Slow Computer?

Question

I am fairly new to computers. We have windows xp, we have yahoo mail. I do a disc clean up often, and we have registry fix which I do more than disc cleanup. My husband probably has 300 emails in his inbox, does this effect the speed of the computer at all? Is registry fix hurting the computer? We're almost DIAL UP slow and my head is thisclose to popping off!
:)

Answer 1

the number of emails in your inbox will not affect the speed of your computer and how it runs.

what will affect it are many factors. The number of Ram in your computer, how fast your processor is, the number of applications running.

Also, on the negative side, spyware, adware, viruses, and other infections will slow your computer.

Here is a link to my favorite techy board about what they suggest for slow computers.

Feel free to surf the boards and you may learn more about computers and computer security. good luck.

Answer 2

What others have told you so far are great points, there are alot of variable that could be the reason why your PC is running so slow. Hubby's emails are on the internet, and would not affect your PC performance. Cut back on the number of times you run Registry clean. About once per month is good!

Some things to check and do BEFORE you go out buy anything. Look at the bottom right hand corner of your screen. If you have a LONG line of icons down there, they are ALL sucking up memory space or resources. Also, what programs do you have running in the background. Depending upon what, and how many programs are running at the same time, they can slow your PC down to point where paint drying would be SUPER fast. Check your icons list, and close any programs that do not pertain to hardware operation, anti-virus, firewall, sound, video. Some programs, even though you are not currently using them, will start when you boot up your PC and just suck up resources the whole time your PC is on. Investigate these programs, and KNOW which ones you can safely close without a problem.

Those 'cute' things you or hubby may have downloaded may be cute and make some things faster to get through, etc, may also have a 'price' associated with them. In your case, sucking up resources by running in the background.

Below are are tasks you can also try. Disk Cleanup is the first step, which you mentioned doing, but there is more that goes along with Disk Cleanup.

Click on START
Click on MY COMPUTER
RIGHT Click on LOCAL DRIVE or 'C' DRIVE
Click on PROPERTIES

Click on TOOLS
Click on CHECK NOW under ERROR-CHECKING
Another window will open
check the 2 boxes (automatically fix, recover bad sectors)
You should get a message that basically the program will start the next time you reboot or start your computer. Depending upon the size of your hard drive, the speed of your hard drive and the errors encountered, it can take some time to complete. On a PC with severe problems and a huge hard drive, it took about 3 hours. There are 5 phases to this check and your PC will go through each one automatically. Once it finishes, it will go back into the sequence of booting up your PC. If you allow it to run while you do something else around the office/home, once you see the LOGIN screen, this part is complete.

The next step is to complete what is called defrag....or defragmenting your hard drive. As you add and remove data from your PC, when you remove data, it leaves holes or open space where the data was placed on the drive. Ok, as you add data, you create a bigger and bigger block of cheddar cheese. As you remove data, holes are left, like in a block of Swiss cheese. Defrag will take that Swiss cheese and turn it back to a solid block of Cheddar. Your PC performance will be faster, and this recovers the space lost in 'holes' of the Swiss cheese. (Ok, get rid of the 'deer in the headlights look'

Click on START
Click on MY COMPUTER
RIGHTclick on LOCAL DRIVE or 'C' Drive
Click on PROPERTIES
Click on TOOLS
Click on DEFRAGMENT NOW under DEFRAGMENTATION
Click on ANALYZE
This will check your drive (if you have multiple hard drives in your PC, you can check them all from this window)
Once the check is complete, your PC will tell you if you need to Defrag at this time.
If it recommends defragging, click on DEFRAGMENT, and your PC will do the rest. This can take some time as well, depending upon the severity of the fragmenting, size of the hard drive, and speed of the hard drive. Just find something else to do and check on it periodically. Your PC will let you know when it finishes the task.

You can also purchase a program package that will do it all for you. I think McAfee and Norton (and possible some others) make a software bundle that encompasses these tasks, and you can schedule these tasks to take place at regular intervals. The software bundle will also include anti-virus protection, and other features that will optimize your PC's performance and protect it at the same time. Check your local stores that sell software and PCs (Office Depot, Best Buy, Comp USA, HH Greggs, etc) they will run sales on the software with rebates that will take the cost down to little, and even FREE.

It's hard to be 100% helpful without knowing EXACTLY what is going on, what programs you have on your PC, and also what kind of PC and what hardware you have. Conducted the tasks I have given direction for will also keep your PC running at optimum. GOOD LUCK!!!

A+ and Network+ Certified Computer Technician

Answer 3

E-mails on Yahoo take up NO space on your computer and have no effect on speed
Their is no need to do a registry fix this often.
It doesn't hurt but if you are finding errors you have a virus and/or spyware.
Virus and spyware scans are a necessity.
Please e-mail me with specific question, include make, model and os of mach.
Hope this helps
Doug

Answer 4

registry fix must be done only once a month.
the email in his inbox does not contribute to slowing the computer down. since you said you are using dial up, it is your intenet connection that is slow. and since yahoo mail store the messages in the internet inbox the you have to wait about a minute to be able to display the contents of an email, and longer if it has graphics or attachments. try to upgrade your internet connection to DSL or cable internet. at 2x-3x the cost of dial up, you can get a DSL that is 7x faster.

Answer 5

Try download and use this software.

http://www.ccleaner.com/download/

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware! :)

Answer 6

No all his mail is on line and not on your computer to keep your computer running at full speed you might also want to run defrag at least once a month you did not say how much ram your computer has but if it has 256MB or less you might want to add more (ram is inexpensive)
This combined with what you are already doing should keep you running at full speed

Answer 7

Go here do the full service scan and you will be just fine..oh and its totally free ;o) Remember to bookmark this as its not so easy to find and its owned and run by Microsoft so ya dont have to worry and it dont matter if ur windows is a registered legal version or not.Microsoft has it there free for everyone and anyone to use and will fix all if you want it to with just one click ;o) http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm?s_cid=sah

Answer 8

very confusing task research at a search engine it can assist

Answer 9

be sure to empty your cookies an history folders an run a defrag at least once a week. if you need help contact me on yahoo messenger under panthor001

Answer 10

depends on what your computer has as like processor, and ram or memory, and im a pretty big gamer so speed is what i want, and no emails wouldnt make it slower,