Sometimes sluggish Google Chrome needs a little polish
Q. I have a relatively new computer and have not installed very many applications. Everything runs great with the exception of Google Chrome. When I am typing in a web address, filling out a form or composing a new email message I am seeing a lot of lag. I type something and a few seconds later it shows up on my screen. Do you know how I can fix this?
A. I have encountered this problem in several computers and it really confounded me at first. But after doing a little research, I found the solution.
Chrome has the ability to use something called hardware acceleration.
Hardware acceleration is a function that allows Chrome to offload some processing to your video card. Or, more accurately, your graphics processing unit also referred to as the GPU.
This is supposed to take some of the load off of the central processing unit — or CPU — and let the GPU render more complex graphics.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t always play nice with certain graphics hardware and the result is a slower experience when using Chrome.
To see if this is the problem with your computer you can disable hardware acceleration. To do this, open your Chrome settings by clicking on the three dots in the upper right corner or by typing chrome://settings in the address bar and hitting Enter.
Go to Advanced, System and look for the “Use hardware acceleration when available” setting and turn it off.
Restart Chrome and it should spring back to life.
If you want to use hardware acceleration your system may support it if you update you video drivers. Try doing that and then re-enabling hardware acceleration to see if Chrome is any more stable. If not, you can just leave that setting turned off as your system won’t benefit from the feature.
Q. My wife keeps her computer on at night and I turn my computer off every night. Is there any difference?
A. I tend to leave my computer on overnight just so I don’t have to start it up and log in in the mornings.
However, I will restart the computer for updates and occasionally just to give it a chance to reset and I will turn it off if I am going to be away from the house for an extended amount of time.
The only difference is in how much energy the computer uses and how much time you spend getting things up and running.
For me, saving time in the morning makes up for the extra energy cost.