Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Polette, IM
Speaker 1: an editor here at how Stuff Works. Sitting next to
Speaker 1: me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there,
Speaker 1: today we're we're gonna deviate from the norm. Normally, Jonathan
Speaker 1: and I meet to talk about what we're gonna do
Speaker 1: for our podcasting before we sit down on the microphone.
Speaker 1: But this time someone else threw us. Threw us a suggestion,
Speaker 1: we thought we'd answer the question. Yeah. Listener Jake Suffian
Speaker 1: wrote in and asked a question that we thought was
Speaker 1: a good one, So we decided to tackle it, and
Speaker 1: he wrote, I'm always worry about leaving too many applications
Speaker 1: open at a time. I've heard that it's better to
Speaker 1: close them than to keep and to keep the speed
Speaker 1: of my computer up. But if I do keep them open,
Speaker 1: is this at all bad bad in quotations for the
Speaker 1: computer in the long run. So we thought we'd hit
Speaker 1: this because a lot of people are curious, you know,
Speaker 1: what is it that makes their computer slow. Um, you
Speaker 1: know a lot of people do have a lot of
Speaker 1: applications open at a time at c s. During the
Speaker 1: key note, one of the executives from from Microsoft said
Speaker 1: that while designing Windows seven, um, they did it with
Speaker 1: one with one particular thing in mind, which is that
Speaker 1: the average user has between five and fifteen windows open
Speaker 1: at a time. And is that windows or applications. There'll
Speaker 1: be windows, so you might have two different say Internet
Speaker 1: Explorer windows open at a time, and multiple tabs within
Speaker 1: each windows. So it might be it is five to
Speaker 1: fifteen instances of applications, I guess you could say, but
Speaker 1: you figured that's an average. That means they are outliers.
Speaker 1: So there are people who have a lot more applications
Speaker 1: open than that, and there are people who may only
Speaker 1: do one at a time. Um, so is this bad
Speaker 1: for your computer? Do you want to give the short answer? No,
Speaker 1: there you go, So for of you want to listen
Speaker 1: and on the rest of it, let's let's take a
Speaker 1: little journey here. Um. So, yeah, the short answer is
Speaker 1: that having lots of applications open is not really bad
Speaker 1: for your computer, not not on its own. Now, there
Speaker 1: are complications that can arise and things that can make
Speaker 1: your computer run more slowly, but it's not going to
Speaker 1: hurt your computer, not permanently anyway. So part of the
Speaker 1: reason of that is that you know, you you may
Speaker 1: run a lot of applications, you notice that your memory
Speaker 1: usage is starting to suffer because of it. It's it's
Speaker 1: using a lot of your computer's memory. Each application you
Speaker 1: open requires computer memory to run, and you may not
Speaker 1: necessarily sorry to interrupt, No, no, necessarily uh look to
Speaker 1: see I mean you may not be needing to to
Speaker 1: hit control to lead and check exactly how much uh
Speaker 1: you know, the processes tab and see how much memory
Speaker 1: each application is using. You could tell us sort of intuitively,
Speaker 1: because you'll be able to notice that the other applications
Speaker 1: are running much more slowly, and you're gonna go, okay,
Speaker 1: something's up. And some applications are more guilty of hugging
Speaker 1: memory than others. For example, anti virus software is uh,
Speaker 1: that's a huge drain on memory. Now, it's also something
Speaker 1: that we recommend you use because viruses will cause way
Speaker 1: more harm to your computer than running a lot of
Speaker 1: applications at once. But while you run anti virus software,
Speaker 1: keep in mind that's gonna require a lot of your
Speaker 1: computer's resources. Uh, and don't don't use more than one
Speaker 1: because if you do, that's going to double that demand
Speaker 1: on your computer's resources. And multiple versions of or different
Speaker 1: versions of the same kind of software, like anti virus
Speaker 1: software or even anti spyware software. Uh, they don't always
Speaker 1: play well with each other. Yeah, they can cause your
Speaker 1: computer to crash. They can. They can just cause everything
Speaker 1: to to freeze over and over. Um. It's good to
Speaker 1: pick a you know, a good anti virus, a good
Speaker 1: anti spyware software package and stick with it. Don't sit
Speaker 1: there and think, hey, more is better, because it's not there.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of things that affect your computer's memory.
