Boosting PC Performance

[Roy Wall]

Anyone pleased with the results of this type of software? I'd prefer FREE WARE of course, but would consider retail.

My 3 ghz, dual core, 4GB RAM, XP machine is steadily getting a bit slower and slower -- thought the braintrust can help me!

I use Malwarebytes and Adware, but the machine is just getting a bit sluggish.

I'm not afraid to get into XP (Control Panel) and use these utilities either, just don't know what to do?

Thanks for any suggestions!

[Prashun Patel]

I stay away from those things.

IMHO, the best advice is to keep your machine light.

Get a decent imaging program that'll take a complete snapshot of yr machine in its pristine state. Then you can restore to that point every time you're feeling sluggish.

[Zach England]

go to www.finallyfast.com!

Just kidding. Don't do that.

Do you know how to identify the processes that are eating the CPU and RAM?

[Dan Friedrichs]

I'd also highly discourage the use of any "program" to speed up your computer. Your hardware is plenty fast - the problem is likely you just have too much "stuff" running that you don't even know about.

While having anti-spyware software is good, it also needs to load up every time you start the computer, and is probably constantly running, taking up resources. I'd recommend removing one or the other of the programs you're using - just use one.

Then, go into the Add/Remove program in the control panel, and remove anything you don't use.

Look down at the space next to the clock (lower right corner). All those icons are programs - do they all need to be running? Close/disable as many as you can.

The best thing to do is press "Ctrl-Alt-Del", click the "Processes" tab, and Google the name of everything on that list. Ask: What is this? And: Why is it running?

[Jerome Hanby]

The best thing to do is press "Ctrl-Alt-Del", click the "Processes" tab, and Google the name of everything on that list. Ask: What is this? And: Why is it running?

After you track those things down that you can shut down, you may want to run msconfig from a cmd prompt and see if you can locate the entries that start those programs and disable them...

[Anthony Scira]

None of that is going to help you. Its really a scam. The only way to get your computers speed back is to do a backup of your data (which you should be doing already) reformat and reinstall your OS. I would recommend even an upgrade to Windows 7. Its a lighter faster and more secure than XP.

I reinstall my OS every year just to get that new computer smell back.

[Roy Wall]

Great advice guys......... I thank you!

Dan, you and others hit the nail on the head I think. I have all kinds of PROCESSES......some seemingly in triplicate.

My FIREFOX is burning between 20-50% of my CPU......this seem VERY HIGH. I noticed all of this happening AFTER DOWNLOADING a newer VERSION of FF. That's when things began to "hang up", "slow up".....etc.

Outlook hangs -- Nero hangs---

FF version 3.6.3 -- Funnelcake July 2009

I'll begin to REMOVE unused programs via CONTROL PANEL as a start. Should I be leary of removing certain 'processes'???

[Jeff Monson]

Dont forget to use the "disk defragment" tool once in a while, takes awhile for it to run its course, but it always seems to speed up my hard drive.

[Jim Podsedly]

A free tool that i use quite a bit is CCleaner. It will clean up lots of uneeded files thus freeing up disk space. It also has a registry cleaner. Regularly cleaning the regisitry is a good way to keep the pc performing. Be sure to take the backup when the registry cleaner asks if you want a backup. Just a safe gaurd. I have never had to recover to a registry backup.

Run malwarebytes as well. This will clean up any resource consuming processes that do not show up as installed products and are basically a malware or virus.

jim

[Zach England]

A free tool that i use quite a bit is CCleaner. It will clean up lots of uneeded files thus freeing up disk space. It also has a registry cleaner. Regularly cleaning the regisitry is a good way to keep the pc performing. Be sure to take the backup when the registry cleaner asks if you want a backup. Just a safe gaurd. I have never had to recover to a registry backup.

Run malwarebytes as well. This will clean up any resource consuming processes that do not show up as installed products and are basically a malware or virus.

jim

CCleaner can do some wild stuff to your registry and can cause some serious problems with various programs. Usually nothing a re-install can't fix, but be cautious.

[Chuck Wintle]

Great advice guys......... I thank you!

Dan, you and others hit the nail on the head I think. I have all kinds of PROCESSES......some seemingly in triplicate.

My FIREFOX is burning between 20-50% of my CPU......this seem VERY HIGH. I noticed all of this happening AFTER DOWNLOADING a newer VERSION of FF. That's when things began to "hang up", "slow up".....etc.

Outlook hangs -- Nero hangs---

FF version 3.6.3 -- Funnelcake July 2009

I'll begin to REMOVE unused programs via CONTROL PANEL as a start. Should I be leary of removing certain 'processes'???

Get rid of Nero... a huge piece of bloatware that uses a lot of the computers resources....I use ImgBurn....much lighter and works better IMO.

[Dan Mages]

Another thing you can do is stop going to all of those porn sites... they are loaded with spyware and malware :rolleyes:

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Anyone pleased with the results of this type of software? I'd prefer FREE WARE of course, but would consider retail.

