Do I need to Upgrade My PC?

Question

Here is what I have;
I bought a Dell Dimension E510 in April 2006.
It came with Windows XP
80BG Hard Drive (have 45GB left)
300Ghz Pentium 4 Processor w/ Hyper Thread
512 MB Memeory
The CD-RW drive is sh*t already, I am wanting to replace it but not sure what to get... I want a DVD-RW/CD-RW Burner combo, if any one has any ideas.

I have added a Radeon 256mb 9250 Graphics card.

I have a lot of Music and photos on the computer and Ages of Empires 3 is one of the biggest added programs on it.

I am wanting to make the computer run faster. It is surprisingly slow. I am currently trying to upgrade my virus protection and anti-Spyware protection.

I am not sure how to get programs out of the start-up folder, it would be great to have help with that, because it is so slow at start-up and shut down.
If anyone has any ideas it would be greatly appriciated. Thank you.

I can't make a back of anything because my CD- Drive is not working anymore. I don't think there is any other way to back-up, is there? I found out there were 37 things in the start-up folder. Is that a lot compaired to some? It seems like alot. Thank you all

Answer 1

The best thing you can do is get some more memory. 512 more would be good, just make sure you get the right kind for your machine.
To stop certain things from starting, click on Start, then Run, then type msconfig. Goto the startup tab and uncheck anything you do not want to run at startup. The best way to really get rid of this stuff is thru regedit but you would want to look at some online guides for that.
Also defrag every once and awhile by doing Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Defrag.

Answer 2

It's pretty close to what I run, and mine will handle everything I throw at it.

You probably need to clean some junk off your machine to get it back to full speed. Start by clicking on the start menu, go into 'all programs' and pick 'startup'. Remove all items from this folder. Then press ctrl+alt+del, and bring up the task manager, switch to 'processes' and make a list of everything. Go online and search for each item, and find a way to remove it, or if it is necessary for windows to run.

Get adaware from lavasoft.com, update it and run a full scan, that will get rid of any spyware. If you have virus software, update it and run a full scan. If not, there are some great freeware ones out there.

Then run scandisk to check the status of your hard drive. When it is done, run defrag, and let it organize the drive.

Make sure to make a backup of everything important before you start, set restore points in winXP, and make a backup of your registry before messing with it.

Be careful cleaning stuff out of the task manager, because if you have a virus, sometimes the virus writers will make the files that run look identical to legitimate windows files. using upper case i's in place of lower case L's in the file names for example

Answer 3

The best way to bring your pc back to it's initial speedy old self, is to backup your data and re-install windows.

I find spyware & antivirus apps create a lot of bloat.

I only keep a firewall application up and that prevents viruses and spyware from coming through.

I create an image of my pc with my basic programs ,all drivers installed etc.

And if I get a virus or spyware, I backup any new files, then re-install my image, and I'm back as new again.