Speaker 1: Obviously the physical amount of RAM you have uh in there,
Speaker 1: and there are other things too. I mean, you can
Speaker 1: max out the RAM that goes inside your computer, but um,
Speaker 1: you know, you have other things going on. You have
Speaker 1: your processors, clock speed. Uh, your your computer maybe trying
Speaker 1: to handle things that that simply weren't designed for it.
Speaker 1: For example, I have an older um PC that I
Speaker 1: use at home simply for server purposes and to run
Speaker 1: the occasional application that only runs on Windows. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: if I have a five mega hurts uh penni UM
Speaker 1: four processor and I'm trying to run the latest gaming
Speaker 1: software on it. That's gonna you know, it may barely run,
Speaker 1: but it's gonna take a lot more performance out of
Speaker 1: the machine because it's gonna it's gonna max out everything
Speaker 1: that's running on there. So I may have the RAM
Speaker 1: maxed out, and I mean at the processor, you know,
Speaker 1: using as many cycles as it can handle. But right
Speaker 1: it's it's gonna run slowly and it's gonna appear you
Speaker 1: know to uh to really have problems with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of chugs and little fits and starts if you
Speaker 1: if you don't have the the right kind of processor,
Speaker 1: if it's not powerful enough. Um. That's a good point
Speaker 1: that to bring up to. With processors. You might think, Hey,
Speaker 1: if I've got a lot of applications opening my processors
Speaker 1: running a lot more frequently, is that going to burn
Speaker 1: my processor out? Well? The nice thing about microprocessors is
Speaker 1: that when the manufacturers make these, they they put in
Speaker 1: a limit on how fast that processor can go. So
Speaker 1: when you hear about your processors speed, that's kind of
Speaker 1: an artificial speed. It's one that they've instituted they being
Speaker 1: the the manufacturers, so that when you run these programs,
Speaker 1: it runs at a speed that it's capable of running
Speaker 1: out for prolonged periods of time without overheating and just
Speaker 1: breaking down. So as long as you're can computers ventilation
Speaker 1: system or cooling system is working properly, you should be
Speaker 1: all right. Now. If you're one of those hardcore gamers
Speaker 1: who likes to over clock a CPU, and by overclock
Speaker 1: we mean you break through those limits, you allow the
Speaker 1: CPU to process at its actual maximum processing speed as
Speaker 1: opposed to the one that was the limit that was
Speaker 1: placed on it. Uh, then you run into the chance
Speaker 1: of overheating your computer, or at least overheating your microprocessor,
Speaker 1: and that can cause hardware failures or crashes, instability, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Um. But if you're if you're if
Speaker 1: you haven't overclocked your CPU, it should be pretty much
Speaker 1: taking care of making sure that it's not gonna melt
Speaker 1: down or anything on its own. If you're something else
Speaker 1: that I just thought about. If you are, um, if
Speaker 1: you're running a PC or actually any kind of computer
Speaker 1: and you are concerned about the amount of processing power
Speaker 1: you're using, or whether or not you're maxing out your
Speaker 1: memory and slowing your peter down. UM. Consider other things
Speaker 1: that might be affecting it, like do you have a
Speaker 1: large desktop picture or desktop? Um? Are you using any
Speaker 1: kind of customization software for your icons or your cursor
Speaker 1: or anything like that. I mean, those things are just
Speaker 1: little things that you might have installed and you think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know it's just my cursor. Well, and your computer
Speaker 1: is trying to render that you know, fancy uh customization
Speaker 1: software and that that kind of thing. Those are little
Speaker 1: things that you can cut back on if you are
Speaker 1: worried about whether or not your computer is being overtaxed um,
Speaker 1: and that might help you, you know, cut back on
Speaker 1: some of the process or excess processor cycles too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And there's this little stuff. Yeah. And in the same vein,
Speaker 1: if you put a lot of um of programs on
Speaker 1: your on your desktop or or files or whatever so
Speaker 1: that you can access them from your desktop. Each time
Speaker 1: you do that, that's another file that your computer has
Speaker 1: to be able to process and and handle every time
Speaker 1: you boot up your computer. So if you're one of
Speaker 1: those people, as a desktop that just is covered with
Speaker 1: with files and you're wondering why your computer is taking
Speaker 1: so long to boot up. That may be a contributing factor.