PC tools has a tune up program that is pretty good.
I prefer to enter regedit to eliminate un-used key entries.
I used to do it manually, but since I have picked up a $20.00 utility called "Registry Trash Keys Finder" RTKF you can google it . It is a powerfully useful little program that eliminates all sorts of garbage and crap you didn't know was there. Registry Keys (hundreds and hundreds hundreds of them) that the programmers who put 'em there made invisible to you so you can't eliminate them manually. It finds 'em and eliminates 'em.


I'm not afraid to get into XP (Control Panel) and use these utilities either, just don't know what to do?

That won't do you much good. Control Panel is like XP has allowed you to adjust the shutters on your house when you really need to pull the plumbing out and work on it.

[David Drickhamer]

I've done a few things that help speed things up.
Uninstall stuff you don't need. Then,
Download a free program called CCleaner. This will clean out your registry.
Lately me Firefox has been slow and freezes so I changed my browser to Chrome. Much faster.
I've also switched from AVG to Avast for my anti virus. The jury is still out on this one.
The one thing that made the biggest difference was changing to Chrome.

[Steve knight]

you would see a large improvement going to windows 7. it made a new computer out of my last one. the speed difference between it and xp on the same machine was pretty incredible.

[Glen Butler]

I have used CCcleaner but it doesn't speed up my computer. Slowly over time there are just more and more processes that auto load at boot up. I used to have 1 or 2 svchost.exe running at the same time now I have several. There are many processes I just don't recognize, and used to not show up.

As others have said I make it a habit to reformat and reinstall my OS about every year and a half to two years. Unless you are a gamer or want the latest OS there is usually no reason to upgrade hardware.

[Tim Morton]

what is this strange phenomenon you PC users speak of?:confused::confused::confused:

[Eric Franklin]

The best solution is to back up your data and do a full reinstall of your computer. XP just gets junked up after a while and needs a full reinstall.

I would recommend going with 64bit Windows 7 if you do a reinstall. Just make sure there are drivers for all your hardware that are compatible with Windows 7. Assuming your not using the 64bit edition of XP, your only using 3 GB of your RAM.

[Chuck Wintle]

The best solution is to back up your data and do a full reinstall of your computer. XP just gets junked up after a while and needs a full reinstall.

I would recommend going with 64bit Windows 7 if you do a reinstall. Just make sure there are drivers for all your hardware that are compatible with Windows 7. Assuming your not using the 64bit edition of XP, your only using 3 GB of your RAM.
Eric,

a good solution is to make an image of the fresh install and when things become messed up simply copy the image back. I have done this several times and it has saved my bacon. Once when i tried to make my computer a virtual server it all went south. That said I prefer, as one poster said, to use only light programs rather than ones that install too much. Nero is one program that makes a mess of things...norton is another.

[Peter Stahl]

Eric,

a good solution is to make an image of the fresh install and when things become messed up simply copy the image back. I have done this several times and it has saved my bacon. Once when i tried to make my computer a virtual server it all went south. That said I prefer, as one poster said, to use only light programs rather than ones that install too much. Nero is one program that makes a mess of things...norton is another.

Charles, How do you make a image of the fresh install? Do you need special software?

[Chuck Wintle]

Charles, How do you make a image of the fresh install? Do you need special software?

I use imaging software to make an image. it's called drive image but there are others out there notably acronis. My method is to make the image on another drive and this is done in DOS. I simply copy one to the other with the software.

[Larry Browning]

No one has mention web sites that are dedicated to computer issues. I recently found www.bleepingcomputer.com (http://www.bleepingcomputer.com) Which has been very helpful to me. They have a database of processes and startup file names that can help in your cleanup project. Also, another really good program to help you is autoruns. It shows you literally everything that is currently running on your computer. You can then go down the list looking up on bleeping computer each process, service and program running, it will tell you if it is good, or bad, and whether you need to remove it or not. This has worked very well for me.
Another site that I have used in the past to help remove especially nasty viruses is www.techguy.org (http://www.techguy.org) They have a forum that is staffed by really knowledgeable people that can really help with specific problems.

[Pat Germain]

I second Jeff's suggestion. Windows does a lousy job at disk management. It puts stuff all over the place. (A Mac does not have this problem.) The trouble is, the Windows onboard defragger is pretty lame. If you have Vista or Windows 7, you can schedule a defrag to run regularly. Once a week is a good idea.

If your OS is older than Vista, you have to defrag manually (unless you have a third party tool like those from Symantec). This really can improve performance significantly. However, since the onboard defragger is lousy, you must run it about five times to really make an improvement. One of the reasons reinstalling from an image improves performance is it results in a clean disk with no fragments.

