[bobide]

So i've got like a 4/5 year old dell (sshh, i didn't have a choice in the purchase) anyway this stupid dell (a 8250 btw w/ 2.4ghz p4 and 512mb ram) runs S-L-O-W. Example, when my side is running (yes, we use xp) and we switch over to my parents so they can look at email....they get pretty much 0% of the resources. Black screen for like a minute, everything just loads mega-slow. Another example; launching firefox takes like a full minute for it to appear.

Possibly relevant info; we do run a firewall and antivirus (both notron, also used AVG till it ran out of it's trail), spyware (microsoft and ad-aware) a registry cleaner (regvac) and I've defraged the huge 120bg hard drive (which is like stuffed at 93gb-i've deleted some old games)

Alrighty then, is there any way or any free programs that can improve the speed of my computer? My friend claims that b/c of how full i got my hardrive it will not run fast ever again.

 

[Mad]

A fresh Windows install is always the best solution....

 

[Valcrist]

More ram, clean up your hard-drive more or get another, being near capacity will slow you down.

OOOOORR back up your data -format- and re-install


But the best option would obviously be to buy a Mac

 

[refraction]

But the best option would obviously be to buy a Mac

of course, you could assasinate a president while you're at it, because of course, its the best option :lol:



seriously tho, try a windows reinstall, dont run more than 1 firewall + antivirus at once, cos it causes serious problems, dont use norton, defrag, clean up your drive

 

[Master Chief]

Wipe the sucker clean and reinstall XP.

 

[WindHydra]

Ya... don't use norton, even if it came with your Dell (I don't use the one came with my Compaq ) Avast is free and seems to work pretty well http://www.avast.com
And try disabling startup programs http://members.lycos.co.uk/codestuff/ You might also want to check if a program is using a lot of memory or cpu by use task manager.
By the way, running near HD capacity won't slow you down. My compaq with around 5 GB free (out of 120gb) runs fine.

 

[Master Chief]

Ya... don't use norton, even if it came with your Dell (I don't use the one came with my Compaq ) Avast is free and seems to work pretty well http://www.avast.com
And try disabling startup programs http://members.lycos.co.uk/codestuff/ You might also want to check if a program is using a lot of memory or cpu by use task manager.
By the way, running near HD capacity won't slow you down. My compaq with around 5 GB free (out of 120gb) runs fine.

When I run near capacity, the damn thing slows down. Maybe your system is just fast enough to compensate. :eyemove:

 

[Esturk]

5 gigs is plenty for a computer to run fine. It's when you get under 100megs, that things really get nasty. When Windows is telling you that your disk is low on space.

A 2.4GHz CPU and 512Mb of ram is still plenty nowadays. At least as far as I am concerned. Like others have said, a fresh install is probably your best bet.

 

[WindHydra]

I was saying that because bobide had almost 20gb free And windows starts whining for disk space when you go below 20 or 10%, which is like 20gig on a 200gb drive...
But shouldn't it still be fine if you already set your pagefile big enough? Years ago I almost completely fill up my 6gb hd and it still ran ok, but maybe it's because it's win98.
Another possible solution is to uninstall as many programs as you can, then create a new user account. It can solve lots of problems without reinstalling

 

[Quatro]

for starter run your antivirus, clean your registry, search for spyware, use ram booster/accelerator and defrag...

but if it is still slow with whatever you do then back-up all of your important file and reinstall your OS... thats the best solution to bring your old computer speed back...