Why Your PC Is Slow: A Wichita Tech's Diagnostic Checklist Before You Pay for Service

“My computer is slow” is the most common call we get. It’s also the call where the diagnosis varies the most — slowness can mean any of a dozen different underlying problems, and the right fix depends entirely on which one. This guide walks through the same checklist our techs run when a customer says their machine has been getting slower over the last six months. You can do most of these yourself before paying anyone.

Most of what causes a Windows PC to feel slow is one of four things: too many startup apps, a failing or full drive, malware and unwanted programs running in the background, or simply not enough RAM for what you’re doing now versus what you were doing when you bought the machine. Work through them in order.

1. Audit your startup apps

Windows lets a small number of programs start when you log in. Manufacturers and individual apps abuse this aggressively, and the cumulative effect is a 5+ minute boot time on machines that should boot in 30 seconds.

To check:

1. Right-click the taskbar, choose Task Manager
2. Click the Startup apps tab (Windows 11) or Startup tab (Windows 10)
3. Sort by Startup impact column

What to disable:

• Anything with “High” startup impact you don’t recognize
• Adobe Acrobat Updater, Adobe Creative Cloud (unless you use Adobe daily)
• Spotify, Discord, Steam, Epic Games Launcher (if you don’t want them auto-launching)
• iTunes Helper, QuickTime, Apple Push (if you don’t use Apple devices on this PC)
• OneDrive (if you don’t use it — leave enabled if you do, it’s important for sync)
• Microsoft Teams (if you only use it occasionally)
• Manufacturer “assistant” apps: Dell SupportAssist, HP Support Assistant, Lenovo Vantage (these can stay disabled and you won’t notice)
• Any “Updater” with a brand name (Java, Adobe, NVIDIA GeForce Experience) — they all check for updates frequently enough without running at boot

Leave these enabled:

• Windows Security
• Your real antivirus if you use one (Bitdefender, Malwarebytes, etc.)
• OneDrive, iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive — if you actually use them
• Audio drivers (Realtek, Conexant) — disabling these can break sound
• Synaptics, ELAN (laptop trackpad drivers)

After disabling, restart and time your boot. A reasonable Windows 11 machine with an SSD should reach a usable desktop in under 20 seconds. Anything past 60 seconds is a problem.

2. Check your drive health

This is the test most users skip and the one that most often reveals the real problem.

Free tool: CrystalDiskInfo — small download, no account, gives an immediate Health Status read on every drive in your computer.

What to look for:

• Health Status: Good → drive is fine, look elsewhere
• Health Status: Caution → drive is degrading, plan replacement in the next few weeks
• Health Status: Bad → drive is failing now, back up tonight
• Specifically watch the Reallocated Sectors Count and Pending Sectors Count fields — non-zero values on either are warning signs

For Wichita customers running spinning hard drives (HDDs) more than 5 years old: assume the drive is end-of-life regardless of what CrystalDiskInfo says. Mechanical drives have moving parts and they wear out. We see drives last anywhere from 3 to 12 years; the median is around 6.

If your drive is healthy but more than 90% full, that’s also a problem — Windows uses free disk space for paging and temporary files, and a full drive forces it to thrash. Aim for at least 15% free, ideally 20%. To check: Settings > System > Storage.

3. Run a real malware scan

The malware scan you should run isn’t the one your existing antivirus is doing in the background. Existing real-time protection often misses persistent threats that snuck in months ago. Run two scans, one after the other, with different engines:

Scan 1: Microsoft Defender Offline

1. Settings > Privacy & security > Windows Security > Virus & threat protection
2. Click Scan options
3. Select Microsoft Defender Offline scan
4. Click Scan now — this will reboot and scan before Windows fully loads, catching things active scanning misses

Scan 2: Malwarebytes Free

1. Download Malwarebytes Free — choose the free version, not the trial of Premium
2. Install and run a full Threat Scan
3. Quarantine everything it flags

If either scan finds significant detections, run them both again after rebooting until both come up clean. Truly heavy infections sometimes need a third tool (like Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool or AdwCleaner) and occasionally need professional intervention.

4. Uninstall the obvious bloat

Settings > Apps > Installed apps

Sort by Install date (most recent first) — anything you didn’t intentionally install in the last 30 days is a candidate. Then sort by Size and look for big things you don’t use.

Common Wichita-machine offenders to remove:

• Trial antivirus suites (McAfee LiveSafe, Norton Security, WebRoot, Bitdefender trials)
• Manufacturer support apps (Dell SupportAssist, HP Support Assistant) — yes, even though they sound useful
• Browser toolbars (any toolbar)
• “Driver updater” or “PC speedup” apps
• Coupon and shopping helpers
• Game launchers you don’t use (Origin, Uplay, Battle.net) if you’ve stopped playing those games
• Old Java versions (you almost certainly don’t need Java anymore)
• Old printer software for printers you no longer own

Uninstall, restart, then run another quick startup app audit to make sure nothing you removed is leaving startup entries behind.

5. Check your RAM situation

Open Task Manager again, go to the Performance tab, click Memory.

