Why do computers (and perhaps other electronics?) slow down?

[elliott]

The /boot partition was a workaround for BIOSes that could not address more than 1024MB or 8.4GB or 137GB or whatever of the disk. Modern BIOSes are not affected by that and do not need such a workaround.

It can still be necessary to make it a separate partition though, for example if you are using a filesystem that is not supported by your bootloader or if you have a fully encrypted drive.

[G7PSK]

What slows your computer down. You do. Every time you install a new program it will leave something in the start menu to say hey i'm here that all has to be loaded into ram every time you start, get something like ccleaner and go through the start up files and remove anything that you do not use regularly either by disable or remove, I normally disable at first then I will remove the item if it does not affect the computer or program adversely by being disabled.

[T4P]

By the way ... modern hard disks are getting faster and faster in terms of throughput ...
AND 7200rpm will definitely be much faster than 5400rpm, 5400rpm will be what i call suffering and 7200rpm just nice
PS: My E5700 loaded with WinUltimate with a toshiba 1TB 7200rpm and 4GB RAM starts in 20secs ... (and a HD5450)