can I speed up my computer without spending money on it?

Question

my PC has 2.53 GZ processor intel celeron and 256 of ram. It's too slow even when all processes are closed and antivirus is disabled. what can be done to speed it up?

remove games? I need faster computer to play them!

Answer 1

Keep your own Anti-virus up to date, and check the status regularly. I have found that the Internet Security versions of this are very slow. But you MUST have antivirus software.

Get and update several Anti-spyware solutions. I use AD-AWARE and SpyBot Search & Destroy. I use the free versions from http://www.download.com Update and run these regularly. Especially IMMEDIATELY after an upexpected pop-up.

Download and install FireFox free from http://www.mozilla.com This is a browser that is safer to use than IE. Use this for general surfing and google searching. Only use IE when you MUST have IE, such as Windows Updates.

If you have Windows XP with SP2, activate the Windows firewall and check the status. If you don't, get Zone Alarm the free version from http://www.zonelabs.com

Use DISK CLEANUP from the System Tools section.

Use DEFRAG from the System Tools section.

Review the programs in the ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS section of your Control Panel. Maybe there are some games and such that you never use.

Take these steps to keep your computer ALIVE and running faster.

If you have the restore disk and reinstall everything, you might find better performance. But after reinstalling, go to the ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS section and uninstall everything that you do not need. Make your computer a clean and mean machine.

Answer 2

There are several factors that determine the speed. If you have cleaned out your start up and disabled any non-critical processes then your other options are defragging the HD, increasing your swap file space. If it is XP you can also turn off HD and file indexing, turn of System Restore (not recommended),, tweak the graphic display and disable little things like mouse shadows and other window effects, also setting your performance options for applications instead of background processes.

Beyond overclocking (not recommended) your looking at money for faster HD, memory.

Answer 3

1. Defrag your hard drive regularly. This improves HDD Performance.
2. Remove un-used SW and do disk cleanup regularly.
3. Monitor your boot time settings. Dont load un-necessary programs.
4. Assuming you are using Windows 2000/XP family, increase virtual memory. Goto My Computer Properties, Advanced Tab. Performance options, Give your own size for virtual memory like 1024, 2048 depending on freespace. Dont give too much.
5. Re-install your OS again (not a fresh install, do upgrade). Sometimes this improves performance tremendously.

Answer 4

First of all clean out all the software and other crap you don't need. Include in this the items running in you systray and in start-up. After you have purged, run defrag and the disk check-up utility.

Run your antivirus and get it updated. You may have some malware on your system that is causing the slowdown.

Answer 5

1.Reduce number of files.
2.Remove viruses.
3.Defrag.
4 Remove games that slow down PC
and 5 something you do not like Spend money.

Answer 6

usually a virus slows down ur computer. never turn off the antivirus. install a new antivirus and scan for bugs. you can also speed it up by defragmenting each drive. right click on any of the drives...go to properties...tools...defragment (its nothin but rearranging files on ur disk to speed it up). it worked for me
good luck

Answer 7

add another 256 RAM to it,r uninstall some software which u r not using frquently,dont use MCafee antivirus ,becoz of it system runs slowly

Answer 8

clean up disk space, remove temp.internet files and folders, and run defrag and scandisk. also check your start menu for unused programs that may be loading even though you are not using them,you can open them when needed.

Answer 9

Go to my computer- properties-advanced or maybe turning off system recovery and remote assistance

Answer 10

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Computer Slow

Download and then run startup.exe (FREEWARE) at:

http://www.mlin.net/startupcpl.shtml......

Can't live without it and windows...

Then disable and/or uninstall whatever u don't need.

Other things to try:

1 - Disk Cleanup (removal of temp files, cookies, etc.)
2 - Defrag
3 - Registry Cleanup (CAN BE VERY RISKY!)

ALL ELSE FAILS - RELOAD YOUR O/S (WINDOWS) AND THEN REINSTALL ALL OTHER PROGRAMS YOU NEED/USE!

Joe...

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Computer Virus/Spyware/Adware/Malware/etc

All FREE...

Download and then run Avira AntiVir Personal Edition Classic at:

http://www.free-av.com/

Download and then run Spybot - Search & Destroy at:

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/

Download and then run Ad-Aware SE Personal at:

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

Joe...

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