Body:-- If the most frequent question you have while operating your computer that has been giving you relatively slower speeds lately is 'How do I fix my computer?' then here are a few tips to let you know how you can improve its performance without asking for a professional to come over and inspect it. But remember, these are only preliminary checks, and in case your computer problem is a more serious on, you would need expert advice.

1.The first and foremost step I take to fix my computer in case of slow speed is to run a virus scan. Often, little bugs and malware infect the system by crawling in through the internet. Not only do they give irritating errors during processing, they also do considerable damage to the processing speed of your computer. By scanning your PC/laptop for viruses, any such threats would be eliminated. However, it is important that your virus scanner must be the latest updated version, since only then would it stand a chance against newer viruses.

2.If you are into a lot of chat applications and similar softwares that open up and start running immediately after your computer starts up, this too, could be a cause of slow computer speeds. Very often, just by closing them you can drastically improve your computer's speed and processing power. Another option could be to delete softwares that are not being used. The latter is an apt procedure in case you have 8-10 applications running right after booting, since opening each one of them and closing individually can take a long time and also runs the risk of the computer getting stuck in between.

3. Corrupted files are also a big factor, although an unseen one, when it comes to optimal PC performance. Around a year back, when I had tried both of the above-mentioned steps to fix my computer, and it still was giving me problems, I used a registry cleaner to fix corrupted files on my system. You can get these on the internet for free, but the only condition is that they too, should come from a trusted source, otherwise they might themselves contain corrupted files, which will make the situation worse!

As I said above, these are only some basic steps. If the problem persists, please call a professional for the same.