Windows xp slow computer?

Question

my laptop is slow these days, its a couple of years old, it takes a few minutes to start up as i have to wait til everything has loaded before i can click on anything, sometimes when i click on something it'll just stop for a little bit and i have to leave it to work, i've deleted a lot of photos and music files and videos and i've run the CCleaner and i've defragmented it, i dont use it much for the net, but i would like a free virus protection if possible and what other things should i do to get it working better?

Answer 1

A computer may be slow due to various reasons. May be due to virus, may be due to spyware and so on..There is a nice and helpful article on slow computer and irs solutions .Please have a look.It may help you to resolve your problem

Answer 2

my home computer is xp and its been really slow too. idk wats the problem, but ur not alone with the slow problem. good luck with it tho

Answer 3

As said by others, get a 2GB ram. that should make things faster as it is.

And if you know, then you can use regedit and remove all the unwanted keys in the windows startup/run tag.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\...

Answer 4

Its all depending on The RAM in Ur system so increasing Ur RAM and also ROM capacity is a better idea!?!  

Answer 5

if your computer was fast and now its slow, ram is not the issue.  sounds like you have spyware.  buy pctools spyware doctor or pc tool internet security.  that will speed it up.  after your do that run disk cleanup and delete all your cache, temp and cookie files, then run defrag

Answer 6

One of the main reasons a computer starts up slow is due to the programs that start up with the computer. What you can do, if you feel comfortable with it is, shut off some start up programs.

Go to your start menu.

Go to Run.

Type in MSCONFIG.

Hit Enter.

A box will appear.

Click the tab that says StartUp.

These are the programs that turn on with your computer causing the machine to run slow.

Uncheck the programs that you do not need to be turned on with the computer. Be careful with what you uncheck because some of the programs are needed. If you see a check box with no program associated with it, then it is usually a Virus.

Restart your computer and you should be good to go.

Upgrading your Hard Drive and RAM would also do some good.

As far as SPyware and Virus control, I always use Spyware Terminator. You can download it for free at http://www.SpywareTerminator.com

Remember to only have one AntiVirus pogram on your computer. Too many AntiVirus programs working at the same time will also cause your computer to run slow. Spyware Terminator is an all in one program, Spyware and Virus Removal. Always FREE.

Good Luck.

Answer 7

had the same prob with my laptop that's a couple of years old. XP uses up a lot of RAM so you probably need to upgrade the RAM if you can. i did it with mine and it now loads up in seconds instead of 5minutes like it used to.

for free virus protection, use AVG, it's free from the following site: http://free.avg.com/ww.download-avg-anti...

download windows defender (also free) for anti-spyware from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/product...

and you should also get Malwarebytes anti malware software from http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php  

choose the green download option for the free version

the 3 programs together should provide you with plenty of protection

Answer 8

Its a registry problem. Your registry has errors and invalid entries which causes you computer to run slow. You should use a registry cleaner to fix that. You can find information and reviews on registry cleaners at the link below.

Answer 9

You probably have spyware

You can download this free program to clean it up:

http://www.pctools.com/spyware-doctor-an...

Any antispyware product you get make sure it comes from a reputable site, there are fake antispyware programs that actually do harm

Answer 10

Use AVG or AVAST,but do not use NORTON.And make sure you delete the web history and files after browsing.Try an updated version of xp and always keep around 3 gb of space in your C drive.Remove unwanted programs if these steps do not work I recommend using Windows 2000

Answer 11

Here are some suggestion go to  Start > run > type msconfig > select start up > uncheck stuff you don't want automatically starting during startup this is what causing your computer to slow down.

Next Follow the link below for List of Free windows security tools that you can download and use

http://www.review-ninja.com/2008/08/web-...

Then install one of each

Firewall

Anitivirus

Antispyware

any of the combination on the list can work together their all free,

Answer 12

You may have to back it up and use a re-installation disk to solve this problem!

Answer 13

Check http://www.pc-optimizer-pro.com

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

It will help improve your system performance without expensive hardware upgrades.

Answer 14

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.fix-system.com/

You can download and scan your computer for free.

Answer 15

Add memory that simple. XP <3's 2 GB, but 1GB will solve your problem.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.asp...

Memory configurator on left.

The best bang for the buck you can get for an AV proggy...

http://filehippo.com/download_avg_antivi...

Answer 16

First, because you don't have an anti-virus, I'd say it could be a virus that's slowing you down. http://free.avg.com is the best free anti-virus, do a scan.

Check that your computer is up to date, go to Start > All Programs > windows update and get any available updates.

Other than that there's nothing really to do, you could uninstall programs you don't need, make sure you use the registry cleaner that comes with CCleaner that helps start up speed. You could also try disabling some start up programs.