Speeding up computer?

Question

I tried everything from virus scanning, to cleaning out the registry, and defragging. I even scanned all the drives for errors, and there is absolutely no difference whatsoever. I can't do a reformat unless I buy a disk because my computer didn't come with a Windows XP disc, and it's very expensive, so I don't want to go that route unless I have to, but I'd much rather not. I hope someone out there can help me. I was hit with a virus of some kind, but now my computer is completely clean. I just don't know why it's running so slow, and it starts up so slowly. It effects everything from the internet speed to the overall speed of the computer, and it's very annoying. I even installed more RAM a few months ago, and the computer has over 600 MB of RAM. I even added an additional drive for storage. It was fast at first, but lately it's been going very slow. Any help would be very much appreciated thank you!

Here's the stats for my computer:

Intel (R)
Celeron (R) CPU 1.70 GHZ
1.69 GHZ, 632 MB RAM

I updated all the Anti Virus definitions and there's plenty of free space on the C Drive, as for virtual memory it says Recommended: 945 MB, and Minimum allowed: 2MB. Currently allocated is 945. I hope that helps.

Answer 1

Download System Mechanic 7 from http://www.iolo.com/sm/7/. I hope this program will help you.

Speed also depends upon the file system of computer's hard drives. There are three kind file system :

1 FAT ( File Allocation Table)

2 FAT32

3 NTFS

NTFS is the most advanced file system among these three. Performance of FAT or FAT32 drive degrades as amount of data increases. NTFS doesn't have this problem. Moreover, you can increase security of your files and folders if you uncheck the checkbox "Use simple file sharing (Recommended)" in Tools >> Folder Options >> View. If you're running your computer on FAT or FAT32 (I'm pretty sure you are) please change it to NTFS.

To change your file system, you'll need to reformat your hard drives. Don't worry if you have different file systems on different drives. Please take backup of of the drive before formatting it.

You can't change file system of system drive or the drive that having a page file. You'll have to do it when next time you reinstall WINDOWS. But you may want to do it with other drives.

To format your drive go to My Computer >> Manage >> Disk Management. Hard drives will be displayed on the right hand side pane. Right click on drive and select "Format". Dialog will be displayed. In "File System", select "NTFS" from dropdown list. In "Allocation Unit Size" select "512" from dropdown list. This is the minimum allocation size that OS allocates to store data. The smaller the better. Don't perform the quick format but check the checkbox "Enable file and folder compression" then click OK. WINDOWS will ask you to confirm formatting. Click OK again to continue.

I assume you'll backup your hard drive before formatting it. If you don't want to buy lots of blank CD's, you can move your data to another drive and after formatting it, you can restore it(as I did). Althogh formatting the drive from command prompt allows you to format without deleting your files, it won't give you the best results. You should better prefer Disk Management.

In addition of changing the file system, I recommend you to increase your page file size. Go to My Computer >> properties >> Advanced >> Performance >> Settings >>Advanced. In "Virtual Memory" click change. You can set custom size for each drive. You can also select "System managed size" or "No paging file". You can set larger size but please don't decrease page file size of system drive.

Warning : Do not set "No paging file" for system drive.

Be sure not to allocate total paging file size less then 1.5 times of your RAM.

After setting up Initial and maximum size, click "Set","OK","OK","OK" and restart your computer.

If you want to change paging file settings, please format your hard drives and change your file system first because after allocating space for page file you won't be able to reformat that drive.

Answer 2

Is ur hard disk almost full.? When we have more data on hard disk, system will be slow. Have u tried scanning ur system with latest virus database.?
And have u allocated much space in Virtual Memory.?
(Goto Mycomputer properties-> Advanced-> Performance-> Settings->Advanced) here u can check how much space u have allocated for virtual memory.

Answer 3

just reduce the hardisk size bec it gives a lot of load to the mother board that is y its running slow and dont go for buying more rams and just install the program name tuneup utilities its the best u can free u r PC memory and ever thing in that from registry deferegamt to all the edit and it has stuff like thing which slow down the PC u can edit it and get the PC to fire it can be downloaded form www.download.com

Answer 4

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