Are you frustrated enough with your computer to just want to format and start again? Is it really worth the hassle to do so? A lot of calls that we get here at PC Girls revolves around that exact thought…clients ask us if we can just reinstall for them, and we usually do our best to talk our clients out of that!
If you have performance issues, a reformat may seem like the easy way out, but what about your installed programs and your data? We fix the majority of performance issues we see by doing some simple stuff – like cleaning up spyware and/or adding memory. It works like this:
- Spyware or malware is the single most common culprit to performance issues. It consists of small programs running in the background doing malicious things – like collecting your private data and sending it out over the Internet. The more malware you have running, the worse your performance will be, and the more malware you’ll end up with. It can be a vicious catch-22 situation.
- Memory (aka RAM) makes your computer faster..it’s that simple. It’s a form of data storage that is faster than your hard drive, and allows information to be accessed quickly. The more RAM you have, the faster your computer can process data. Windows XP can recognize up to 3.5GB of RAM, however many computers that we see regularly have only 512MB. By today’s standards, that’s not nearly enough. As updates get released for both Windows or Internet Explorer, your computer requires more RAM than it did in the past. By upgrading your RAM, we’re improving your computer’s performance!
So, now you understand a bit more why we do our best to prevent a reinstall. It’s always best to try to fix the problem, instead of taking the easy way out and just reinstall your operating system. Can you imagine if your mechanic used the “reformat” tactic?!
