It is very frustrating when you are trying to use your PC and it is running sluggish. Recently, a friend had a problem where their PC was running slow, however, in safe mode it was running fine. After some research, this seems to be a pretty common problem for Windows users.

This symptom is a classic sign of one of 2 things. Either a driver is corrupt or some program, whether it be a malicious program or not, is causing problems. Let’s take a look at a few tips to help fix your computer if it is running slow except in safe mode.

1. Get Rid of Malicious Programs

One of the most common reasons for your PC running slow is a virus, malware, or other rogue program. First, ask yourself if the problem only occurs when a specific program runs. If the answer is yes, try updating or removing the program.

Generally speaking, most users will notice if a specific non-malicious program is causing the issue. The more common cause of a slow PC is malware or a virus. These can seriously affect the performance of your computer as they are constantly running in the background of your machine performing malicious tasks. To rid yourself of any malicious programs, try running a scan with your virus protection software. Also, I would highly recommend running a scan with Malwarebytes as well. Related to this, I would highly recommend Malwarebytes Pro for keeping your PC malware free. Between your antivirus and malwarebytes, you should be able to eliminate any malware or virus issues.

2. Update Drivers

Another common reason that your PC is running slow in normal mode is a corrupt driver. In safe mode, many of the drivers are not fully loaded. So, this is why you may not notice any sluggishness in safe mode. If it’s a corrupt driver, you may find one or more devices are not working properly. A few obvious culprits are the display and audio drivers. I would recommend making sure these are up to date first. To update the driver, go to the manufacturer’s site and get the latest drivers.

If this doesn’t solve your issue, you can take a look at your other drivers in the Windows device manager. Look for any warnings that Windows may be giving you.  You could also try a program like driver verifier to see if it can find any issues as well.

3. Fix Corrupted Registry

Generally speaking, a malicious program or a driver issue are the 2 most common reasons for the problem of a slow PC except in safe mode. However, one of the most overlooked reasons for this problem is a corrupted registry. The registry contains records of many actions performed on your computer. Any changes you make, programs you install or delete, affects the registry and over time, it becomes severely corrupted due to all the installations and uninstallations. Even when you do something positive for your machine, such as removing a virus, it may have already left your registry severely corrupted.

To deal with these issues, you could try a free program like CCleaner. If you are really savvy, you could try to manually find any issues in the registry. If you go the manual route, be really careful as you can mess your PC up even more if you don’t know what you are doing.

Hopefully the above has helped you to fix any issues you might have. Do you know of another tip to help fix this problem? Feel free to let me know in the comments!