Learning Center
Speed up your PC with power settings
Windows ships tuned to save battery, not to feel fast. Two minutes of settings changes often produce a speed difference you can genuinely feel, especially on laptops.
1. Switch the power mode
Go to Settings, System, Power & battery. Find Power mode and set it to Best performance. On a desktop this is nearly always the right choice. On a laptop, use Best performance while plugged in and Balanced on battery if runtime matters to you.
On Windows 10 the same control lives in Settings, System, Power & sleep, Additional power settings, where you choose the High performance plan.
2. Stop the computer from napping mid-task
On the same Power & battery page, open Screen and sleep. When plugged in, set the screen to turn off after 10 or 15 minutes and sleep to Never or a long interval. A computer that sleeps aggressively feels slow every time you come back to it, because it is waking up rather than working.
3. Trim startup programs
Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager and choose Startup apps. Sort by the Status column and disable anything you do not need the moment you sign in. Chat apps, updaters, and printer utilities are common offenders. Disabling does not uninstall anything. The program still works when you open it, it just stops loading itself at boot.
4. Restart weekly
Shut down is not always a full restart on modern Windows, because a feature called Fast Startup saves part of the system state. An actual Restart from the Start menu clears memory properly. Once a week is a good habit, and it is the first thing any technician will ask about.
What these steps will not fix
If the computer is slow with a spinning hard drive, nearly full storage, or 4 GB of memory, settings cannot overcome hardware. The honest fix is a small upgrade or a replacement, and our free repair-or-replace advisor gives you a straight answer either way.
When to stop and call us
These steps are safe on any computer. If you get partway through and something looks different from what is described, or the problem keeps coming back, that is usually a sign of a deeper issue worth a professional look. Call (858) 429-1311 and a US-based technician can take it from there, including a proper performance review of the machine. The first conversation is free.
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