just a quick question about a dell dimension 4700 that is 2 years old?

Question

like a said, my computer is about 2 years old and it is running slow. it has a pentium 4 with HT which runs at 2.8 GHz. it has windows xp home on it with 512Mb of ram which is probably part of the problem. it has a lot of crap installed on it and it crashes alot. would it be easier to just reinstall xp, or to upgrade the ram, or a combination of the both. i really don't want to buy a new computer, or spend too much money on this one. maybe after vista has all the bugs worked out we'll upgrade, but for now i want to stick with this one. any help will be appreciated.

Answer 1

I think you have a very common problem and that is maintainence. People just don't realize that you have to make an effort to keep your PC running efficiently.

My first recommendation would be to uninstall any software that you don't really need, or never use.

Here are some other tips to help you "turn it up".

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. It’s called Autoruns and it was written by SysInternals who were recently bought up by Microsoft.

Before you download the program create a folder under program files called Autoruns. Leave Windows Explore open.

Launch Internet Explored and go to the following Microsoft web page.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/autoruns.mspx

Go to the bottom of the page and download the Autoruns program. After it downloads open the file. It is a Zip file. Unzip the file and you will see 4 files. Drag and drop those 4 files to the Autoruns folder you created under Program Files.

Once you have the 4 files in the C:\Program Files\Autoruns folder you can double click on the file titled “autoruns”.

This will bring up a window with several tabs at the top. Click on the “Logon” 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.
NOTE: Leave items that show Windows; System 32; Program Files; etc. alone. Shutting them off may cause some things not to work.

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 “Logon” List only.

Another good thing to have is a little program called FreeRAM XP 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 2

I have a 4700 that is around 2 yrs. old but I have a 3.0GHz processor. The first thing that you'll want to do is make sure to defrag your hard disk. If you don't want to forget to do this every so often (depending on computer use) then you can go to your control panel and choose the scheduled tasks folder and enter the defrag task to be run at whatever regularity you want. This will help you computer organize for the processor to do its job more efficiently.
The second thing that will help is to increase your available RAM. The 4700 comes with 512MB but you can upgrade to 4GB. The additional RAM will make your computer much more efficient since it will not have to call on the hard drive during program processes. Make sure that the RAM is nonECC and you will have to buy the memory kits, which are two cards instead of one (i.e. 512MB will be 2 x 256MB). There are four slots on the mother board and two will have a 256MB card in them. After shutting down the comuter you can just insert the other two cards into the two empty slots and power back up.
The third thing that could help is shutting down programs that are running in the background that do nothing for the computers current job.
Hope this helps and have fun