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Fact: Your Windows PC is slowing down. Maybe it takes longer to boot up or shut down. Perhaps the hard drive grinds in the background constantly. Or maybe launching an application takes much longer than it once did. And although Windows 7 is speedier than previous versions, it can still become sluggish, particularly if you install and uninstall a lot of applications.

In this article I'll look at what it takes to clean the crud out of your system that has built up over time. I'll specifically discuss boot times, hard-drive issues, and the mysterious Windows Registry. I'll also explain how you can minimize problems in the future and change your crud-inducing habits.

Mysterious PC Slowdowns: Possible Hardware Culprits

Sometimes a PC will start to crawl without warning, and the reason isn't always obvious. Although the focus of this article is on cleaning and preventing operating-system gunk, it's worthwhile to touch briefly on a few hardware problems that can cause sudden slowdowns.

Vanishing Memory

If you built your system yourself, the BIOS may on occasion reset itself without your knowledge. This can happen during a power failure, or if you shut down the system during the POST process. During such a reset, the memory speeds may revert to something more conservative. You'll notice performance issues only when running memory-intensive apps.

Another possibility is that the apparent amount of memory might shrink. For example, on recent motherboards built with Intel's P55 and X58 chipsets, a heat sink that's too tightly mounted can bend memory circuit traces on the board. The net result is that one memory module becomes invisible to the system, potentially reducing the amount of memory available to Windows by one-third or one-half. That hampers your system, particularly when apps and data are swapped to virtual memory on your hard drive.

PC World has the details HERE!