slow inspiron

My wifes inspiron running XP about 4 years old runs super slow..I have done all the spyware/virus scans etc..deleted unneeded programs files etc..did the msconfig start up deal when I try to defrag after it runs there are about 2 gb or files that cannot be defragged..I suspect this probably contributes to the slowness but thats as far as my skills take me. Is there a free program i can download to sort this out? Also what else can I try...thanks all....

 

Did you run a scandisk ? How big is hard drive & how much free space is left ? if theres an icon on your desktop that says my computer right click, go to explore left click & when that window opens up look for your C drive & click on properties you should see a pie chart with a blue area (used space) & a pink area (free space) Ideally you want 1/3 of your drive space free, regardless of size. If you have 2 gigs that won't defrag, you may have some bad clusters.. more info if you can...

 

There's a fair bit of startup stuff besides what shows up in Msconfig. Run Hijackthis and go through that list of startup stuff with a fine tooth comb. Iamnotageek.com has a parsing tool for the log if you don't understand it. Be brutal and shut down all the gimmicky startups you don't really need. Kill quicktime, MSoffice, Realplayer, Itunes, toolbars for IE and so on. All those programs work just fine without the preloaders and you save performance. You want to load as little as you need for your system.

Keep hardware drivers for video and sound, software for security and so on.

Then go into Windows Explorer. Right click the C: drive icon and click Properties. Click Disk Cleanup. Check boxes for stuff you want to clean out. Should be most of them. Click OK. That purges a bunch of crap files and should help speed as well.

 

reformat and reinstall windows. Don't forget to save all the important files elsewhere before you do it.

 

If you run HiJackthis you can send me a copy of the log and I will go through it for you. This could be a number things. How much memory do you have? If you open up task manager what is your CPU usage at?

 

I would run chkdsk -f as well

 

X100

Its a 4 yr old PC, so there is only so much you can do that is going to speed it up with todays requirements. Best bet is to reinstall though. Things will be as fast as they are gonna get after that.

 

Yup alot of resource hog bullshit programs on startup, surprisingly one of the worst is Window's own FindFast..

God forbid, but yeah sometimes thats what it comes down to, done that more than once...

 

No shit huh, my friend's running the full Adobe suite & that fucker takes 2Gigs of Ram just to run it !!! & another guy is using MS Flight Simulator X I think it is with the expansion accelerator pack.... 4 Gigs of Ram to run it !!! It's fucking crazy !!

 

56 total gig 32 used and something like 23 free

on system information it reads:
total physical memory 1 gig
available memory 443 mb
virtual memory 2 gig
available virtual 1.96 gig

 

now is hijack this totally free? sometimes these programs download for free and then says we found blankety blank blank and in order to fix it you need to register for $39.99 or so..

 

in another post I stated the HD size. how do you fix bad clusters?

 

Hijackthis is totally free.

 

Ill PM you

 

x2

i usually reinstall windows every year, succchhaa performance boost. Just keep everything on an external drive (or in the case of my dekstop i keep all my files on another hard drive) to help make backing up easier.

Orrrrr you could go linux (Ubuntu 10.04) if all you really need is to just browse the web then Ubuntu would be perfect. You really "can't" get infected with a virus unless you give the program your root password.

I love using Ubuntu, since i installed it about a month ago the only time i needed to boot into windows is to copy songs with itunes to my iphone and burn an audio CD

 

http://download.cnet.com/Glary-Utilities/3000-2094_4-10508531.html?tag=contentMain;contentAux

 

+1

 

This.

Or download CCleaner. Run through with the clean up stuff and registry stuff. Then see all the stuff that is running on startup. Post a print screen of the start up stuff and I'll tell you what you can turn off. (If you don't understand what this means, download the program, and its all very self explanitory)

 

Reformat it. You will be glad you did.