David Lock

My PC is very slow at the moment and it would be nice to speed things up. I do have a lot of files on it which may not help. I have done a couple of scans and I think it is bug free but one programme told me I had a lot of Registery errors.

Now I haven't a clue if this is significant or not and would I be wasting my money (which is in short supply at the moment) if I bought this?

http://www.liutilities.com/products/.../fileneuber/1/

Or is there something else I should be doing?

Cheers, David

Windows XP + Kaspersky btw

jura11

iTrader: (7)

Hi try download the CCleaner http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner
CCleaner have built the Registry cleaner etc.
I recommend defragment the HDD,check the HDD for errors and you will be fine

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

Get rid of Kaspersky for a start.

http://thelucidview.spaces.live.com/...153E!336.entry

http://support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=208279463

David Lock

Thanks chaps,

I've done CCleaner and found some of my old cookies that I had scribbled down

Now I'll venture onto the other things. Seems a bit quicker already. May be it's me that's slow - surely not

d

deadbolt

how much ram have u got installed on your pc?. the more ram the faster the pc. as well have u taken the side panel off and cleaned inside the pc. the fans suck in dust and the dust blocks the heat sink which makes the cpu run hotter cause it to slow down

David Lock

Only 1.0 gb RAM. Quite clean inside as I had a new fan put in in the summer.

Only fan I've got - te-he

d

David Lock

Interesting. If I went back to the "old" version would it still be updated with new viruses?

d

Have recently bought a 3 licence 2011 version

jura11

iTrader: (7)

Hi there ad more stick of memory 1GB-2GB(at these times are cheap) and your PC will be more than happy

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

woops


The previous version would, I'd have thought, still update but you don't have much choice really. Wish I'd not mentioned it now, I feel bad

1GB ram, you'd notice a sizeable difference with an upgrade to 3GB

David Lock

My local shop, where I bought the PC, just quoted me £69 + VAT to put in another 1 GB Ram. Said it would need DDR1 memory.

This seems a bit pricey to me??

I am sure I could buy this cheaper and try and find someone to install it which is an easy task so I am told.

Any thoughts?

David

EDIT

Now found out that PC only has 2 memory slots, each with 512 MBs in. So I can only fit a single 1 GB stick in or take out both and use 2 x 1 GB sticks. Doesn't really seem worth it and I might as well wait until I can afford another machine. d

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

http://www.crucial.com/uk/systemscanner/index.aspx

Replacing memory IS easy, but DDR1 is quite old memory and it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't far off that price nowadays.

David Lock

£29.36 inc VAT for I GB best price so far. d

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

Will your motherboard support 2x 2GB?

Have you considered a format and fresh install? Your PC will then be (almost as you will have to add the service packs) as it came out of the factory

David Lock

No idea about motherboard so how on earth would I find that out. BUT I am only talking about replacing the 2 x 512 mb sticks with 2 x 1 gb sticks so end up with 2 gb total (not 2 x 2 gb).

A total reinstall frightens me as I simply don't know how to reinstall many of the components. I had a computer guy help me last time and even he messed it up and I lost quite a few things I had wanted to keep. So I'll put up with it as is for the time being

d

dunx

iTrader: (3)

Dustbin spec. sorry !

A £250 bundle from CCL (or others) will rejuvenate your PC experience, a new PSU would also be a good idea.

IMHO.

dunx

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

1Gb on XP should be enough for basic needs. Although Kaspersky is a bit hungry these days.

If you have any "helper bars" in explorer, like google toolbar or yahoo toolbar, and have MSN on auto start then it will cause a slow down in performance as it runs these apps in the background.

A clue to alot of junkware is lots of toolbars in internet explorer across the top of the screen, or lots of icons in the tray at the bottom right of the screen. All these are applications, which take memory and processing power. A more advanced way is pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del and starting task manager, then go to processes and see what is listed in there. Look for stuff that is taking lots of memory (1000k plus) or constantly using the CPU when you aren't doing anything, and then see if it is essential for it to be running (with an aim to either disable it at start-up or uninstall it).

CCleaner (as above) will help with this: Go to "tools" then "startup", and disable any unneeded junkware (acrobat speed launcher, Java jussched, etc.). If you miss something or it causes a problem, you can re-enable stuff easily enough. Note: CCleaner will try to install yahoo toolbar when you install it...DO NOT do this, if you have installed yahoo toolbar, uninstall it (control panel-->add/remove programs, find yahoo tool bar click uninstall).

There are some system tweeks that can be made to disable unessential windows background services (such as indexing), but leave that 'til a last resort as you may end up messing something up (always back-up the registry and create a system restore disk before making changes):

This is a good resource for tweeking services: http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/winxp.htm

David Lock

I am sure you are right Dunx but I am going to have to stay with what I have for the time being.

Ali - thanks for your input and in language I can understand

I am sure have stuff that I can disable although I will probably keep Google toolbar as I use this quite a bit.

I often find that my computer does not react to CTRL + ALT + DEL but I don't know why this is.

Thanks again, David

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

I'm saying nothing

urban

iTrader: (1)

Father in law collared me the other night about his laptop was really slow.
I try to avoid getting involved with family IT problems.

Quick check up - no AV running, trial license had expired.

I stopped it scanning at the point when the new scan had found 131 viruses!

It did run like a pig to be fair

David Lock

OK - so what have I messed up now then?

d

PS. Had a long chat with Kaspersky chap. Useful. Your card is marked

deadbolt

had another thaught. what is your graphic card? (onboard or card). if u had a card then that would be less ram being used

WRX_Dazza

Hi david, hope yr well mate

try sticking a tenner a week aside.... £300.00 will buy you a decent spec pc

in 30 weeks, you'll be there....

or decrease your son's allowance / or Mrs Lock's housekeeping by £10 per week and feel less pain in the wallet area !!

good luck

Dazza

David Lock

Hi Dazzers - hope all well with you old son

All sounds far too sensible for me but I take your point...... In fact I did buy a decent laptop as a sort of back-up. Quite a decent spec with 4 GB RAM and 500 GB drive. But my daughter "borrowed" it and anyway I hate using laptops. atb, David

jura11

iTrader: (7)

Hi Dave really at these times are PC really cheap,here is few link which maybe help you
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/barebones.html
http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Computer/cat/Desktop-PC

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

David Lock

The guy at Kaspersky was telling me that Windows and XP were using circa 500 and Kaspersky another 300 or 400. So with background programmes using memory I was getting close to the limit. I have now changed a setting in Kaspersky that means the programme concedes memory requirements temporarily to another programme wanting to use some memory. This seems to have made a difference but also got me thinking about just adding a single 1GB stick giving me 1.5GB total.

I have also taken out some programmes but struggle to know what I actually need and what some programmes actually do. What the hell is Safari for example? And I have WINFAST slowing things up when I start up - I have taken this out before but is has re-appeared

And I still want to know what is wrong with using CTRL/ALT/DEL

d

DoZZa

iTrader: (4)

Do the following for computing harmony.

1. Back up all data you wish to keep, photos, emails, documents, **** etc

2. Buy some more RAM

3. Install the recently purchased RAM

4. Format Hard Drive, but only after performing step 1 above!

5. Install a nice and fresh copy of Windows.

6. Be happy