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Computer SLOW


Fast Fords

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i am looking for ways to speed up my desktop. it is an "asus" desktop piece of crap, with the usual windows programs. this has windows xp home edition. the damn thing takes forever to boot up, run, not to mention shut down, etc. I just downloaded Ad-Aware for security stuff and about to get spybot too.

not only is the internet slow, but the whole damn computer is.

Checking the free space on the C drive, it says it has 97.9GB left..good or bad??

any suggestions is great..besides a hammer lol
 


Jay FX4

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You might notice a small increase in speed if you defragment your hard disk. Also, upon start up, open your task manager and see how many processes you have running. Anything that doesn't need to be there, eliminate it. And the best way to improve performance is to add more RAM.

What anti-virus software are you running?

In general, 100GB is a lot of space. Unless you plan on installing a bunch of games, or are a chronic downloader, you should be fine for a while.
 

Fast Fords

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You might notice a small increase in speed if you defragment your hard disk. Also, upon start up, open your task manager and see how many processes you have running. Anything that doesn't need to be there, eliminate it. And the best way to improve performance is to add more RAM.

What anti-virus software are you running?

In general, 100GB is a lot of space. Unless you plan on installing a bunch of games, or are a chronic downloader, you should be fine for a while.
I defragment quite regularly. Every couple months or so I go through it and delete all the crap i don't use, etc. Ad-Aware is running right now, and its found 24 objects through 30 min of scanning..no details on what those things are, but that seems like an awful lot.

When it first turns on, the Microsoft Windows Validation Notification comes up. Its my GF's comp and she said that her dad got some friend to build the computer. Would it be worth my time to get all our pictures/files off of it, buy a Windows software system (like XP/Vista) and get more RAM? How does one obtain more RAM? :icon_twisted: I'm quite dull when it comes to computers. I can use them fine, but thats about it haha.
 

Jay FX4

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I defragment quite regularly. Every couple months or so I go through it and delete all the crap i don't use, etc. Ad-Aware is running right now, and its found 24 objects through 30 min of scanning..no details on what those things are, but that seems like an awful lot.

When it first turns on, the Microsoft Windows Validation Notification comes up. Its my GF's comp and she said that her dad got some friend to build the computer. Would it be worth my time to get all our pictures/files off of it, buy a Windows software system (like XP/Vista) and get more RAM? How does one obtain more RAM? :icon_twisted: I'm quite dull when it comes to computers. I can use them fine, but thats about it haha.
You should be doing regular backups of all your pictures/files anyway.

I was going to suggest reinstalling Windows XP, but since you brought up the idea of upgrading, that might be your best bet. I have never used Vista, and don't know much about Windows 7, but I really haven't heard anything negative about 7.

The RAM thing is a little tricky. First, you'd have to know the max amount your motherboard can accept. Then you have to know what type/speed of RAM it is. You can obtain it from any electronics store, like Best Buy, or online from somewhere like Newegg.
 

BeefStew42791

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having almost 100gb of hard drive space is not your problem at all, that is quite good actually. As jay mentioned there's the defragmenting and then there's also clearing the cache of temp files and all, but then your registry might have some issues. CCleaner will take care of all that, just download it, install it, start it up, make sure you have the right options selected and blamo thats all taken care of. Then there comes your hardware options, such as ram (often referred to as memory), today's average computer runs between 1-4 gigs of memory. But alas, what it really all comes down to is your processor. If you have an old, slow processor your improvements will be limited. And as for your internet being slow, that could be due to adware or spyware as apparently you already suspect, or it could very well be just plain slow internet (aka dialup or crappy dsl).
 

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post the specs of the computer.
buy a 2nd hard drive, install it and use it for mass storage (photos, music, etc). having the 2nd hard drive will make life easier in the future. reformat/reinstall windows. either keep with XP or go to win7 as vista may not work nor is vista worth it.
 

Jay FX4

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But alas, what it really all comes down to is your processor. If you have an old, slow processor your improvements will be limited. And as for your internet being slow, that could be due to adware or spyware as apparently you already suspect, or it could very well be just plain slow internet (aka dialup or crappy dsl).
This is true.
Not the best example, but can kind of compare a slow processor to a 4-banger. You can add a turbo, intake and exhaust, but at the end of the day, it's still a 4-banger.
But at the same time, processor speed doesn't have that much impact on loading applications or web surfing. RAM is more of a factor there, while things like video playback and working within apps is more depndent on the processor.
post the specs of the computer.
buy a 2nd hard drive, install it and use it for mass storage (photos, music, etc). having the 2nd hard drive will make life easier in the future. reformat/reinstall windows. either keep with XP or go to win7 as vista may not work nor is vista worth it.
+1.

