Sooner or later, it happens to almost every device. Over time, it just isn’t as fast and responsive as it was the day you bought it.
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There are various reasons for this, but unlike an old car that starts to deteriorate over time, chances are that the device itself is still in good condition. With the exception of the battery on a phone or the hard drive on a PC, most components of both phones and mobile devices are quite resilient under normal conditions. Batteries can degrade with time, and hard drives will eventually wear out, but from my experience, phone and PC hardware problems are rarely the reason devices start to slow down or act erratically.
It’s what’s in the device
The problem is most likely software, the operating system, a full storage system or extraneous bytes such as registry entrants. These types of slowdowns have long been an issue with Windows machines, but they can also happen with Macs, smartphones and tablets.
Your first line of defense is a reboot. Restarting a device isn’t a panacea, but it can often solve all sorts of problems including slow performance, erratic behavior, or a hung system. Most of the time, you can do a normal reboot, but if the system is unresponsive, you might need to turn off the power and restart it. Either way, it will terminate any apps that are running, which might solve the problem or improve performance.
The problem could also be within the apps, so make sure they and your operating system are up to date.
Drives or smartphone storage that’s nearly full can also slow things down. You can almost always free up space by deleting unused apps or backing up and erasing data files that you don’t need on the device. Video and photos take up more space than text files and can be backed up to cloud storage.
The issue could also be malware, which is why it’s important to have a good security program that can scan your apps and operating system and repair any problems. PCMag does an annual review of security software for all platforms that you can find by searching “PCMag The Best Antivirus Software.”
Unnecessary start-up apps
Software and apps that load into memory every time you turn on your device can cause problems. These apps don’t just take up memory but use other …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
