Member Avatar for Hellodear

Hi,
Please note my comp spec:

pentium III, 98 MB RAM, 40 HDD Hard disk.

how can i make my Windows XP pc more speedable? Can i reduce any resource from the OS for a better performance?

Anish V
Mahatma Gandhi Colony

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Practical, low-risk follow‑ups for (and others reading later): the machine’s tiny physical memory is the real limiter — as and noted — so hardware upgrade is the single best fix. If you can’t add RAM immediately, the steps below help the system spend less time thrashing the hard disk and more time doing work.

Tighten the desktop and services: switch to the Classic theme and turn off visual effects (these cut GUI CPU/RAM use). Stop nonessential background services (indexing, print spooler if unused, automatic updaters you don’t need) and uninstall software you never use. Use a process/autorun viewer to identify heavy background apps and remove them from startup rather than guessing. Back up before disabling System Restore or critical services.

Free disk space and check the drive: XP with very low RAM relies heavily on the pagefile, so you must keep the system drive as healthy and roomy as possible. Empty temp files, uninstall unused programs, then run a disk check and defragmentation (chkdsk may need a reboot). Example commands to run from an elevated command prompt:

chkdsk C: /r
defrag C:

Notes: run Disk Cleanup first and aim for at least 10–15% free on C:. If you manually change virtual memory, don’t set it excessively large — that can worsen thrashing; if unsure, let Windows manage it.

If the goal is basic web/email on that hardware, consider trying a lightweight Linux live CD/USB (runs much snappier in low memory) rather than keeping XP. For with slow video on 256MB: update video drivers, use a lightweight player (lower post‑processing), and reduce video resolution or bitrate — CPU decode is often the bottleneck on older machines.

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Member Avatar for TT4Titans

Add more Ram.

Member Avatar for linux

TT4Titans that wasn't very helpful...

You can try using msconfig (Start>Run>msconfig) and remove some stuff from start-up. If you don't know what a process is, go HERE.


But WOW! It's surprising you're even running XP on 98MB! My worst PC was 128MB and it ran XP like a slug with salt on it ( :) ).

Run an AV program, as well as a spyware program (Ad-Aware / Spybot S&D).

Other than that, get more RAM.

Member Avatar for Julees

You need at least 128MB of RAM for Xp to workproperly and 256MB RAM is recommended

Hi,
Please note my comp spec:

pentium III, 98 MB RAM, 40 HDD Hard disk.

how can i make my Windows XP pc more speedable? Can i reduce any resource from the OS for a better performance?

Anish V
Mahatma Gandhi Colony

Member Avatar for TT4Titans

Sorry Linux but that was as about as helpful as that could be.

Actually 128 is the bare minumum and 512 is the recommended to get the performance.256 will do pretty good till you start adding several apps.

I mean a AV is liable to lock it down especially if the screen saver comes on.

Member Avatar for Hellodear

TT4Titans that wasn't very helpful...

You can try using msconfig (Start>Run>msconfig) and remove some stuff from start-up. If you don't know what a process is, go HERE.


But WOW! It's surprising you're even running XP on 98MB! My worst PC was 128MB and it ran XP like a slug with salt on it ( :) ).

Run an AV program, as well as a spyware program (Ad-Aware / Spybot S&D).

Other than that, get more RAM.

Hi,
You have adviced me to run an AV program. Can you tell me what is this AV program stands for?
---Anish

Member Avatar for TT4Titans

Anti virus don't use norton it is a resource hog.

I use McAfee but AVG some people say is good.here is a link to a free download.

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

Member Avatar for Julees

What he is saying is that your computer might also be slow because you may have a virus infection. But the many reason that you computer is going so slow with XP is the lack of RAM/Memory.

Member Avatar for linux

It's probably not a virus. Run a spyware check first! It's faster and will probably help your problem (uhh fix itself).

Member Avatar for kiai2002

hi team

my computer run at window xp and ram of 256 with HD of 20GB. but of late when I play video window media player or watch TV clips on it the pictures are playing in slow motion but sound is okey.what can i do to increase the perfomance.

regards

kiai

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