PC hardware, www.tomshardware.com has reviews and comparisons of PC components.

Third law of thermodynamics

As temperature approaches absolute zero, the entropy of a system approaches a constant minimum.

Briefly, this postulates that entropy is temperature dependent and results in the formulation of the idea of absolute zero.

Second law of thermodynamics

Consider two isolated systems in separate but nearby regions of space, each in thermodynamic equilibrium in itself (but not in equilibrium with each other). Then let some event break the isolation that separates the two systems, so that they become able to exchange matter or energy. Wait till the exchanging systems reach mutual thermodynamic equilibrium. Then the sum of the entropies of the initial two isolated systems is less than or equal to the entropy of the final exchanging systems. In the process of reaching a new thermodynamic equilibrium, entropy has increased (or at least has not decreased). Both matter and energy exchanges can contribute to the entropy increase.

In a few words, the second law states "spontaneous natural processes increase entropy overall." Another brief statement is "heat can spontaneously flow from a higher-temperature region to a lower-temperature region, but not the other way around." Nevertheless, energy can be transferred from cold to hot, for example, when a refrigerator cools its contents while warming the surrounding air, though still all transfers as heat are from hot to cold. Heat flows from the cold refrigerator air to the even-colder refrigerant, then the refrigerant is warmed by compression (which requires an external source of energy to do thermodynamic work), then heat flows from the hot refrigerant to the outside air, then the refrigerant cools by expansion to its initial volume (thus doing thermodynamic work on the environment), and the cycle repeats. Entropy is increased also by processes of mixing without transfer of energy as heat.

A way of thinking about the second law is to consider entropy as a measure of ignorance of the microscopic details of the motion and configuration of the system given only predictable reproducibility of bulk or macroscopic behaviour. So, for example, one has less knowledge about the separate fragments of a broken cup than about an intact one, because when the fragments are separated, one does not know exactly whether they will fit together again, or whether perhaps there is a missing shard. Solid crystals, the most regularly structured form of matter, with considerable predictability of microscopic configuration, as well as predictability of bulk behaviour, have low entropy values; and gases, which behave predictably in bulk even when their microcopic motions are unknown, have high entropy values. This is because the positions of the crystal atoms are more predictable than are those of the gas atoms, for a given degree of bulk predictability.

First law of thermodynamics

Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It can only change forms.
In any process in an isolated system, the total energy remains the same.
For a thermodynamic cycle the net heat supplied to the system equals the net work done by the system.

The First Law states that energy cannot be created or destroyed; rather, the amount of energy lost in a steady state process cannot be greater than the amount of energy gained. This is the statement of conservation of energy for a thermodynamic system. It refers to the two ways that a closed system transfers energy to and from its surroundings – by the process of heat transfer and the process of mechanical work. The rate of gain or loss in the stored energy of a system is determined by the rates of these two processes. In open systems, the flow of matter is another energy transfer mechanism, and extra terms must be included in the expression of the first law.

The First Law clarifies the nature of energy. It is a stored quantity which is independent of any particular process path, i.e., it is independent of the system history. If a system undergoes a thermodynamic cycle, whether it becomes warmer, cooler, larger, or smaller, then it will have the same amount of energy each time it returns to a particular state. Mathematically speaking, energy is a state function and infinitesimal changes in the energy are exact differentials.

All laws of thermodynamics but the First are statistical and simply describe the tendencies of macroscopic systems. For microscopic systems with few particles, the variations in the parameters become larger than the parameters themselves, and the assumptions of thermodynamics become meaningless.

Fundamental thermodynamic relation

The first law can be expressed as the fundamental thermodynamic relation:

Heat supplied to a system = increase in internal energy of the system + work done by the system

Increase in internal energy of a system = heat supplied to the system - work done by the system

dU = TdS - pdV\,

Where:

* U is internal energy
* T is temperature
* S is entropy
* p is pressure
* V is volume

This is a statement of conservation of energy: The net change in internal energy (dU) equals the heat energy that flows in (TdS), minus the energy that flows out via the system performing work (pdV).

Zeroth law of thermodynamics

If two thermodynamic systems are each in thermal equilibrium with a third, then they are in thermal equilibrium with each other.

When two systems, each in its own thermodynamic equilibrium, are put in purely thermal connection, radiative or material, with each other, there will be a net exchange of heat between them unless or until they are in thermal equilibrium. That is the state of having equal temperature. Although this concept of thermodynamics is fundamental, the need to state it explicitly was not widely perceived until the first third of the 20th century, long after the first three principles were already widely in use. Hence it was numbered zero -- before the subsequent three. The Zeroth Law implies that thermal equilibrium, viewed as a binary relation, is a transitive relation. Since a system in thermodynamic equilibrium is defined to be in thermal equilibrium with itself, and, if a system is in thermal equilibrium with another, the latter is in thermal equilibrium with the former. Thermal equilibrium is furthermore an equivalence relation.

Laws of ThermoDynamics

The laws of thermodynamics describe the transport of heat and work in thermodynamic processes. These laws have become some of the most important fundamental laws in physics and other sciences associated with thermodynamics.

Classical thermodynamics, which is focused on systems in thermodynamic equilibrium, can be considered separately from non-equilibrium thermodynamics. This article focuses on classical or thermodynamic equilibrium thermodynamics.

The four principles (referred to as "laws"):

The zeroth law of thermodynamics, which underlies the basic definition of temperature.
The first law of thermodynamics, which mandates conservation of energy, and states in particular that the flow of heat is a form of energy transfer.
The second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of an isolated macroscopic system never decreases, or (equivalently) that perpetual motion machines are impossible.
The third law of thermodynamics, which concerns the entropy of a perfect crystal at absolute zero temperature, and which implies that it is impossible to cool a system all the way to exactly absolute zero.

There have been suggestions of additional laws, but none of them have anything like the generality of the accepted laws, and they are not mentioned in standard textbooks.[

Heat Transfer Mechanism

There are three mechanisms by which heat (energy) is transferred in the atmosphere:

1. radiation
2. conduction
3. convection

Let's consider each of these individually.......







Conduction
* Heat transfer through molecular motions
* from warm to cold
* consider a metal bar
* Heat transfer through molecular motions
* from warm to cold
* Heat transfer through molecular motions
* from warm to cold
* Other examples of conduction??
* What is an atmospheric example of conduction??

Conductivity: materials ability to transfer heat by conduction.




Convection

* Transfer of heat through mass movement of a substance
* the "substance" could be air or water
Atmospheric Convection

* What are examples of convection in the atmosphere?
* thermals -->>
* consider a hot parcel of air near the ground
* Q: what is the parcel going to do?
* A: it's going to rise - a thermal is formed
* thermals generate turbulent motions near the ground - noticable during takeoff/landing in airplanes
* Q: when is the best time for thermals to form?
* A: During Mid afternoon When the ground is Hottest.
* If the thermal is vigorous enough, it will often form a cloud and sometimes grow into a thunderstorm.
* Hence, thunderstorms are often referred to as "convection"
* Other examples of convection?



Radiation
* Radiant energy - the transfer of energy via electromagnetic waves.
* examples:
o sun warms your face
o apparent heat of a fire
o others?
* Q: Using the three mechanisms for heat transport that we just discussed, show with a diagram how a thunderstorm can form.