Advanced Tricks to Speed Up Your PC Beyond the Basics
Services, power plan, drivers and the disk itself — the incremental gains once the basics are done, plus an honest warning about third-party 'all-in-one optimizers'.
If you have already covered the basics (visual effects, startup, disk space), these extra tricks squeeze out a little more performance.
1. Review unnecessary services
Some Windows services consume resources that most users never need running permanently.
2. Set the power plan to maximum performance
Change the power plan if your machine is always plugged in — prioritise speed over savings when battery life is not a concern.
3. Check what kind of disk you have
If you still run an HDD as your main drive, replacing it with an SSD is usually the single most noticeable upgrade available, beating most software tweaks combined.
4. Update graphics and chipset drivers
Outdated drivers can cap performance with no obvious symptom beyond "it feels a bit slow" — update them from the manufacturer's website, not just relying on Windows Update.
Warning: distrust third-party "all-in-one optimizer" programs promising magic fixes — they frequently do little more than clean temporary files (something Windows already handles reasonably well on its own), in exchange for installing extra software you did not always want.
Tip: advanced tricks deliver incremental gains — if your machine is still slow after all of this, the hardware itself has likely fallen behind your current needs, rather than some software setting still being missing.
Frequently asked questions
Is a third-party 'optimizer' program worth using?
Generally no — many do little more than clean temporary files (something Windows already manages reasonably well), sometimes in exchange for installing extra software you did not always want.
What is the single most noticeable upgrade if I still have an HDD?
Replacing it with an SSD — it usually beats most software tweaks combined in terms of perceived speed improvement.