Speaker 1: So for those of us who like to keep an
Speaker 1: uncluttered desktop, um, we actually have faster boot times in general,
Speaker 1: assuming nothing else is wrong with our computers of course,
Speaker 1: And um, you know anything else that you might have
Speaker 1: instell in the background anything. If you're a Windows usually
Speaker 1: might see this stuff in the system tray. Um, you
Speaker 1: know some of this stuff you you open and it loads,
Speaker 1: and you think, well, I don't have a running because
Speaker 1: you don't see it in the in the task bar. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, some of that stuff is still running in
Speaker 1: the background. And as I said before, if you hit
Speaker 1: control the leade, you can look and see what those
Speaker 1: other processes are and you might be surprised how much
Speaker 1: stuff is actually technically running on your computer even though
Speaker 1: it doesn't appear you know, in that in that bar, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And that that can definitely affect your computer's performance as well.
Speaker 1: And we should also mention that there are certain programs,
Speaker 1: particularly web browsers, that have had problems traditionally with memory leaks.
Speaker 1: And by that what we mean is, let's say you
Speaker 1: have an older version of Firefox, so Firefox too are older,
Speaker 1: and you open up several tabs, and Firefox, each tab
Speaker 1: your opening is putting another um kind of a drain
Speaker 1: on your computer's memory, and if you have a lot
Speaker 1: of those tabs open, it puts more of a drain. Well.
Speaker 1: With Firefox, one of the problems was that even when
Speaker 1: you closed out individual tabs. So let's say you've got
Speaker 1: twenty tabs open in your browser and you start to
Speaker 1: close them out, the leak would still be there. The
Speaker 1: drain on your computer's memory would still be there. So
Speaker 1: even though you'd be quite quitting out of all these
Speaker 1: individual tabs as a whole, the browser is still putting
Speaker 1: a big demand on your computer. So, uh, the later
Speaker 1: browsers have pretty much kind of worked this out, so
Speaker 1: it doesn't do that quite so dramatically as it used to.
Speaker 1: But that's another thing to keep in mind. Like, the
Speaker 1: only way you could really take care of that Firefox
Speaker 1: problem was to quit out of your browser completely and
Speaker 1: then open it again, and then that would pretty much
Speaker 1: reset the memory usage. But yeah, be odd because you're like,
Speaker 1: I only have one tab open and it's not even
Speaker 1: on a flash based site. There's nothing that it should be.
Speaker 1: You know, it shouldn't be pulling this much memory and
Speaker 1: then yet you would look in your and your test
Speaker 1: manager and there it was so um. Fortunately, like I said,
Speaker 1: a lot of the later ones have addressed this problem.
Speaker 1: But that's another possible issue if your computer is going
Speaker 1: very slowly. Yeah, but to uh, to go back to
Speaker 1: the question in hand, it um, it doesn't really hurt
Speaker 1: your computer to have all this stuff running. It's just
Speaker 1: slowing you down. And of course, you know, if you
Speaker 1: overtax your computer and you've got a big project open
Speaker 1: and you haven't saved it in a while and something crashes, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you may regret having all that extra stuff open. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So there are reasons to kind of limit the number
Speaker 1: of applications who have opened. Mainly, the more you have,
Speaker 1: the more Windows has to assuming you're using a PC,
Speaker 1: the you know, any operating system has to do this,
Speaker 1: but most people tend to use Windows. So the more
Speaker 1: applications you have opened, the more Windows has to make
Speaker 1: sure that everything's playing nicely with each other. And not
Speaker 1: all programs do that because you know, it's it's hard
Speaker 1: to plan for every contingency, so sometimes programs just don't
Speaker 1: work very well when other programs are running at the
Speaker 1: same time. So every time you're opening up an application,
Speaker 1: you need to remember, Okay, well there's the chance that
Speaker 1: this could cause my system to crash. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not a big chance, it's not huge, but it
Speaker 1: does it is a possibility. And before we finish, I
Speaker 1: guess we should also quickly talk about the registry file registry.
