5 signs your computer needs a tune-up

Computers almost never fail all at once. They slow down, they run hot, they freeze now and then, and you get used to it. Then one morning it doesn’t start.

The good news is that the warning signs are fairly easy to spot. Here are five, with what they usually mean and what you can try before calling anyone in.

1. Startup takes several minutes

A healthy computer, even one that’s a few years old, should show you your desktop in under a minute. If you have time to go make a coffee, it’s almost always because too many programs launch automatically when you sign in.

Every piece of software installed over the years tends to quietly add itself to that list: the printer driver, the cloud sync service, the update helper for an app you no longer open.

What you can try: on Windows, open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc), go to the Startup tab, and disable anything you don’t recognize as essential. On a Mac, go to System Settings, then General, then Login Items. Disabling is not uninstalling — you can always turn things back on.

2. The fan runs loud, all the time

A fan spinning up during a video call or a game is normal. A fan roaring while you read email is not.

Two causes come up again and again. The first is physical: dust builds up in the vents and air stops moving. A laptop sitting on a bed or a couch blocks its own intakes. The second is software: something is using the processor in the background without your knowing.

What you can try: put the laptop on a hard surface, and clear the vents with compressed air, holding the can upright. Then open Task Manager (or Activity Monitor on a Mac) and look at the CPU column: if one program is parked at 80% for no reason, you’ve found your culprit.

3. The drive is nearly full

When only a few gigabytes are left, the system has no room to work with its own temporary files. Everything slows down, including things that have nothing to do with your files.

The simple rule: keep at least 15% of the drive free, and 20% if you can.

What you can try: empty the trash — files still take up space until you do. Then look in your Downloads folder, which is usually full of three-year-old installers. Photos and videos are almost always the biggest consumers, so that’s where to look before buying a bigger drive.

4. Web pages crawl, but Wi-Fi is fine everywhere else

If your phone loads pages instantly on the same network while the computer drags, the problem isn’t your internet connection. It’s the computer.

The usual suspect is the browser — too many extensions, a bloated cache, or an ad-injecting extension that came along for the ride when you installed something else.

What you can try: disable all browser extensions, restart the browser, then re-enable them one at a time. Whichever one brings the problem back is the one to remove. If your browser shows a home page or a search engine you never chose, unwanted software has very likely installed itself.

5. Windows pop up, or things close on their own

This is the least ordinary of the five. Alerts appearing out of nowhere, antivirus switched off without your doing it, programs quitting abruptly: it can point to malware, but also to failing memory or a drive at the end of its life.

What you can try: never click a button inside an unexpected alert window — not even “Close”. Close the tab or quit the whole program instead. And before anything else: back up. If the drive is failing, every restart is a gamble.

What a tune-up fixes, and what it doesn’t

A tune-up deals with startup, disk space, overdue updates, unwanted software and backup. On a computer that has never been maintained, the improvement is often dramatic.

What it can’t do is make failing hardware young again. A mechanical hard drive in a 2015 machine will still be slow, however tidy it is — though replacing it with an SSD transforms the machine for far less than a new computer costs.

If two or three of these signs sound familiar, it’s worth a conversation. At QC Tech Support the rate is $100/h for everything, on-site in Montréal or remote anywhere in Québec, and the first call to figure out what’s going on costs nothing.