Slow Computer

My system: Dell Desktop: Dimension 9150 Intel Pentium D 830, 3 GHz 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz Windows XP Home Edition GomPlayer, Media Player 10, Sonic Digital Media LE v7 CCleaner, CWShredder, SpyBot, SpySweeper, Ad-Aware ZoneLabs Firewall It takes 5, 10, 15 seconds to open or close folders and files in Windows; and other programs. Could this be because of a problem or is there a way of speeding this up? –Regularly running Ccleaner, Spybot, SpySweeper, ZoneAlarm and Ad-Aware scans doesn’t improve the speed. –(For my last computer): There was a website that gave a list of computer adjustments to make Windows Millenium work better. I found it solved the glitches and crashes and increased my last computer’s performance speed. Is there something similar for Windows Home XP? Thanks!

Hi,
Sorry to hear that your computer is not as quick as you would like.
There could be any number of reasons for this so you will need to do a bit of detective work.
The following URL is a good place to start,
http://users.telenet.be/bluepatchy/miekiem…owcomputer.html
See how you get on with some of the suggestions here, but if you get stuck then post back here and we will do our best to help,
Regards
paws

Paws, Thank you for your advice and link to the website. I unchecked the unnecessary programs that were loading at MSConfig/Startup as the website suggested. It hasn't speeded the computer up. I will continue with any other suggestions at the website and report back. Thanks again.

Hi thekat Whilst you are checking out the other things on the link, I notice that you have SpySweeper installed. This is a fine programme but on connection to the Internet it will call home to update its definitions and antidotes, This can take some minutes even on a powerful machine like yours and during this time performance of your machine will be very very slow. The programme needs to update itself for your protection and the dozen or so "real time " protection shields also take up resourses. There is nothing wrong with this, indeed its very beneficial, as long as you are aware of it. Obviously if you have also scheduled a scan/sweep of your machine to take place immediately after boot up, by SpySweeper or even your resident anti virus or other anti spyware programmes this will seriously effect your machine's performance for the hour or so (each application) that it takes to do the scan/sweep. A quick way of checking to see what is using up resourses is to access the Task Manager by pressing ALT+CTRL+DEL (at the same time) the first Tab will show you the running programmes and the "Processes" will give a clear indication of what is using your resourses. Click or double click on CPU or Memory column headers to see what is going on, if you are unsure of a process purpose then you can enter it in your favourite search engine for further details. If you try to keep the minimum amount of programmes from appearing in the notification area this will be beneficial, some of them you can stop from loading by their own tools, others will need the services of MSCONFIG or similar (from your startup up group you can, as an experiment, stop everything from loading apart from your antivirus and 2 way software firewall, see if performance improves. Spyware of other malicious code can also slow down even a fast machine as you know, as can damaged Windows Protected System Files, so it might be wise to run SFC /scannow fom Start> Run (make sure you have your Windows installation disc handy as if you have damaged system files Windows may need to copy new ones over from your disc. Then run several online anti virus scans, Panda, TrendMicro etc to get a "second opinion" Kaspersky is also good as an extra check. Do make sure that you only have one AV and one 2 way software firewall providing real time protection running at the same time (More than one can cause serious problems including slow downs) It is OK to run online AV scans without disabling your "resident AV programme. If having checked these items you are still experiencing problems then it may be sensible for you to visit www.pcpitstop.com and after accepting the Active X control ( it is Ok to do so) carry out a full test (You will need to register and this is Ok and free as well) when you have done the tests (takes only a few minutes) you will be given a detailed list of your machine's features and recommendations for increased efficiency. If you want to share this with us (its OK to do so) then send us the Tech link and we will do our best to help Regards paws