Speaker 1: So you may have seen errors that were registry errors.
Speaker 1: Might wonder what that is. Well, the registry file is
Speaker 1: like a database. It is Windows way of keeping track
Speaker 1: of what applications and settings there are on your computer
Speaker 1: at any particular time. So every time you add a
Speaker 1: program or application to your computer, uh, it creates an
Speaker 1: entry in your registry file. Every time you uninstall, if
Speaker 1: you uninstalled properly, then it removes the entry. But their
Speaker 1: problems arise when you do things like let's say you
Speaker 1: just delete a file. You don't uninstall the program, but
Speaker 1: you just you know, go to the folder and you
Speaker 1: delete it manually. It may not be reflected in your
Speaker 1: registry file. And then when Windows starts loading things up
Speaker 1: and it starts looking for this program that no longer
Speaker 1: is there, but it according to the registry, it should
Speaker 1: be there. That's where you start having registry errors. So
Speaker 1: a lot of this is preventable. I mean, you just
Speaker 1: you just have to make sure that you are installing
Speaker 1: and removing applications in ways that Windows is aware of
Speaker 1: what you're doing. So you're either uninstalling or you're going
Speaker 1: to the ad removed programs in your in your Windows Manager.
Speaker 1: And uh, that's the best way to take care of
Speaker 1: these issues. And uh, of course, the other big point
Speaker 1: I guess I should make is be smart when you're
Speaker 1: on the web because malware like viruses, trojan, spyware, that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff that can slow your computer down as well. Um,
Speaker 1: and you're certainly not going to see that in your taskbar. No, no,
Speaker 1: not if they know what they're doing. Virus that little
Speaker 1: skull crosses on the eyes, I wonder if that's bad. Um,
Speaker 1: So yeah, just be careful where you go on the
Speaker 1: web because that you know that you could easily download
Speaker 1: some malware and that could seriously slow down your computer.
Speaker 1: But as for the applications, uh, you know, go to town,
Speaker 1: have fun. Just remember it can make your computer unstable,
Speaker 1: but it does not actually hurt your machine run. No,
Speaker 1: not in the long run. You can pretty much anything
Speaker 1: you do as long as it's not like malware. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna cause your computer irreparable harm. You may
Speaker 1: get to a point where everything is so frozen that
Speaker 1: you have to go to an earlier backup, So this
Speaker 1: is a good time to remind you to back up
Speaker 1: your system. But you're never going to get to a
Speaker 1: point where that is what's going to cause your computer
Speaker 1: to me down, at least not as far as I know.
Speaker 1: There may be something out there where some wow, I
Speaker 1: had the perfect storm and now the inside of my
Speaker 1: computer is goog, but it would be news to me
Speaker 1: your allege may very some restrictions apply exactly. Well, that's uh.
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty much wraps our discussion up. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much Jake for writing in, and uh, everyone
Speaker 1: out there, I mean, if you have questions, please feel
Speaker 1: free podcasts at how stuff works dot com. We're happy
Speaker 1: to answer your questions. We love getting that mail, um,
Speaker 1: especially when it's complimentary. And and for those of you
Speaker 1: who are wondering, I do blush. So thank you very much,
Speaker 1: And if you want to learn more about all things
Speaker 1: computer and tech related, visit how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: and we'll talk to you again really soon for more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Visit how stuff
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