Speed up my old computer - help please?

Question

My pc has a 1.3gig amd atholan processor and 1gig of ram (max it can take) and runs windows xp. It is 7 years old, so pretty ancient. Is there anything else I can do to speed it up as I cannot afford a replacement at the moment.

Answer 1

If you have an XP or Vista Setup CD you can try using a program called nLite/vLite to strip down an .ISO image of the operating system, only including the parts you need which will grab you some extra memory. Also you could try checking your motherboard vendor website for BIOS updates.

If you just want to cleanup your existing installation use some maintenance apps like TuneUp Utilities, CCleaner, Privacy Mantra, Window Washer Pro, Registry Mechanic, and JkDefrag.

Here's a decent program developed by Windows guru Mark Russinovich called Autoruns, its on the Sysinternals website and you can enable/disable drivers, regkeys, and programs from starting with windows. Its like an extended version of Msconfig, it just digs deeper :)

Finally you can try going to Start > Run > type 'services.msc' and press enter. The window that comes up shows all installed system services, sort them by name and then by state (Running/Disabled) and Stop and Disable the ones you don't need, I've just done this on Vista and freed up more than 200MB of memory lol

Hope this helps =)

Answer 2

Check out these two videos:

http://www.videojug.com/film/speed-up-yo...

http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-spee...

However, don't expect that to turn your computer into Lewis Hamilton on speed as these are very minor changes that will only boost performace a microscopic amount.

By best suggestion is buy a new one, I know you said upgrading is out of your price range but I reccommend you save the time a trouble from going down this road in the furture and just buy a whole new system for probably about the same amount as it would cost to get your current PC up to scratch.  

Answer 3

Using a registry cleaner can clean up your computer and then make your computer faster,Why?the reason is that there may be some registry errors and remnant,corrupt files and temp files in your computer to cause "computer slow".

Every time you install and uninstall software on your computer and surfing online you create junk in the computer registry.over time, the registry can grow to enormous proportions, especially if the various programs you've installed do not do a good job of deleting and/or updating it's Registry entries.You need to scan and clean your computer with registry cleaner to make it fast.Good Registry Cleaner will improve your computer and Internet performance dramatically!

There are some comparison and review of TOP 5 registry cleaners.

http://www.speed-up-your-pc.com/

You can download and scan your computer for free.

Answer 4

Your computer would run Ubuntu very nicely. Ubuntu can be downloaded as a liveCD, so you can boot it from CD and try it out to see if it works well with your system - if it does, then you can install it. You have the choice then of going for a gnome desktop, installing desktop effects/composite window managers, or simply going for a more basic and lighter desktop

Answer 5

3 simple things which you may have already don't but if not

1) defragment it. you can do this on system tools if you're on windows.

2)try disk clean-up. also on system tools. tell it to delete things in you recycle bin and also the temporary internet files.

3) obviously, delete any programmes you don't need. also only have the minimum icons on your desktop as otherwise it has to load all of them every time you turn it on.

hope it helps.

Answer 6

Try dropping it off the roof...should speed it up a bit

Answer 7

u can do it just If u change l ur motherboard, or just add RAM,as much as it is possible(but if with actual motherboard, it can take not more than 1 GB,change all ur motherboard. Or at least manage as good as possible, ur pc, Not spyware, not viruses, dont use software that need for more RAM ect

Answer 8

to help speed up your computer you can give it a service..

DONT PANIC..ill show you how

here is a link to my free online computer help site

http://www.freecomputeradvice.org/speed-...

this page shows you how to clean up your computer to help it run better.

just follow the tutorials and run through them one at a time.

by the end your pc will be running faster and as good as if you have take it to a computer shop..i know because i am a computer engineer and i run my own computer business..

hope this helps..

Answer 9

Check http://www.pcoptimizerprodownload.com

With pc optimizer pro you can safely clean, repair and optimize your computer.

It will help improve your system performance.

Answer 10

Click on Tools in Navigation Bar

Click on Internet Options

Delete Browsing History

or

Just click Refresh in some cases

Answer 11

Updating a 7 year old computer is akin to putting a cherry on top of a t**d. Don't. It will be far far cheaper to buy a replacement, because by the time youve bought a new mobo and cpu you'll already have spent about what a new one will cost.

Answer 12

dump windows and goto linspire Xp2007, its a linux based free (open source) operating system.

it looks like windows and behaves like windows, and it never gets the BSOD, and as its not memory hungry it has fewer memory requirements, and will run on old machines quite happily. (mine is 5yrs old, and cost 200 quid (2.8 sempron chip)

linspire also runs straight off the CD and mounts all your disks and peripherals, and its all automatic... you even get the option to try it, before installing it...

and believe me, its a whole lot faster than anyting running vista!  

Answer 13

Make sure you haven't got any viruses or spyware as this can really slow a PC down.  Visit www.getsafeonline.org for advice on free applications you can use.

Deleting any old unwanted files can also help.

Answer 14

Atholan proces is too slow pls formet ur full system and don 't use PEN drive use only orginal antivirus it be cure...............  

Answer 15

Downloading work-

C Cleaner

Auslogics Boost Speed

Sweepi

maybe even tune up utilities

Run them and you have no problem!

Answer 16

uninstall all the programs you don't use.even some of the supplied windows ones if you don't use them.

cut down to the minimum all programs that start up when you turn it on.

then if you don't have it ~install ccleaner~and use it to delete .

temp files ~cookies from web browsing  etc,

defrag your harddrive .

hope these simple solutions help

Answer 17

One, more extreme, option is to reload it with Linux.  Try Ubuntu, it's easy to use and has a good community.  Check that the software you want to use will work on Linux first though.

If you don't want to do that, then rather than messing around with defrags, cleaners, etc, I would do a complete wipe and perform a fresh install of XP - it will be a bit time-consuming but will probably give you the best results.

Either way MAKE SURE YOU BACKUP ALL YOUR DATA FIRST - sorry to shout but this is _so_ important and is often negelected by people (you often see Qs on here saying "I did <such and such> and I can't find all my data, where is it?" and they have wiped it and don't have a backup)