Speeding up a Windows XP?

Question

The other day I bought a three year old Windows XP for $25, it is a good computer but it's slow. How do I speed it up? I uninstalled all of the useless programs already.

Oh and it's not the computer I am on...

Answer 1

More RAM makes a huge difference. Look up that system at http://www.coastmemory.com and expand your RAM to more than 512MB.

Then get SpyBot Search & Destroy from http://www.download.com This will get rid of SpyWare that slows it down. Get the updates, and run a scan.

Make sure that you are using a good anti-virus program. Get the updates and run a full scan on your system.

Then follow these steps:

- run Disk Cleanup - from the System Tools section of Accessories
- Open My Computer, then Right Click on your C drive and pick PROPERTIES. Pick the Tools section and click on CHECK NOW. Check both tests, and YES, let it run after you restart. You see, CHECK DISK will ensure that your hard drive is working completely. This test might take an hour or so.
- run DEFRAG - from the System Tools section of Accessories.

Good luck and Happy Computing!

Answer 2

Following these steps will increase the "speed" of your computer dramatically.

1) 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.

2) 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 your anti-virus and important system components.

3) Run a full anti-virus and anti-spyware scan. I would recommend using AVG Free Anti-virus, Spybot - Search and Destroy spyware remover and Ad-aware spyware remover. These programs are all free.

4) Clean up the registry. CCleaner is free and worth running. It will also remove unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space.

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.You can run a free test at http://www.crucial.com and find out what kind of RAM (memory) your computer needs.

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 3

Using a registry cleaner can fix your computer and then make your computer faster,Why?the reason is that there may be 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!
There are some comparison and review of TOP 5 registry cleaners.
http://computer-speed.info
You can download and scan your computer for free.

Answer 4

Fastest way to speed up an old computer, defrag and buy some more memory for it. It's amazing how fast those old machines go when you give them another 512 meg stick of memory.

Answer 5

If your not going to do things that require privacy like credit card transactions, maybe you can get rid of the protection files updates.

It seems like my old windows 98 was just as fast as XP with lots less memory waste.

Answer 6

Start>Run>type in MSCONFIG>Startup tab - uncheck any program you don't want to run when you start Windows

For more info see the links below

Streamline your startups
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_index.htm
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm
http://www.windowsstartup.com/wso/index.php
http://www.3feetunder.com/krick/startup/list.html
http://www.greatis.com/appdata/
http://www.castlecops.com/StartupList.html

Disable Unneeded Services In Windows XP
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

How to Speed Up Windows Boot Time
http://www.pchell.com/support/how_to_speed_up_windows_boot_time.shtml
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1786122,00.asp
http://www.pcguide.com/opt/opt/bootSpeed-c.html
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=235571


Slow Computer? Check here first; it may not be malware
http://www.castlecops.com/t175258-Slow_Computer_Check_here_first_it_may_not_be_malware.html

Answer 7

Excellent Web Page http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/getstarted/speed.mspx
Also you may want yo disable come programs from startup and get some more RAM. Also Try online virus scanners i highly recommend kapersky http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner

Answer 8

Disable visual effects, Disable Wallpaper, shutdown all unneeded programs

Answer 9

low resolution and put it on windows classic view go to desktop right-click click properties and go to one of the tabs (i fotgot which one cause i use vista now) and click windows classic view and clcik apple and ok

Answer 10

Try this computer speedup tool:
http://boost-computer-performance.info
It works very well.