Also, take a look at the C: partition. How full is it? If you've got less than several Gig of free space, that can also be a problem. Remove anything you don't need to increase disk space on the C: partition. You can also deinstall some programs and reinstall them on the D: partition, if you have one. If your PC has just one, gigantic C: partition, I highly recommend breaking it up with a D: partition when you reload Windows. Put the OS and most programs on C:. Put your data on D:.

Regularly running "Disk Cleanup" is also a good idea. Windows holds onto all kinds of garbage from daily use. Disk Cleanup will flush all that stuff out. But do NOT select "Compress Files".

These days, most CPUs are plenty fast. But Windows and many new applications are RAM hogs. So, if you cleanup your system and it's still lame-dog slow, install more RAM. Running with 4GB or more is nice. :)

[Bryan Morgan]

what is this strange phenomenon you PC users speak of?:confused::confused::confused:

Ah come on, don't pretend Mac users don't have to reformat from time to time. Leo Laporte was just talking about it on his radio show as well as some other podcasts I was listening to. Any computer that gets really used will have to get reloaded from time to time, regardless of OS. In fact, last week I reloaded two Mac Pros (OSX 10.5.8) at work because their permissions get corrupted and PPDs aren't able to be updated, as well as some system files for Fiery systems somehow messed up, also Adobe apps just start freaking out. I've had to reload 6 Macs and 8 PCs in the past month during a graphics overhaul. :D

[Peter Stahl]

I think Tim just likes to poke PC users.

[Myk Rian]

My FIREFOX is burning between 20-50% of my CPU......this seem VERY HIGH. I noticed all of this happening AFTER DOWNLOADING a newer VERSION of FF. That's when things began to "hang up", "slow up".....etc.
I also had slowups after FF 3.6.3 was installed. For some reason, it cleared itself up. Runs fine now.

[Greg Peterson]

Yeah, I've noticed the bosses IMac is getting really sluggish the past couple of months. I know she doesn't install anything because she always has me do it for her, and then I have to have her enter her password (she won't tell what the password is-thankfully).

Other than that, I've nothing to add to the conversation.

[paul cottingham]

I second Jeff's suggestion. Windows does a lousy job at disk management. It puts stuff all over the place. (A Mac does not have this problem.) The trouble is, the Windows onboard defragger is pretty lame. If you have Vista or Windows 7, you can schedule a defrag to run regularly. Once a week is a good idea.

If your OS is older than Vista, you have to defrag manually (unless you have a third party tool like those from Symantec). This really can improve performance significantly. However, since the onboard defragger is lousy, you must run it about five times to really make an improvement. One of the reasons reinstalling from an image improves performance is it results in a clean disk with no fragments.





Scheduling defrags in xp is easy. create a batch file that calls defrag and schedule it. If anyone wants full instructions i would be happy to provide it. There is a free tool that allows you to schedule defrags in 2000 as well.

Of course the best way to fix Windoze silly file system is to replace it with Linux. :-)

[Pat Germain]

Scheduling defrags in xp is easy. create a batch file that calls defrag and schedule it.

Good point, Paul. Boy, I wish I could do that at work to automatically defrag the 200 PCs I maintain. But batch files aren't permitted on the domain. :mad:

[Rob Wachala Jr]

Anyone pleased with the results of this type of software? I'd prefer FREE WARE of course, but would consider retail.

My 3 ghz, dual core, 4GB RAM, XP machine is steadily getting a bit slower and slower -- thought the braintrust can help me!

I use Malwarebytes and Adware, but the machine is just getting a bit sluggish.

I'm not afraid to get into XP (Control Panel) and use these utilities either, just don't know what to do?

Thanks for any suggestions!


Hope that is XP 64 bit or you are not using your full 4 GB of ram.

Comp's get slow over time due to quite a few reasons. Software really does nothing more than maintenance that anyone with basic computer knowledge could do themselves. Ie.. Clear cookies, cache, empty recycle and so forth.

Many of the 'speed up your computer' programs like to impress you with big numbers.. Our software found 5500 problems with your computer! When in reality all they did was pickup a ton of cookies which are not harmful at all. Some simply tune down your windows options (cut down on animations and so forth) to give you the illusion they have speed up your processing time. It's all a big scam to generate money from those that just don't bother learning basic computer skills. This is not to say all 'tune up software' is worthless as it does save time by doing some basic maintenance for you. It however is not going to bring you back to the speed your computer was originally at when you bought it.

If you want the performance you had on the day you bought the computer there is only one thing that is going to do it. A format. If you don't know how to do a format you can find many tutorials by searching google. It's a very simple process, that in my opinion anyone that owns a computer should know how to do. You will simply need your O.S. disk and I would also suggest you download all your drivers before hand and put them to disk. I personally format my machines every 6 months. However, I use an image utility so a format only takes me 10 minutes ;)

As for other ways to increase speed it would depend on your hardware. Considering you're on a 'dual core' It tells my you are already on a obsolete platform. Which means it's really not worth throwing any money into that system. That being said it would still be a good idea to look up your motherboard to see what that board can handle.