What to look for:

• In use: how much is currently being used
• Available: how much is free
• Total at the top: how much you have

Now use your computer normally for 10 minutes — open the apps you actually use (browser with your normal tabs, email, anything else), then come back and check.

• If Available stays above 2 GB, you have enough RAM for what you’re doing
• If Available drops near zero and Windows is paging to disk constantly, you need more RAM
• If you’re on 4 GB total in 2026, you need more RAM regardless

The cheapest, most impactful upgrade for a slow Windows machine is usually:

1. SSD (if you still have a spinning HDD) — $50–$120 for the part, $80–$160 labor for cloning and install
2. RAM upgrade to 16 GB — $40–$120 for the parts depending on type, $50–$80 labor

Both can be done DIY by anyone comfortable opening their PC; both can be done in our shop for the prices above.

6. Look at the heat and the fans

If your fan is constantly running loud, your computer is probably thermal throttling — the CPU detects high temperatures and reduces its speed to avoid damage. Causes:

• Dust in the heatsink/fan — the most common cause. In Wichita homes with pet hair, dusty plains-state air, or smokers, fans clog faster than national averages. Cleaning is a simple but careful operation: compressed air on a fully powered-off machine, blowing dust out (not deeper into) the heatsink. Don’t let the fan blades spin freely from the air pressure — that can damage the fan motor.
• Failed thermal paste between the CPU and the heatsink. Stock thermal paste typically lasts 4–7 years before drying out and losing efficacy. Repasting is a teardown operation but inexpensive in parts ($10) and meaningfully restores cooling.
• Blocked vents on laptops — if you regularly use the laptop on a bed, couch, or carpet, the bottom intake vents get blocked and the machine cooks itself. A $20 stand or even a phone book under the back edge fixes this.

Free monitoring tool: HWMonitor or Core Temp. Idle CPU temperatures should be under 50°C. Sustained loaded temperatures over 90°C indicate cooling needs attention.

7. The Windows update question

Out-of-date Windows isn’t usually a slowness cause directly, but it can be a security cause that leads to malware infection that becomes a slowness cause.

Settings > Windows Update > Check for updates

Install everything pending. Reboot. Run the check again — sometimes major updates only appear after intermediate ones install. Repeat until you see “You’re up to date.”

If Windows Update itself is broken (won’t install updates, fails repeatedly), that’s a separate diagnostic. Free tool: Windows Update Troubleshooter (built into Windows). Persistent update failure on an older machine is often a sign the OS install itself has degraded and a fresh install is the cleanest fix.

When to stop DIYing and call us

The DIY checklist is the right starting point for most situations. Pick up the phone when:

• Drive health shows Caution or Bad and you don’t have a current backup
• You ran both malware scans and detections keep returning
• The fan is loud and the machine is hot but you’re not comfortable opening it for cleaning
• You completed all 7 steps above and the machine is still slow
• You’re seeing physical symptoms — clicking from the drive, BSODs (blue screen of death) more than once a month, the screen sometimes goes black or flickers, the machine spontaneously reboots
• You’ve decided you want an SSD or RAM upgrade and want it done correctly without risking the machine

How Wichita Computer Pro handles slow-PC diagnostics

We start every slow-PC ticket with a full hardware diagnostic — drive SMART, RAM test (MemTest86 if symptoms suggest RAM), CPU thermal check under load, and a comprehensive malware sweep. We give you a written diagnosis with the actual root cause identified before recommending any work. No “let’s just reformat and see” first moves.

If the answer is hardware (SSD upgrade, RAM upgrade, fan cleaning, repaste, drive replacement), we keep common parts in stock and most jobs turn around in 1–3 business days. If the answer is software (deep malware cleanup, OS reinstall, profile rebuild), we do the work with full data preservation — your files, your bookmarks, your email accounts come back exactly as you left them.

We work on Windows desktops, laptops, gaming PCs, and Macs. Service area: Wichita, Derby, Andover, Bel Aire, Park City, Maize, Goddard, Augusta, Haysville, Mulvane, and the surrounding Sedgwick and Butler County metro.

Typical costs

Rough Wichita ranges based on what we see most weeks:

• Diagnostic only (full hardware and software workup): $75–$125, credited toward repair
• Software cleanup, no hardware work: $95–$185
• SSD upgrade including cloning your existing drive (no data loss): $130–$280 depending on drive size
• RAM upgrade (parts plus install): $90–$200 depending on quantity and type
• Fan cleaning and repaste: $80–$160
• OS reinstall with full data preservation: $150–$275
• Heavy malware/PUP removal and hardening: $135–$245

The single best money you can spend on a slow but otherwise functional 5-year-old Windows machine is an SSD upgrade plus a RAM bump to 16 GB. Total cost typically lands $230–$420; the perceptual result is “feels like a brand new computer.” Compared to spending $700–$1,500 on a replacement laptop, it’s the smarter call almost every time.

Run the checklist above first. If you’ve done that and you’re still stuck, call us — we’ll give you a 5-minute honest read on whether your specific situation is fixable in software, fixable with hardware, or genuinely time to replace the machine.