Anyone who knows anything about it will tell you that regular maintenance is important to keep your machine performing at its best.  Failure to do so can have catastrophic consequences.

Defragmenting cleans up more than your files.

For example if you fail to defragment your machine, it can cause your machine to freeze and lock up. At best you will experience dreadfully slow response times as the files stored in your hard drive will be scattered about the drive. Defraging the hard drive is in simple terms like filing everything in alphabetic order, since the pc knows where these files are stored it is able to retrieve information very quickly and efficiently.

As opposed to a fragmented drive whereby the information is stored in much the same fashion as things in a messy teenagers bedroom, bits and pieces are all over the place, and when you need to retrieve a single piece of information you have a long wait on your hands while the pc churns through a vast pile of files looking for the info you requested.

Defragging your hard drive is very easy to do, just right click on the hard drive, select properties, then tools, next click defragment now. The length of time a drive will take to defrag is wholly dependant on the drives size, and the amount of spare space, and the speed of the drive.

You can also expect your pc to respond slowly during this process if you are defragmenting the boot drive. Try to schedule this task to run when you are not using the machine, like before you go to bed, or are going out of the home for a few hours.

Defragmenting + Registry Cleaning = Faster Computers

Defragging a hard drive is basic stuff, what about when its something more tricky like the registry? My suggestion is if you dont know what you are doing, leave the registry well alone, never make manual changes to it unless you are extremely knowlegeable on these matters.

There is an easy way to repair registry errors via specialist software, if you have a registry problem just search the net, there are many free programs that are great at this. Registry errors can be a serious problem if left unchecked. they can cause everything from your pc failing to boot, to software not running or crashing.

What to do when you can’t fix it yourself?

Of course if you have a hardware problem that is something altogether different. You may be comfortable installing new hardware, but if you are like many users who are not mechanically minded, the inside of your computer may as well be the inside of a time machine as far as you are concerned when it comes to fixing it.  In this case you will need to seek out specialist help, there are many companies that will patch up your pc, however the amount charged may vary.

I would advise looking for a reputable business, but at the same time avoiding superstores as they are well known to overcharge by often 300 times the going rate. There are many smaller companies that will do a great job for far less money.