Any ways of speeding up my computer?

Question

I am aware of the RAM upgrade possibility. Just wonderin if I can do any non-ram related speed ups. Btw, I have a Dell Optiplex GX1. 384 Mb Ram, and over 1/2 hard drive free. Running windows xp pro sp2 and intel pentium 3 processor. thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Well, the Pentium III is quite a workhorse, but it doesn't have the speed of a Pentium IV or one of those new dual-cpu chips. However, CPU upgrades are rare, as the motherboard only supports one socket type, and even them the FSB only goes so fast.

Easy fixes are to get rid of virus and/or spyware. If you have that covered, clean up with Ccleaner and pop into safe mode for a defrag.

Answer 2

With XP you definitely want 1 GB of RAM. You did not say what kind of hard drive you have. It sounds like your machine is a little older, so you might to upgrade that hard drive. Check the speeds of your model against some of the newer drives. Do you have a video card with its own memory? Shared memory is a bad thing.

But, before you buy anything try the following things;
1) Check that the things you are running in memory are things you need. Some drivers are loaded, even though they are not in use, they all suck up RAM.
2) Run a defrag.
3) Keep your anti-virus and anti-spyware software up to date. Viruses and spy-ware have to be running to do their thing.

Beyond that, I would have to see your machine or know more about the parts.

Answer 3

Well your RAM is on the low side. I recommend a minimum of 768M. A Gig is better. But try the following things. They usually help alot.

A major cause of slow PC's is fragmentation of the hard drive.
You need to defragment the HD at least once a week if not more depending on how much you use your computer, and what you do with it.

One way is to use the defragment utility built into Windows XP. It is slow but does the job rather well. Go to:
Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools and then click on System Defrag to run the tool. It may take several hours, so let it run overnight or simply walk away from your PC for a few hours.

A great program for defragging automatically is Diskeeper. It costs $30 but is well worth it. Go to http://www.download.com and search for Diskeeper. Read the Publishers Description and the Editor and User reviews. It can be scheduled to run automatically as the program deems necessary, and if you are using your PC and the program launches itself, it will take a backseat to whatever you are doing and give you the priority for CPU usage. I think you'll agree it's a good program to have. It precludes your needing to remember to defrag at regular intervals.

Another major cause of a slow PC is programs that are running in the background. Here's another really good Microsoft tool. Go to Start > Run > type in msconfig in the box and click OK.
This will bring up a window with several tabs at the top. Click on the “Startup” tab. It will list the programs that are running on your PC and eating up resources. Look them over carefully and turn off any that don’t absolutely have to be running. Simply click on the “check mark” in the little box beside the program name. Clicking on it will remove the check mark. Once you have edited the Startup list, click on Apply and then on OK. Once you have exited the window, reboot your PC for the settings to take effect.
WARNING: Don’t go into the other tabs and start deleting things. You will probably give yourself major headaches if you do that. Stay focused on the Startup List only.

Another good thing to have is a little program called FreeRAM Pro. It is free and is available from http://www.download.com This program puts a little RAM meter on the System Tray and shows how much RAM you have remaining that you are not using at any given time. I think you may be surprised at how little RAM you have to run other programs. Also, once it is installed you can right click on the little meter, then click on RESTORE and it will open the RAM display window. You can tweak the settings so it will display your CPU usage also. Then just click “Minimize” and then “To System Tray” to return to the Task Bar.

What happens when you run out of or run real low on RAM is that the OS recognizes the low or no RAM situation and starts using a section of your hard drive as memory. This is called virtual memory, or a swap file. The PC is constantly writing and reading from your HD. Comparitively, it is a very slow process. Check your motherboard manual and determine how much RAM each slot can hold. It will also tell you what type of RAM you need. You can also go to http://www.crucial.com or http://www.4allmemory.com and run their analysis utility to determine what kind and how much RAM is installed in your PC. Depend on your MoBo manual to determine the RAM limits of each slot though.

Hope this helps

Answer 4

Not really, since your RAM is drastically slowing you down. 384MB is simply not enough to run XP - I would try 512 at the ABSOLUTE minimum and 1-2GB ideally. There isn't much else you can do that's going to help without removing that RAM bottleneck in speed first.

Answer 5

Working with a slow computer can be time consuming as programs/ applications take a long time to start. This problem is more pronounced in computers which have been used for 6 or more months. More information at http://fixit.in/slowcomputer.html

Answer 6

yeah...get a new computer considering XP needs at the very minimum of 256MB of ram that only leaves 130 MB for programs

Answer 7

Go to START>PROGRAMS>ACCESSORIES>SYSTEMTOOLS>DISK DEFRAGMENTER
Do it twice a month.