Over the past years, I have noticed my PC progressively slowing down. Now it has come to the point where it has trouble correctly playing videos and games tend to run slow on it. I use a Pentium 4 processor with 512 Mb RAM. The videos that I am playing did not have trouble in the past, but are having increasing trouble now. Furthermore, my computer seems to be slow occasionally when playing streaming video and flash stuff. Also, games run slower, and the games I am using are older games, such as Playstation games (it's legal since I am using CDs that I bought). I think some happen to my drives when I tried to make changes to my computer, which made everything slow, includding processing on the desktop. Things have improved a bit since I bought Speedupmypc, but not enough. I do not have my Windows CD since I am studying abroad and won't be able to reinstall till I get back home, and restore points always fail on my computer. First, how do I check to see if there is actual problems with my drives and cards? Second, how do I fix it? All help will be appreciated. Thank you.
Hi gfunk01, There are a great variety of possibilities, when it comes to a slow pc. Before you attempt any remedy, ensure you are free of any virus, malware and any other net nasty programs. A basic tool that is often overlooked, is the Disc Defragmenter. A Mature system, will start to "trip" over itself trying to locate fragmented files, this can cause lengthy delays in operation. As a rule of thumb, defrag your hdd at least weekly. Heat would be another usual suspect in a slow pc. With your pc turned off, clean fan blades and guards, and generally get rid of any gunk that might be clogging the heatsinks etc. Delete any programs that you no longer use. Run Crap cleaner in cleaner and Issues mode, this handy (and free) tool will also free up your system. You will notice a difference. Boosting your ram, is also another cheap way of giving your pc an instant lift in performance. Go for a minimum of 1gb, or more if you don't plan on replacing your rig any time soon. If your pc is a little on ye older side, why not go for a mild overclock to give it more processing grunt. Posting questions at AD's Official overclocking thread, will open the way on how to go about it. If you decide on a graphics card update also, consider the fact you may have to upgrade your power supply unit to cope with it. If your graphics are fine, I'd leave that one alone for the time being. So there's plenty to do and consider when it comes to giving your pc a fresh breath of life. As far as your drives and cards go, leave them as they are for the interim, and get your pc up and running first. Cheers.
thats all great advice onya. you could also have a look in the task manager to make sure you dont have more things running than you need. alot of software sets itself to start on startup, now this is great if you use it all the time but if you dont you need to turn off this option in each program.
Hi marsey99, thanks for the positive input, it never goes astray...lol. The programs running at startup is also a good suggestion, but I think that gfunk01 may have bypassed suggestions made, and gone directly for an O/C, Coz... he just posted on the O/C thread, so I'll see what happens in that arena also...lol Cheers.
Thank you for the help. I have done those scans on my computer before in the recent past and do them about every weekend, so they are not the main issue anymore. I have defraged recently as well. I finally cleaned my fans, which were really dirty. However, I still worry that the problem may be deeper, possibly with the registry, etc. since these issues would not suddenly start slowing down all multimedia after I make a couple bad changes with my computer. Any other ideas?
It's good news that you have done all the derfragging and cleaning (both internal and external) these will go along way to helping your system. It would have been nice to know what crap cleaner fixed in issues mode, a little late now but not to worry. The next best thing to do if you suspect a corrupt registry, is to wait until you get your hands on your OS system disc. This way you can backup your data files, and then do a proper hdd format.(not just the os reinstall). So if you can, buy that little bit more memory, and you'll laughing. All the best. Cheers.
What is a hdd format and how is that different from reinstallation? For CCleaner, I know it fixed at least 400 issues, many of which were probably dead extentions and registries.
That certainly is a few issues fixed. Better out than in, as they say. Reinstalling an operating system, only partially fixes certain problems. Fdisc, totally eradicates all data, and by definition, Reformats the drive(reconfigures). So you then have a "New" drive, ready for a clean install. Note that you will have to go through all of updating of windows and the like. Usually, this is a last resort and not to be taken lightly. If a reinstall of XP works, then happy days, if not.....?
I was told that it is generally a good idea to reinstall XP every 6 months to keep it running well, is this true? I haven't reinstalled since I got my computer a few years ago.
I did a clean install about 4 months ago. It had been about 2-1/2 years since I had done it. The increased performance was great. I will be doing a clean install in about 2 months.
@gfunk01, I Have heard that once a rig gets on the mature side of life, say 2-3yrs old, (like mine) it Could benefit from a clean install. Every six months, in my opinion, seems a little extreme. As I posted earlier, keeping the hdd defragmented, and the registry uncluttered, goes a long way for any pc. @GrandpaBW, Do you mean that after the last clean install, you'll be doing it to the same rig again or another rig in two months? Cheers.
