Why Is My PC So Slow? 5 Things Windows Runs in the Background

If your PC feels slow, it’s not your imagination. Open Task Manager with nothing running and look: it’s often already busy.

Most slow PCs aren’t slow because the hardware suddenly went bad. They’re slow because Windows piles more and more into the background over time. More startup apps. More background services. More update checks. More indexing. Each one on its own doesn’t seem like much. Stack enough of them together, and your PC feels laggy and miserable.

So we’re not fixing one thing. We’re removing the stuff draining your system every day. Here are the five places I check first.

Prefer to watch instead of read? Here’s the full walkthrough — or skip it and keep reading below.

1. Startup Apps (Usually the Biggest Win)

This is the one that gets almost everybody.

1. Right-click the taskbar and open Task Manager (or press Ctrl + Shift + Esc).
2. Open the Startup apps page.
3. For each app set to Enabled, ask yourself: “Do I need this every single time I start my PC?” If not, click it and choose Disable.

Common junk: updaters, game launchers, chat apps. Leave your antivirus, backup software, and hardware drivers alone, and look up anything you don’t recognize before touching it.

Here’s the part people miss: startup apps don’t just slow down booting. They keep running afterward, using memory and CPU, so your PC never fully catches up. Disabling doesn’t uninstall anything. The app still works when you open it yourself.

2. Browsers Running After You Close Them

Chrome, Edge, and friends love running in the background. You close the browser, but it isn’t really closed. Open Task Manager and you’ll often see browser processes still sitting there, using memory.

And every open tab is basically its own process. Twenty tabs is twenty little programs running at once.

• Chrome: Settings → System → turn off Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed.
• Edge: Settings → System → turn off Continue running background extensions and apps when Microsoft Edge is closed.

Now when you close the browser, it actually closes. Check Task Manager afterward and you’ll see those processes are gone. That’s memory and CPU back.

3. Services (Carefully)

Services are background programs that Windows and your software run all the time. A few may be things you genuinely don’t use. But this is also where people break things, so go slow.

• Print Spooler: if you truly have no printer and never print to PDF through it, you can set it to Manual or Disabled. If you ever print, leave it alone.
• Fax: if you’ve never faxed from this PC (and let’s be honest, you haven’t), it can be set to Manual.
• Windows Search (indexing): on older PCs with a hard drive, indexing can keep the disk busy. Don’t just switch it off blindly, though, or searching your files gets painfully slow. Watch Disk activity in Task Manager first.

To change a service: press Windows + R, type services.msc, double-click the service, and change the Startup type. Change one at a time, restart, and make sure everything still works. If you don’t know what a service does, leave it alone. And make a restore point first.

4. Your Power Setting

Some PCs, especially laptops, are set to save power at the expense of speed.

• Windows 11: Settings → System → Power & battery → Power mode (on a desktop it’s just System → Power). Choose Best performance when you’re plugged in.
• Desktop PCs: search for Choose a power plan and pick High performance if it’s offered.

If your PC sits at a desk plugged in most of the time, there’s no reason to hold it back. On battery, the power-saving settings make more sense.

5. Disk Usage Stuck Near 100%

Open Task Manager → Performance → Disk. If it’s pinned near 100% while you’re not doing anything heavy, everything else waits on it, because everything depends on the disk.

The usual culprits are the things above: too many startup apps, indexing, updates, or a drive that’s nearly full. (If your C drive is the problem, see C Drive Full? What’s Eating Your Storage.) And if your PC still has an old spinning hard drive, replacing it with an SSD is usually the single biggest speed upgrade you can make.

The Bottom Line

This is why people think they need a new PC when they don’t. Most systems aren’t broken. They’re buried under background junk. Clear it out first, then decide whether the hardware really needs replacing.

The Short Version

1. Disable startup apps you don’t need the moment you sign in.
2. Stop Chrome and Edge from running after you close them.
3. Change services only one at a time, only when you know what they do.
4. Use Best performance (or High performance) when plugged in.
5. Check Disk activity in Task Manager, and consider an SSD if you still have a hard drive.

Stay grumpy.