speed me up scotty :)

[firewallblocked]

Just tell the owner of the pc EVERYTHING you do to the pc is a waste of time. Unless you add more memory!!! Once your pc runs out of memory it will start to use the hard drive as virtual memory and this is MUCH MUCH slower than running in memory and will mean the hard drive is working constantly!

Not adding more memory is the same as PUSHING a Ferrari down the road, then complaining it's slow even though it has 650 bhp.

His pc will always be SLOW with 256mb unless your mate want to install windows and NOTHING else, no programs, no applications. NOTHING!!

Also point out to him adding more memory will stop his hard drive dying an early death, which it may do unless he adds more memory, and it's cheaper than buying a new hard drive.

 

[agnes]

i use disk keeper for defragging, bril utility, also, have you tried to run CHDSK (think thats how it is) on start up? migt knock out a few kinks

ags

 

[knowlesy]

Just tell the owner of the pc EVERYTHING you do to the pc is a waste of time. Unless you add more memory!!! Once your pc runs out of memory it will start to use the hard drive as virtual memory and this is MUCH MUCH slower than running in memory and will mean the hard drive is working constantly!

Not adding more memory is the same as PUSHING a Ferrari down the road, then complaining it's slow even though it has 650 bhp.

His pc will always be SLOW with 256mb unless your mate want to install windows and NOTHING else, no programs, no applications. NOTHING!!

Also point out to him adding more memory will stop his hard drive dying an early death, which it may do unless he adds more memory, and it's cheaper than buying a new hard drive.

to be fair thats a good point but also bull..... having the correct startup programs the right serveices (cutting them down) defregging the hdd online and offline (meta data) keeping it spyware malware bogware and hideously memory hogging programs down by keeping them updated or by using better programs in general you dont need to get more ram yes you may eventualy over time due to your gcard maye turbo caching it or newer programs in general actualy needing more ram but if you can keep it down to free and get yor elbows a little greasy youll be able to cut the cost right down.... its like before saying a higher clock speed is always better LOL

 

[t31os]

If the personal who owns the PC was as savy as the users here he wouldnt be having someone esle look at the PC.

I think it's safe to assume....

a) he doesnt know how to manage startup programs
b) doesnt know how to defrag and clean temp files off the PC
c) needs an AV as he likely does not know enough to know any better

I would follow a lot of the suggestions here and just clean it up as much as pos, but also stick another memory stick in to (as suggested already), then get a better AV, norton is awful for resource hogging.

And i have no idea about this comment.

Better: don't use any AV just common sence, AV's slow down your pc so much, even kaspersky and nod32 are noticably slowing a pc down, with no AV, a pc is flying, although if you get an AV, don't get norton lol, it slows down your pc so much for very poor protection, good luck removing it lol.

If everyone had common sense half of the objects that exist today wouldnt exist.

Of course common sense doesnt account for email viruses etc.... viruses hidden in safe looking exe's.

Sorry but imo common sense would be to at least have some form of AV, with the web being as dangerous as it is today. Granted though "an IT expert/savy user" can avoid 95% of viruses with some common sense.

 

[lsg1r]

Everyone seems to be forgetting something obvious (well I can't see it mentioned)

How full is that 40GB hard drive? The reason I ask is that its very rare that a defrag will not complete unless theres lack of space to move files etc.

If its over 20GB full then its going to get very slow (my experience anything over half the drive really does slow it down). If it is get rid of the junk

 

[knowlesy]

win patrol 11
ccleaner
avg (remove the email scanner in custom setup)


all of these are free and take little to no knowledge to use also winpatrol can help you with startup progs what they are etc takes yu to the website but if you want to know most of them youll have to pay however its a kick in the right direction and some googling will help you takes abit of time but hey it keeps you going for free you cnt complain ....get the ram itll help in in the long run.....

 

[NeilF]

I had a PC which I noticed was going slowly... Turned out it was the harddrive packing in... Ran some hard drive tests on it & the second hard drive on the machine and it was doing some processes 10-100 times slower than the other drive...

It was obviously having read/write problems but battling along none the less!! Quite amazing really!

Replaced the drive and perfect...

 

[MarcLister]

Kudos to your detective skills.

 

[Youstolemyname]

Just a quicky....I installed o&o defragmenter and didnt get on with it so unistalled it and returned to diskkeeper.

Now every time I boot up, I get the blue windows chkdsk style screen saying a component of o&o is missing. It then skips and boots into windows, so no problem other than it being annoying.

Any ideas how to remove this? I guess it has been written into some sort of ini file somewhere but im lost trying to find it!

 

[knowlesy]

try the boot ini file if not go to my computer right click properties advanced startup settings and have a look there and a mess around if not do a services check and a reg clean maybe ? use ccleaner maybe a few unused dlls or summit along the lines of that relating to o&o