Angie's List: Computer health tips

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Keeping your home computer in good shape is not always easy. But, there are some simple steps you can take to keep the computer running smoothly.

The owner of Indy Home Tech says the most common complaint they get is that the computer is running too slowly.

"Looking in the bottom right hand corner of your computer screen. You see all these icons, the more icons you have down there, the slower your computer is going to run," said Trey Womack, Indy Home Tech.

Womack said it's not that you want to remove the program from your computer completely. Only that you want to stop the program from loading automatically when you start your computer.

"It's only running at three quarters speed as what it should be, because of all this stuff starting in the background that you never wanted in the first place. So, the first thing you need to do is go in and stop all that stuff from starting up," said Womack.

According to Womack, the way you do that is by right clicking on the task bar and going to task manager. Then click on the processes tab.
That shows you what's running in the background when you start your computer. He says click the one's you don't want and click end process.

"We're not uninstalling any programs here. We're just stopping them from starting up when the computer starts up," said Womack.

Womack said you should also defragment your computer on a regular basis. And most importantly he said to backup your files all the time. Angie Hicks of Angie's List said when it comes to fixing your computer, know your limitations.

"You can certainly tackle some things on your own. But you need to know when you're in over your head. And call in a professional then. Because sometimes you can do things that might cause more trouble if you are in over your head, than you originally had," said Hicks.

Womack says the cost for a service like his is about $70 an hour. But he said, once he's fixed the problem, he'll show you how to do it yourself from then on.

He also it's important to run a good anti-virus and anti spam program. But he says most problems he sees are not caused by viruses, just too many programs running when they are not needed.