How do I get me Computer to run faster?

Question

I have a windows XP and it's runnin REALY slow. I don't want to download anything i just want to be able to get my computer to get faster like it was before. I have no idea were to go and i need help and step by step instructions. Please help! and thank you.

Answer 1

go to my computer on your desktop then you will see C drive right click on it then go to properties once the properties box opens on the top you will see something like clean up or disk clean up click there windows will have a list of files you can SAFELY delete which will make your computer faster

Answer 2

I'm assuming you have tried nothing? My main recommendation does involve downloading an anti-spy program, but don't worry; it's free.
1. First, if your computer has been on for a long time, reboot it. Rebooting the computer once a day is a good idea.
2. Second, most likely your computer has been infected with viruses or spyware that are running in the background. These programs take up system resources, meaning that there are less resources for your other programs. This is what makes your computer slow.
You can do a free virus check at housecall.trendmicro.com. This is web-based but you might have to download Java to get it to work on your computer.
For anti-spy software I recommend Spybot - S&D. It's available for free download; just google it.

Run an antivirus and an anti-spy program about once a week and you'll probably have a computer that functions much better.

3. (This step is more advanced) You might have installed some good, non-harmful programs that nonetheless run things in the background that you don't really need. For example, Picasa, a program that catalogs photos on your computer, often runs in the background just to check if you have added any new programs. These programs will also make your other programs run slower. Therefore, by uninstalling or turning off these programs running in the background, you can also improve the performance of the computer. Most of the time you can turn off the background program through the Options or Preferences in a certain program. You might also uninstall programs you don't need in Add or Remove Programs, accessible from the Control Panel in the Start Menu.

4. The information the first answerer gave you about defragmenting the drive is good, but honestly if you are running a lot of spyware that's going to make more of a difference. Not to mention that spyware can report your personal information to the Internet and get it into the hands of people you don't want to have your personal information. Take care of the spyware first, then defrag.

Answer 3

Do you hear a constant crunching sound coming from the disk drive? If so, this indicates your computer does not have enough physical memory to run all the programs (both user programs and background programs) it is trying to run.

All the previous suggestions should improve your computer's performance a little bit. By all means, try those first, as they're all pretty easy to do. After that, if it still runs too slowly for you, then add a memory upgrade and/or wipe the hard drive clean and reinstall a clean copy of windows.

EDIT: MaX is wrong. The crunching sound is much more likely to be the system swapping pages in and out of virtual memory, than it is to be a faulty hard drive. It does this because it has insufficient physical memory to meet your programs demand for physical memory, and so it needs to use the disk as a cache. Hard disk access times are much slower than memory access times, and this causes the system to run slowly.

Answer 4

u can disable all visual effects. right click on my computer, select properties. Then go to the advanced tab and then click settings under performance. Then select the bullet that says "adjust for best performance." This disables some visual effects and should make u r computer run a bit faster. Also u can disable the start programs but click on start, then click on run. In the box type in "msconfig" and click ok. Then select the tab that says startup and uncheck everything tht u don't need. If u don't know if should uncheck a program go into google.com and search for it.

Answer 5

I stick in a Mepis live CDrom and run that.

If it runs appreciably faster, which is the usual case, 100% of the time, then I play with it for a few minutes to make sure all the games play and the music and network all run.

Then, click "install" icon, and about 12 minutes to 20 minutes later I have a full OS, faster, with 21,000 free programs. Huge forum of helpers.

You're welcome...

Answer 6

Your computer probably has a virus. If that is the case, reformatting is possibly the only way to bring it back up to full speed.
In the meantime, try doing a disk defragment....

EDIT: Dave is wrong, the crunching sound is not an indication of low memory. It is an indication of a partially faulty hard drive in combination with disk usage (which includes page file read/write but not exclusively).

Answer 7

its kinda a long process if u dont wanna download n e thing. the one thing that slows down most computers is having alot of things in your start up. click start, click run, type msconfig, click the start up tab. u should have at least about 10-15 things listed there. n e more than that and u have too many programs running that can slow down your compupter. uncheck the ones that u dont need and click okay.

there is alot of things u can do to speed up your computer, but im not gonna sit here and type it all. u can im me.

Answer 8

Give it a high protein diet, and make it do lots of squats and leg presses, as well as a good cardio program... This will make it's legs stronger, and make it run faster...

Answer 9

maybe some more ram but the best thing is a free linux operating system that will fix it up for good

Answer 10

see http://wikisos.org/wiki/Windows_XP:How_to_make_the_computer_run_faster