I would recommend a large capacity external drive. These days 1TB drives aren't that expensive. Not only can you back everything up to it, you can store it in a safe location and keep a copy of your cloned internal drive on it. Having a clone of the internal hard disk that has the OS on it will make reinstalling Windows a breeze.
 

Fast Fords

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So ad-aware finished, found 350 items, an my computer is still slow.

unfortunately, i have no idea what the specs are on the thing. I am thinking that the dude that built the computer was a cheese head..if we purchase a secondary hard drive, will any bad stuff transfer over?

My plan is to buy this secondary drive, get windows XP, load all the files on the external drive, and boot the new windows on to it. Is it nessecary to wipe the computer clean before booting up the new windows? or is that just something that it does automatically? And this processor, i think i should just get one of those things, too..this is gonna be a learning experience for me!
 

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97RangerXLT

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Download CCleaner
http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

install and run the disk cleanup portion of it. it will probably free up about 5 mb of garbage.

after the disk cleanup, run the registry cleaner. be sure to back up your registry (it will ask you and do it for you if you check "yes") and that will get rid of all the invalid registry entries that did not get wiped when you have uninstalled programs or other out of date entries.

Then look at your start up. it will show you everything that gets put into memory on start up. you can probably nerf most of the garbage on there from iTunes, Adobe, Quicktime etc. be sure to not kill any thing for your antivirus, or genuine system stuff. you can google the process name and it will tell you waht it does if you are not sure.

And speaking of antivirus... if you use Norton or McAffee, get rid of them and get AVG free or Avast! both are decent FREE antivirus that are way better than the bloatware from Norton and McAffee.

Memory...
I would recommend at least one gb of ram w/ windows xp. it will run fine on as little as 384, but that will slow it down. IF you have 512 or less, consider adding more ram.

If I were to guess this computer is over 4 years old. I would not even bother upgrading the O/S on it, it is not worth the money spent to do so unless you can get Win 7 at academics pricing. As said before, avoid Vista. too many issues, and it needs way more machine than you have got to run it.

AJ
 

97RangerXLT

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just looked at your pictures. not 100% sure, but it looks like you have an Athlon XP processor (Socket A) and 2 sticks of ram. If I were to guess judging from the pictures, this is about 5 years old. I mothballed a similar machine about a year ago. great computer for the time, and still can be serviceable if you are not gaming with it.

Check the ram specs.. if you have two 256 mb sticks, consider adding two 512mb chips. Make sure they are matched chips if the motherboard supports dual channel memory.

You can check the RAM by going into the device manager and clicking the hardware tab.

AJ
 

Alex FX4

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if you are running two versions of antivirus at the same time this can happen. i would uninstall all cleaning/AV software and install avast antivirus and ccleaner.

those are the only two i use and ts great. You can also use AVG instead of avast.
 

Jaymz9350

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just looked at your pictures. not 100% sure, but it looks like you have an Athlon XP processor (Socket A) and 2 sticks of ram. If I were to guess judging from the pictures, this is about 5 years old. I mothballed a similar machine about a year ago. great computer for the time, and still can be serviceable if you are not gaming with it.

Check the ram specs.. if you have two 256 mb sticks, consider adding two 512mb chips. Make sure they are matched chips if the motherboard supports dual channel memory.

You can check the RAM by going into the device manager and clicking the hardware tab.

AJ
It's a AMD 939 system (googled motherboard code from pic) with only 1 stick of RAM (which means the RAM is single channel instead of Dual channel). Getting a matched set of 512 or 1 gig sticks (if you can find DDR1 at a good price) .

Also try what superdave1984 said to see what you actually have now. With one stick of ram it likely has only 512 MB of RAM and that's not enough for a usable XP machine to me.

Also get some canned air (or air compressor if it doesn't have water in the line) and blow the dust out of that case.
 

Fast Fords

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its not worth it in my eyes..i'll just sell the junker...
i think me an the gf are gonna get a mac desktop..an we are going to get the external hard drive too. Just to be safe lol. we are just going to use her laptop till then
 

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