There are various causes to the issue, for example, your charts may eat up a lot of system memory and resources. The MT4 platform is prone to have issues, to slow down occasionally, and experiences different problems such as:

• Lagging
• Freezes
• Slowdowns
• Chart lagging
• Slow execution of orders

Unfortunately, the problems list isn’t limited to just these five, and you may experience additional problems such as updating problems, lagging indicators, and a complete system hang.
 

You can try to improve your MT4 performance by following these MetaTrader optimization tips.

However, the fastest solution to the problem is by installing a brand new MetaTrader that can be downloaded on the Trader’s Way broker’s website.

In case you wish to follow along with the MetaTrader optimization tips, you can:

1. Reduce Max Bars in a Chart

1. Open your Metatrader 4 platform
2. Click Tools > Options > Charts and then find “Max bars”, located in the chart field
3. Decrease this value by at least 50%
4. If the performance still lags, keep decreasing the value until it becomes smooth
5. Additionally, you can opt to decrease “Max bars in history” too

Very often, step number 5 is not needed, as reducing “Max bars in chart” alone should offer a dramatic performance increase. Steps 1–4 on the other hand, are extremely recommended, and should solve a lot of the performance related issues.

• Optimize the Memory (RAM)

Active traders usually have more than one MetaTrader 4 terminal open during a trading session. This can be due to many different reasons, including the management of multiple accounts, demo trading, practicing different trading strategies etc. The limiting factor to how many MetaTrader platforms you can run on a computer is based on the CPU speed and the memory available.

This can be an especially big problem when running MetaTrader on an older PC or Mac. However, even new computers might experience the same problems with MT4 lagging, high memory usage, and annoying slowdowns.

Below, you will find a list of simple changes you can apply to MT4 in order to reduce MetaTrader’s memory leakage:

1. Try disabling features you do not use in the Publisher, Email and Events Tabs
2. Disable ‘News’ in the Server Tab
3. Press CTRL + M to Market Watch, then right-click and choose ‘Hide All’, deleting all pairs that are not in use
4. Close all the charts that you are not using (it will save your computer memory)
5. If you are running any Expert Advisors, consider disabling any logging functions if they are not required
6. Restart MetaTrader from time to time, to maintain low memory usage

• Use Profile Settings

Profile settings allow you to control and group the number of charts and currency pairs that are open at one time. You can use these settings to save and load only those pre-selected currency pairs.

Example:

You only wish to see charts related to EUR, GBP, and USD, while in the evening or the night you prefer to only see AUD, NZD, and JPY-related crosses. Using Profile settings, you can save a lot of time.
First, you save a profile named “London” with charts such as EUR/USD, EUR/GBP, GBP/USD, and USDCHF. Then you can save a “Tokyo” profile that would only bring up pairs such as USD/JPY, AUD/JPY, GBP/JPY, and NZD/USD.

• Check out for Custom Indicators
  
  

If your CPU is constantly overloaded and you notice that MT4 is not responding at all, the culprit may be one of the custom-made indicators. On the other hand, the default indicators that come with MT4 are usually well optimized, and don’t mess up with your computer memory footprint.

You need to check which custom indicator hangs your system and delete it. The problem is that many of the custom-coded indicators are badly coded and unoptimized. These indicators were developed by industry professionals, and though they offer more than 55 exclusive options, they don’t burden the CPU power or the RAM.

Tip: When you install a new indicator, you don’t need to restart your platform for your custom indicator to show up in MT4. Just refresh the navigator panel, and your new indicator should appear after a couple of seconds.