My computer is "painfully" slow ...

Juliet J · Post by **Juliet J** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 11:04 pm

Hi all,
I usually post in the DIY area but just realised this computer part was here, so have a question. If anyone can give me advice I'd be grateful.

I'm being driven crazy by my computer at the moment as its so painfully slow. It takes ages to get started on bootup as it seems to take ages loading up other stuff like self-startup software like the kodak camera software and MSN messenger and stuff we don't even use on a day-to-day basis. We're on XP.

I've just been into the control panel/System(icon) to see what our RAM and harddrive size is etc. and it says the following:

Intel(R) celeron(R) CPU 2.53GHz 2.55GHz, 448 MH of Ram

Is that a pitiful ram, could that be the problem? Also does anyone know how I can stop all camera and chat appliations from starting up on bootup, we'd rather be able to open them when we want to use them than have them running in the background constantly.

Thanks

Mooncat · Post by **Mooncat** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 11:57 pm

I have thought that IGb of RAM was needed with XP. Is it the Home or Pro version?

Have a look in the Startup folder, move everything you don't need for when you actually start your session.

Hoovie · Post by **Hoovie** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 8:06 am

Juliet - the biggest problem you have is the lack of memory. You got 512MB of RAM (Memory) only, and then some of that is taken away for the video card memory.
Then the chat apps are very process and memory hungry as well.

Do as Mooncat suggests and that may find some apps you really don't need to start up.
It probably won't have the chat apps in there though, as you need to stop them in another way ... here's how.

Open up each program that is starting up and you don't want it to.
Then - and this will vary between apps, so may have to search a little bit - got to a Preferences or Options menu, and you should find somewhere an option called something like "Start on Windows Start" or words to that effect.

For example, lets take Skype

It doesn't appear in the Startup Folder, so click on the Skype icon in the taskbar
For Skype, you need to click on "Tools" and then "Options"
and then in the 'General' section of Options, there is a check box called "Start Skype when I start Windows" that is checked normally - uncheck that and next time you start Windows, Skype won't start

If you can't find the options for the programs to do this, have a google for it or post back here with the app names

Finally, RAM for computers really is very cheap and makes a massive difference, so it would be worthwhile to just buy some more and stick it in.
If you are not sure how to do that and would prefer someone else to, then take the PC to a local PC shop and if you buy the Memory from them, they may will fit in for no or little extra money

doomed · Post by **doomed** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 1:52 pm

I use spybot SD, which has a bit in it that shows you what programs start up, then can choose if you want them to or not

As the others say these days you need a min of 1gig, best to take it to a computer shop unless you know what your doing due to compatibility, and depening how old your computer is

Juliet J · Post by **Juliet J** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 10:16 am

Hey guys, thanks so much for your indepth answers, now I've got a few options to try so thats fantastic! ... I think I had a gut feeling the memory was way too slow, so thats brilliant its just confirmed it. I'm going to sit down this weekend when I have a break from my DIY project

and work through your suggestions.
Thanks again - hopefully I can report back with some positive news
Juliet

Hoovie · Post by **Hoovie** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 10:19 am

No probs. if it is a branded PC, post the make and model here and we can check out memory upgrade options and likely costs

asinine · Post by **asinine** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 1:17 pm

There any many reasons why XP slows down after lots of use. Viruses and spyware are one the other is that XP is rubbish at organising itself. My first advice is run a virus and spyware scan.

Next is defrag the hard disk using either the disk defrag program in windows or JKdefrag which is a free program which is excellent.

Next download a free program called CCleaner and install it The extra C stands for Crap. Run it and scan your system for files you can safely delete, and run the registry scan and fix any problems it finds. Run the registry scan about 5 times.

Next find out whats starting up with windows, you can do this in CCLeaner but I prefer msconfig. If you go to the "Start" menu and click on the "Run" and in the box type:

msconfig

Go to the startup section and see how many things are starting up went you turn you computer on. The only things I have starting up when I turn XP on is my anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall programs.

There are other programs that you might need to start on boot, like configuration utlilities for graphics etc but if in doubt the best thing you can do is type the *.exe where * is the name of the exe into google and see what sites like Bleeping Computer have to say about them.

This should help a lot, one more thing if you have Norton on your system remove it and go to Nortons website and find the programs to make sure its all removed, but not be fore downloading the great free anti-viruses firewalls and anti-spyware progs available on the internet. If you dont know any post back and I'll list a couple.

Hope this helps.