Speed Up

[maui_mallard]

Hey,

I want to speed up my computer, its running good, but I want to make it run faster. How do I do it????

1gb ram
480gb hdd
2.18ghz

anyhelp would be greatly appreciated!!!!

[MidiMagic]

Unplug the keyboard and mouse, and install a new computer?

You are flying low over the road now. If you want faster, you probably need to reduce overhead. Don't run more than one program at a time.

[maui_mallard]

So you are pretty much saying that if I want to speed up my computer I have to buy a new one?????????????

What do you mean by "you are flying low over a road now"

[JustinNH]

Try dumbing down the graphics. Go to a 16 bit desktop scheme instead of 32. Turn off all the flashy effects(transparent menus, shadows under icons, etc)

Uninstall unnecessary crap. Add more memory(think XP will take up to 4 gig)

[jbennet]

install linux?

[caperjack]

Hey,

I want to speed up my computer, its running good, but I want to make it run faster. How do I do it????

1gb ram
480gb hdd
2.18ghz

anyhelp would be greatly appreciated!!!!

what do you mean by faster ,its running good now ,what do you want to make faster,

[maui_mallard]

because it doesnt open up programs very fast

[jbennet]

what os is it running and what cpu does it have?

[maui_mallard]

Windows Xp Media Center..........AMD AThlon xp - 2800+

[Fatality]

Weel, considering you want your computer to run programs faster, you'll need to try Disk Defragmenting. Follow these directions:

Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter

Also do this,

Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup

They are 2 simple programs that come with your computer that running them occasionally can make your computer speed up a lot faster. I recommend running Disk Cleanup at the end of every night. Disk Defragment you should run every month or so. If this does not help, or you already run such programs, spyware can greatly cause computers to slow down. Click the link below and download/install Ad-Aware and run a full system scan immediately.

http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Edition/3000-8022_4-10639408.html?tag=lst-0-1

[anlogue]

Your computers fine, loads of power dont be fooled by the hype. Bus speeds and dual core for instance. I have worked on 800mhz PC'S than open programs quicker than 3gb machines purely because the system is not choking cus its full of crap.......
If it is really slow it probably needs the OS reinstalled....
Try adaware and spybot as stated above
good luck

[maui_mallard]

but doesnt disk defrag fix things that dont need to be fixed

[dcc]

but doesnt disk defrag fix things that dont need to be fixed

maui...you have 177 post and don't know about defragging your hdd?????:eek:

No. Defragging your hdd removes fragmented files from the contiguous files consolidating the system files and leaving you more usable space on the hdd. Information stored on the hdd is not placed in a nice neat and orderly manner, so you have these areas that need to be cleared.

If you have never defragged you hdd then you will notice an increase in performance. This needs to be done on a regular basis.

[jbennet]

yeah defragging yur hdd especially helps in intensive tasks like games and compiling

[maui_mallard]

I have never done it because a guy, a buddy of mine, that has a masters degree in computer science told me that defragging fixes things that do not need to be fixed, In which they can harm files on your computer. Secondly, I do know what defraging is, I just never did it for the reason above!!!

[maui_mallard]

Oh and By the way....

I used CCleaner and the full copy of Reg supreme and its running a lot faster now.

[anlogue]

That is correct about fragging it can cause serious problems, and i bet it doesn't need defragging anyway.
Sounds like you have it licked anyhows

[caperjack]

I have never done it because a guy, a buddy of mine, that has a masters degree in computer science told me that defragging fixes things that do not need to be fixed, In which they can harm files on your computer. Secondly, I do know what defraging is, I just never did it for the reason above!!!

you know he maybe right ,but i've beed defragging for years ,even with
3rd party software and it never caused me any problems,that i know of anyway .

[Krispy84]

the quickest way i know to speed up a computer are to clean it up in every way possible...

www.download.com is your friend for this

search for these 2 programs
adaware (www.lavasoft.com will redirect you to download.com anyway so just go there and search)
Tuneup 2007 (This is the most amazing program i've ever seen for cleaning a computer)

For tuneup you can disable a bunch of the background windows things like transparent text for icons
The 2 places i advise you focusing on the most though are the startup programs. You can basically disable everything that you don't know what it is.
I suggest you keep CTXFIHLP.EXE and any type of driver but you should be able to recognize these.

A simple question to ask yourself is how many icons do you have next to your clock. If it's more than 3 or 4 you can probabally disable a bunch of unnecessary stuff and that'll speed up your computer as much as possible

The other thing is to start overclocking your processor but this is a realm that i will give you no advice on b/c if you don't know how to do this already, i highly advise you don't do it

[Krispy84]

PS... think of defragging as repacking your suitcase and making it all logical and packed neatly. It makes things more logical and close together, this can help with speeds loading things directly off your hard drive and get you more data storage (by more i meen less than a 1% increase on average)

The dangers of defragging are outside infulences. Your computer has pulled a piece of data from your OS and is moving it to a more logical location on your disk and you have a power outage and then that piece of data is no more, or the kids are horsing around and knock your computer over and it misalign's where the data is placed. Stuff like that. Then you have to reload your OS and potentially try to recover your data on our HD by making it a slave or any number of other options including using either free data recovery software (there's some good ones out there but they're hard to find) or paying someone else to do it. My wife got some quotes one time and the lowest for this was $300 so i was willing to spend a good deal of time tracking down the free software. Don't remember what it was called, some company in germany made it but it worked great

[jbennet]

i defrag my hdds monthly on numerous pcs since about 1999, never had any problems.

[caperjack]

another good site like download .com is
www.filehippo.com

[dcc]

Disk fragmentation is one of the main causes of slow and unstable PC performance. Defragging a hdd is one of the most commonly suggested maintenance procedures.

As for it being harmful, it simply just isn't! Why would it be an option in your software if it were? I dare say that anyone who has lost their hdd because of defragging had an existing problem that would have caused the failure one way or another.

[MidiMagic]

One reason it takes programs longer to load is that they keep making programs bigger.