Is your gaming PC running slowly? Check out the possible causes

A gaming PC is usually a real machine: it turns on and off quickly, opens applications smoothly, supports games and heavy graphics, and even maintains all this speed for hours on end. But what do you do when a gaming computer's system slows down?

The causes of slow performance are often more obvious than they seem and can often be fixed. To help you troubleshoot the issue, we’ve put together a few possible causes for why your gaming PC is running slowly. Check out more information below.

Overheating

In general, when electrical devices are in operation, they get hot – some more than others. In the case of a PC, the more demanding the task the user wants to perform, the more it will demand from the hardware and the hotter the machine can get.

This excessive heat is called overheating, which is when the temperature reaches a level high enough to reduce the computer's operating power and can even cause physical damage to the hardware. This phenomenon can also occur when the computer is many years old and houses older parts.

The first step is to install software that helps you check and monitor the thermal scaling of your hardware. As for the second step, you should consider what is most important at the moment: upgrading the parts or purchasing a cooling system. If you opt for the second, we recommend water coolers, as they are more efficient than air coolers.

Internet instability

With the exception of running offline software (such as Word or a game that doesn't require an internet connection), slow online speeds can be caused exclusively by your Wi-Fi or wired connection. In other words, your internet speed directly affects your online experience.

If the problem is Wi-Fi, the best option is to use a wired connection. Secondly, you can choose to restart your internet devices (router and modem) by unplugging them, waiting a minute, and then plugging them back in. Finally, try updating your devices and even your firmware.

If none of this works, contact your internet provider's support system.

Applications running in the background

Has anyone ever told you that you can’t do everything at once? Well, that applies to computers too –– at least most of them. So, unless you have a perfect gaming PC that’s nearly as powerful as an airplane, chances are there are too many applications running in the background of your software system and this is affecting the overall performance; which is causing the slowdown.

To check if this is the case, click on the Start Menu search bar and search for the “Task Manager” program. The application will show you all the software that is running: if you have something open besides your game that is draining your PC, right-click on it and select “End task”.

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Outdated graphics drivers

Drivers are an essential part of the correct functioning of a video card and if they are out of date, then this can also contribute to the slow behavior of the PC when running games.

Therefore, you should identify the manufacturer and model of your GPU, search the official website for the latest software updates available and download them to improve your graphics drivers.

The game settings are excessive

Some games are so well-crafted that their photography, frames, colors, lights and brightness create graphics that are too beautiful to be true –– and it is precisely this detail that limits the performance of your PC. In other words, even if your machine is powerful, it can still suffer when playing a game if the game's graphics settings are excessive.

Perhaps the best example of this is Cyberpunk 2077: when it was released, the game was very difficult to play when the graphics were maximized. In cases like this, a plausible solution to the problem was to lower the game's graphics settings so that the PC could process it more efficiently.

There are also other alternatives, such as software provided by GPU manufacturers: NVIDIA’s DLSS uses artificial intelligence to “teach” the PC the best graphics rate to run a game and achieve good performance. There are several software programs that do the same.

Outdated processor

There's no point in having the most modern Windows with updated drivers and a new, powerful and updated video card if your processor is outdated. Sure, this may work in some scenarios, but it's not a good combination.

For example, let's say you have an Intel Core i3 CPU, 8 GB of RAM, and an RTX 3090 Ti graphics card. The best thing to do would be to add more RAM and replace the processor with a more modern one. If one of the parts is “just” good and the others are “excellent”, this could affect your computer's performance when performing certain tasks, such as gaming. So, it's best to have hardware parts that work well together.