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PCPitstop is one of those resources you need, but don’t realize it until you need it! These guys have been around for nearly a decade now, and their reputation is rock-solid. They have a feature called “Ask an Expert” – and they’ve asked me to answer one of the questions. Candace is wondering how she can speed up her computer. She defrags regularly, and isn’t sure what more she can do.

There are several things you can do, Candace. Memory could speed things up, although there’s a law of diminishing returns. Since you didn’t mention a specific operating system, I know you’re running Windows due to the mention of running a defrag. If you’re using Vista – stop it. Spring forward to the Windows 7 beta, or roll back to XP. Even if you like Vista, you still have to realize how much of a resource hog it can be. The operating system is as important as the software you’re running on it.

Defragging is only going to help you so much. If your hard drive is full – consider cleaning it up. Store some of your videos, pictures and documents on a separate storage drive. If your hard drive is full, it definitely will not run at optimal importance.

Another option is to upgrade your hard drive itself. Consider switching from the HDD hard drive you likely have to a Solid State Drive. The problem could be due to the bottleneck speed of your current hard drive.

It’s difficult to guess at what will work best here, since I don’t know the full specs of the system. However, I’m willing to wager that the problem is bottleneck with the hard drive. I couldn’t believe how much faster my own personal machine ran after upgrading myself to the Samsung SSD.

How else can Candace make her computer faster? Let’s make this a community effort – if you have an answer to this, please feel free to leave your thoughts in a follow-up comment to this video.

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How to Speed Up Your PC

I’ve been a fan of Cacheman from the very beginning. It’s an essential install for me on every copy of Microsoft Windows I own. Until recently, Windows Vista was unsupported – but they’ve just announced / released Cacheman 7 [download] today! It’s also forward-compatible with Windows 7:

Cacheman is an application designed to improve the performance of your computer by optimizing several caches, managing RAM and fine tuning a number of system settings. Auto-Optimization makes it suitable for novice and intermediate users yet it is also powerful and versatile enough for computer experts. Backups of settings ensure that all user modifications can be reversed with a single click. Cacheman runs on Windows XP/Vista/7.

Trust me – if you use Windows, you want this.

Cacheman 7 for Windows Vista