Q. I have a relatively new computer and haven’t installed many applications. Everything works great except for Google Chrome. When I’m typing a web address, filling out a form, or composing a new email, I see a lot of lag. I type something and a few seconds later it appears on my screen. Do you know how I can fix this?
A. I have encountered this problem on several computers and it really confused me at first. But after some research I found the solution.
Chrome has the ability to use something called hardware acceleration.
Hardware acceleration is a feature that allows Chrome to offload some processing to your video card. Or, more accurately, your graphics processing unit also known as a GPU.
This is supposed to take some of the load off the central processing unit (CPU) and allow the GPU to process more complex graphics.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work well 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 Chrome settings by clicking the three dots in the top right corner or by typing chrome://settings in the address bar and pressing Enter.
Go to Advanced, System and find the “Use hardware acceleration when available” setting and turn it off.
Restart Chrome and it should come back to life.
If you want to use hardware acceleration, your system may support it if you update your video drivers. Try doing that and then re-enable hardware acceleration to see if Chrome is more stable. Otherwise, you can leave that setting disabled as your system will not benefit from the feature.
Q. My wife keeps her computer on at night and I turn it off every night. Is there a difference?
A. I tend to leave my computer on overnight so I don’t have to turn it on and log in in the mornings.
However, I will reboot the computer to get updates and occasionally just to give it a chance to reboot and shut it down if I am going to be away from home for an extended period of time.
The only difference is in how much power the computer uses and how much time it spends getting things up and running.
For me, saving time in the morning makes up for the extra cost of energy.
