The spinning rainbow wheel of death is one of the more frustrating sights in our modern world. A slow computer that takes forever to load web pages, open documents, and respond to pretty much any basic command is more common than you think. It’s often just a matter of poor maintenance or disorganization. If you're ready to get your computer back on the fast track, below are common culprits for a sluggish computer, plus the maintenance solutions that can have you up and running smoothly in no time.

An abundance of unnecessary startup programs is one of the most common reasons your computer is so slow, and can tack on up to 10 minutes of boot-up time from the moment you switch on your device and as those programs run in the background, they further impede your computer’s speed. Edit down your default startup programs by first trashing unnecessary desktop icons, then organizing the rest in desktop folders. 

Next, you can blame it on your laziness: If you’re often ignoring prompts to update your computer’s software, you’re probably hindering its ability to run smoothly. Even worse, you’re all but inviting malware into your system. Updates are issued when vulnerabilities are found, some updates pertain to new features, but many of these features relate to security issues that have been discovered or new ways to better protect you.

Consider your hard drive the storage room of your computer. It’s where everything is kept for the short and long term, from your operating system to anything you’ve ever downloaded from the internet. Your hard drive only has so much space, and when it gets clogged and cluttered, it borrows “mental” energy to sort through things, slowing down its performance when called upon to do other things like load a web page. Run a disk cleanup and you’ll also want to defrag your hard drive. These simple tips can make a noticeable change in your computers performance.