Computer real slow

[PattiChati]

I got a used computer for Christmas as a gift that was 4 years old and it is
gettig slower and slower. It is a Dell, windows xp pro. It has 4-MCPU,
1.80 ghz, 512 mg of ram. What should I do to speed this up, I know more ram
might help, but I don't want to put alot of money into a used computer, yet
being that is was a gift, I can't get a new one quite yet. Can you even put
more ram in a laptop. Thanks.

 

[Tony Meloche]

I got a used computer for Christmas as a gift that was 4 years old and it is
gettig slower and slower. It is a Dell, windows xp pro. It has 4-MCPU,
1.80 ghz, 512 mg of ram. What should I do to speed this up, I know more ram
might help, but I don't want to put alot of money into a used computer, yet
being that is was a gift, I can't get a new one quite yet. Can you even put
more ram in a laptop. Thanks.

It's "*getting*" slower and slower - so it did run faster at one time?
If that's the case, the first thing I would ask is: "When was the last
time you defragged"? If you don't remember, or the answer is "never",
you have found the problem. Right-click on your "C" drive icon, click
"Properties". and then click the "Tools" tab. Click on "Defragment", and
follow the instructions. If you've never done it/can't remember how
long it's been, it may take hours (overnight, even). Turn your screen
saver off first.

If that is the problem, it will run much more speedily once it's done.
If that doesn't help, it could be a lot of other things: Almost full
hard drive, more RAM needed, etc. But that's the most likely reason.

Tony

 

[Tom Willett]

It could also be malware.

| PattiChati wrote:
| > I got a used computer for Christmas as a gift that was 4 years old and
it is
| > gettig slower and slower. It is a Dell, windows xp pro. It has 4-MCPU,
| > 1.80 ghz, 512 mg of ram. What should I do to speed this up, I know more
ram
| > might help, but I don't want to put alot of money into a used computer,
yet
| > being that is was a gift, I can't get a new one quite yet. Can you even
put
| > more ram in a laptop. Thanks.
|
|
|
| It's "*getting*" slower and slower - so it did run faster at one time?
| If that's the case, the first thing I would ask is: "When was the last
| time you defragged"? If you don't remember, or the answer is "never",
| you have found the problem. Right-click on your "C" drive icon, click
| "Properties". and then click the "Tools" tab. Click on "Defragment", and
| follow the instructions. If you've never done it/can't remember how
| long it's been, it may take hours (overnight, even). Turn your screen
| saver off first.
|
| If that is the problem, it will run much more speedily once it's done.
| If that doesn't help, it could be a lot of other things: Almost full
| hard drive, more RAM needed, etc. But that's the most likely reason.
|
| Tony
|
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=----

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I got a used computer for Christmas as a gift that was 4 years old and it
is gettig slower and slower. It is a Dell, windows xp pro. It has 4-MCPU,
1.80 ghz, 512 mg of ram. What should I do to speed this up, I know more
ram might help, but I don't want to put alot of money into a used computer,
yet being that is was a gift, I can't get a new one quite yet. Can you
even put more ram in a laptop. Thanks.

Slowdowns are usually due to things loading and running, or being out of
disk space (or the disk space being badly fragmented).

More RAM won't make any difference until you start to need it - then, it
will keep the system from slowing down, not speed it up. For many
purposes, 512 meg is enough.

Start with being sure that the trash is taken out, and malware is ruled out.
Download and install ccleaner (www.ccleaner.com) - during install, choose
not to install the toolbar as at this point you're trying to minimize
loaders. You may wish to keep cookies if you have specific sites that use
them. The first time it runs, it can take a few minutes.

Then, go to http://housecall.trendmicro.com and run the Houscall antivirus
and malware scanner. This will probably detect any cookies that you chose
to keep, and report them as spyware. Mostly, you're not concerned about
them right now.

Then, defragment the drive. Check, first, that there is enough free space
to actually do this; it wants 15% free space to run. If you had that
little space, you might well be experiencing slowdowns. Find files that
you can delete or shift to off-drive storage, and uninstall programs you
don't need.

Finally, use msconfig (start, run, msconfig) to see what's actually being
loaded, and test turn off what you don't really need.

And you may find that turning OFF Windows automatic updates prevents system
slowdowns at boot time - the update check can take a long time, up to 10
minutes or more on some systems, during which the system can be very
sluggish. If you do this, remember that you did, and check for Windows
updates manually from time to time.

HTH
-pk

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I got a used computer for Christmas as a gift that was 4 years old and it is
gettig slower and slower. It is a Dell, windows xp pro. It has 4-MCPU,
1.80 ghz, 512 mg of ram. What should I do to speed this up,

Reinstall Windows, if you haven't already done so. If I bought a used
computer, the first thing I would do with it would be to reinstall the
operating system cleanly. You have no idea how the computer has been
maintained, what has been installed incorrectly, what is missing, what
viruses and spyware there may be, etc. I wouldn't want to live with
somebody else's mistakes and problems, possibility of kiddie porn,
etc., and I wouldn't recommend that anyone else do either.

I know more ram
might help,

Possibly, but probably not. Unless you run particularly memory-hungry
apps (typically photo or video editing), 512MB is enough for most
people, and even more than enough for some.

but I don't want to put alot of money into a used computer, yet
being that is was a gift, I can't get a new one quite yet. Can you even put
more ram in a laptop.

Depends on the laptop, but in general, yes.

 

[John Napzter]

I got a used computer for Christmas as a gift that was 4 years old and it is
gettig slower and slower. It is a Dell, windows xp pro. It has 4-MCPU,
1.80 ghz, 512 mg of ram. What should I do to speed this up, I know more ram
might help, but I don't want to put alot of money into a used computer, yet
being that is was a gift, I can't get a new one quite yet. Can you even put
more ram in a laptop. Thanks.

visit this blog, there are a lot of steps in there on how to speed up
your PC
http://123enter.blogspot.com/search/label/PC Maintenance and Repair

 

[glee]

Hi Patti,

In addition to the excellent suggestions in the other replies, it's also possible
that the hard drive is getting bad sectors, especially since it is four years old.
I would check the drive integrity before defragmenting.

Here's my old canned response regarding hard disk diagnostics:

I suggest you make sure the hard drive is OK, by running the diagnostics from the
hard drive manufacturer's web site.

If you don't know what brand the drive is, you can download the limited-use free
edition of OnTrack Data Advisor from this location:
http://www.ontrack.com/freesoftware/#dataadvisor

When you click the download link on that page for Data Advisor 5.0 Free edition, you
will be taken to a page to register with the OnTrack site, then you will be able to
download the diskette creator file.

The downloads are diskette creators. They are to be run once from a working Windows
system and will guide you through the process of extracting the Data Advisor onto a
3.5" floppy disk.

Download and Use Instructions:
http://www.ontrack.com/dataadvisor/downloadinfo.asp

As far as I know, Maxtor's diagnostics will also work with any brand of drive, and
the older versions of Seagate Seatools also, but I am not sure about the new
version.

The older version of SeaTools, for creating a bootable CD, is here:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download2858.html
This is a good option if you don't have a floppy drive.


Hard Drive Diagnostic Programs by Vendor:

OnTrack Data Advisor:
http://www.ontrack.com/freesoftware/#dataadvisor
IBM/Hitachi Drive Fitness Test:
http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm
Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools:
http://support.wdc.com/download/
Quantum/Maxtor PowerMax:
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=a37d8b9c4a8ff010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD
or
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Maxtor_Powermax_d1386.html
Seagate SeaTools for DOS:
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools