Computer reacts slowly?

Question

I have a new, refurbished computer with XP, P4, 1.8 GHz, 150GB HD (almost empty) and 1 GB ram. Almost every mouse operation I perform, left-click, double-click, even dragging files, causes the dredded hourglass to appear and it takes about one minute for the action to complete. Does anyone have any insight into this phenomenon.?

Answer 1

1.8 GHz may be slower than you are used to, but it should bnot be that bad. Are you running any antivirus software? Strange behavior or performance problems sometimes mean you have "caught" something.

Answer 2

If your virus/spyware free, there are a couple things you can do get your computer working faster. If you using your computer for normal stuff and not gaming. You don't always need more RAM you just need to perform a few maintenance task.

First, if you haven't cleaned your registry in a while. This is necessary. Your registry holds all the information regarding updates, installs, un-installs etc. Each one of those events produces a key. That key needs your PC's resources and free space. So, if you clean your registry, you make more resources available for speed. Do a registry scan if you got more than 20 errors you should clean it.
http://www.delete-computer-history.com/what-is-the-best-registry-cleaner.html

2. Clear your Windows cache files, this is your temporary file. It can grow up to a large volume and stop your computer from using RAM properly. In a sense slow it down by preventing it from using free space.Here is how:

1. Quit Internet Explorer, Firefox, or any other web browser
2. Click Start, click "Control Panel", and then double-click "Internet Options".
3. On the General tab, click "Delete Files" under Temporary Internet Files.
4. In the Delete Files dialog box, click to select the "Delete all offline content" check box , and then click OK.
5. Click OK.

3. Manage your startups. Your excess CPU usage is due to too many programs running in the background. You can cut these to barebones by alter your msconfig. Here is how:

1. Open your Start menu.
2. Click Run
3. In the command screen type "msconfig.exe"
4. In the "system configuration utility",click either "service" or "startup" tab
5. Uncheck all programs that your are no longer using.
6. Click "OK"

Other great tip is increasing your virtual memory to simulate more RAM. This will give you a bit more resources for multiple program use or CPU heavy programs.
Hope this link helps. Shows you how to do everything step by step. You should get a least 60-120% more resources and speed
if you follow the tips.

Answer 3

Well, that's not a lot of information to go on, but there could be a few reasons:

1. Malware. I don't know your security setup or how long your computer has been running since you bought it, but malware commonly causes problems like this. There are plenty of good security tools mentioned in yahoo answers that would take care of that.

2. Your filesystem format. You didn't mention if you installed the system yourself, or it came pre-installed by a vendor. You want to make sure that your running a NTFS filesystem, not FAT or FAT32. You can do that by right-clicking your hard drive icon.

3. Pre-installed trashware. If your system was pre-installed by a vendor, it could have a lot of pre-installed programs that you don't need that run on startup and consume CPU power and RAM.

Since I don't know more about your setup, these are only preliminary guesses based on common causes of similar problems.

Answer 4

I recommend you to reinstall your Operating System.
But if you don't want to, you can use several software to clean and tweak your computer. Try to use CCleaner and Defraggler. They are both very reliable freeware. CCleaner clears useless files, repaires bad registries. Defraggler defragment your system so it will run faster. Also try to disable some startup program by CCleaner from Tools. - http://www.piriform.com/products
I also recommend you to use Spybot, a malware, spyware and adware removal freeware, because the computer might also be infected. - http://www.spybot.com/en/index.html

Answer 5

Go to the site below and you can find a myriad of answers to your question.

Answer 6

i would format and re-install Windows XP. backup ur files firts =P . .good luck!