My Windows XP computer is really slowing down. What else can I do to speed it up.?

Question

My Windows XP computer just seems to take forever to do stuff. I'm fairly computer literate, so I've taken the following steps already.

1. Updated my McAfee anti-virus software and ran it. Came up clean.
2. Updated my Spybot Search & Destroy and ran it. Removed 25 Spyware.
3. Ran MSCONFIG and unchecked a couple of start up items. Most were already unchecked except for stuff like Windows and McAfee updates.
4. Ran the Defragger on my Hard drive. It said I didn't need to, and the analysis showed my drive is about 30% empty and fairly organized.

What other steps are there that I can take to do speed this sucker up? I'm not real demanding on it, using it mostly for Email and internet surfing. It's got a P4 running at 2.5Ghz and adequate RAM.

Answer 1

That's pretty much all you can do, but use CCleaner to get rid of all your temp files/browser cache ect and clean up your registry ...but these steps will "speed" up your computer.

1)Stomp auto-starting programs. Click Start > Run and type "msconfig" at the prompt. Click the Startup tab and look at all that junk that loads when you launch your PC. Do you really need "Adobe Reader Speed Launch"? Probably not. Turn off anything else that looks useless, but be careful not to disable Windows system components.

2) Clean up the disk. Uninstall unneeded programs (especially those that run at startup and/or put something in the system tray), run Disk Cleanup, and defragment the drive. This is a good first step that will almost always take a few seconds off boot time and application loads for any computer.

3) Run a full anti-virus and anti-spyware scan. I would recommend using AVG Free Anti-virus, AVG Anti-Spyware, Spybot, Ad-Aware.

4) Clean up the registry. This is controversial, as some experts claim registry cleaners don't really help. I've seen evidence to the contrary, so I recommend doing it if you've got a major slowdown. CCleaner is free and worth running.

5)Delete old network connections. Your computer may be trying to connect to shared hard drives that no longer exist. In Windows Explorer right-click on any network shares you don't actively use and click Delete. Under Tools, also click "Disconnect Network Drive" to see if there are any others lurking about.

Those are the easy and free things you can do. If your computer is still slow you need to move on to the bigger guns.

1) Upgrade RAM. This is the one killer trick that will make almost any computer run faster. With an older PC, you will rarely have enough RAM to run today's memory-hogging operating systems and applications, and adding a high-capacity stick or two of quality RAM will give you a quick speed boost. Adding RAM is fairly simple, even for a novice, and you should be able to do the job in 5 or 10 minutes.

2)Reinstall Windows. If the above tricks haven't helped, it may be time to wipe the slate clean and start again, reformatting your hard drive, reinstalling your applications, and restoring your data files from a backup. You'd be surprised how much more responsive a freshly reinstalled Windows system can be, as you've wiped out years of temp files, garbled registry entries, old versions of software programs that have been upgraded repeatedly, and all sorts of other electronic junk. Reinstalling is easy if you have the "recovery disk" that came with your PC, and only a bit more involved if you're using a retail copy of Windows XP. Just be sure you back up everything you want to take with you before you pull the trigger!

3)Upgrade your hard drive. This is a more complicated solution, but if you're reinstalling Windows (per the prior tip) you might consider upgrading to a bigger and possibly faster hard drive, too. Hard disk storage is a performance bottleneck on every machine, and magnetic disks degrade over time. Some performance issues could be caused by a failing hard drive, even, and upgrading to a new model could really put some zip back in your system. As a bonus, you can use the original hard drive for backups or occasional storage, if you put it in an enclosure.

Answer 2

Using registry cleaner can fix your computer and then make your computer faster,Why?the reason is that there may are some regsitry errors and remnant,corrupt files and temp files in your computer to cause "computer slow".
Everytime you install and uninstall software on your computer and surfing online you create junk in the computer registry.over time, the registry can grow to enormous proportions, especially if the various programs you've installed do not do a good job of deleting and/or updating it's Registry entries.You need to scan and clean your computer with registry cleaner to make it fast.Good Regisry Cleaner will improve your computer and Internet performance dramatically!It even can speed up your computer by 300% or more!
Now you can find top 5 registry cleaner in here:
http://www.computerspeed.info/index.php?t=cspeed ,From there you can download and scan totall FREE.

Hope that can help you

Answer 3

The problem with PCs is that the older they get and the longer you use them to access things like the internet, your system will start slowing down no matter how many antivirus, antispyware and disk defragements you run.

It's nearly impossible to catch EVERY single thing that gets installed into your PC without you knowing it. Antivirus and antispyware programs are good to have but they will not catch everything.

Suggestion:
Do a system restore/re-installation from your installation CD that came with the computer. NOT A SYSTEM REFORMAT which will reformat your entire disk back to factory settings and will erase all of your files, but a system restore or system re-install. This will only re-install your OS (operating system) and will leave all of your files untouched.

Give that a try and you'll see that it will speed up your system again.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

Answer 4

Go to Start->Run and type in prefetch and hit enter. When that window opens delete all the files in there and close the window. Go to Start->Run and type in %temp% and when that window opens delete all those files as well. Even though it may be slow, search for two programs called Defraggler and CCleaner and download/install them. Reboot your computer in Safe Mode and run both of those programs. While in Safe Mode, run all of your current spyware/adware cleaners and antivirus programs, also.

Answer 5

Ocassionally, a different spyware program will catch more malware. Try ad-aware (but be sure to NOT have spybot running!!) from http://www.lavasoft.com

Also, you might want to try to use another utility to configure startup items. Like startup.exe from http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

The only other thing that might help is a better defragmenter such as Diskeeper from http://www.diskeeper.com

Disk Defragmenter is not the best as you will find out if you try some other defragmenter.

Answer 6

Put you a exter member board in it that will speed it up.
Because you don't have member.
It has to move thing around in order to run what you using.
It is like having a pan full of apples in order for you to put
another one in you have to remove it to another place

Answer 7

Go to internet options and:
Clear History
Clear Cookies
Clear temp files
Also clear browser history
If running Norton, open reports and clear all the lists.

Answer 8

Besides all of these things already mentioned, repair the registry, and defrag the registry. I use System Suite 7, but there are others.

Answer 9

You can also check to make sure your Spybot Search & Destroy is at level 1.4. I found mine to be at 1.3 on one of my computers, and when I changed it to 1.4 it found a lot more junk.

Answer 10

go to pcworld magazine. type in you reguest.