Phil said:
My computer has slowly but surely slowing down. I'm pretty sure its not
viruses or anythign malicious like that, i was just after some general advice
on how to speed up your computer. I will be adding to the ram in the near
future but it was more advice about settings or software as i dont want to
spend a fortune sorting it out.
Thank you in advance,
Phil
1. You can often improve the performance of a computer by reducing
the number of background tools and toys (a.k.a. crap and corruption)
that gets loaded when your computer starts up. Use Start - Run -
MSCONFIG and go to the Startup tab. Compare the list of items with
the checklist at
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.php to
see what can safely be removed.
2. Adding more memory can noticeably improve performance only if the
added memory results in reduced usage of the virtual memory paging
file. Therefore if the paging file is not currently being used to any
significant extent then adding more memory will not provide a
significant improvement.
Unfortunately there is no ready way of determing actual paging file
usage provided with Windows XP - it does not have an equivalent to the
'Memory Manager - Swap File In Use" reporting provided by the System
Monitor utility in Windows 95/98/Me.
There is a free utility that you can download and run which will
provide this information for you. It was written by MVP Bill James and
you can get if from
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm or from
http://billsway.com/notes_public/WinXP_Tweaks/
If that utility shows actual page file usage of 50 mb or more on a
regular basis then that is indicative of fairly significant paging
file activity. Adding more RAM will reduce or even eliminate entirely
this activity thereby improving performance.
This apples regardless of how much or how little RAM is currently
installed in the computer, at least up to the 4 gb RAM maximum for
Windows XP.
3. Some of the Windows services that are loaded at Startup can be
reconfigured so as to provide improved performance. See
http://majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=12 for information on how to do
this.
4. Do not be overconfident about your freedom from malicious software.
It takes constant vigiliance and a combination of several different
software packages to protect your computer these days, and a regular
"double check" is always advisable. Go to
http://housecall.trendmicro.com and see if their free online test
finds anything amiss with your machine.
Good luck
Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
