Computer Advice

I am running Windows Vista on a EMachine brand unit. Has 512 MB of RAM/120 GB Hard drive.

It's ran a little slow for quite some time, but lately it's gotten even slower.

I have done all the basic stuff. Disk defragmenter/cleanup. Changing display settings, start up programs.

The computer is used for very basic things. Internet, got pics of the kid, truck. Just really basic stuff. No games, no huge amounts of downloads.

I do not however have a true AntiVirus program, haven't had one for a long time. Windows defender says that everything is OK even with a full system scan.

The wife did get an Ipod for x-mas so Itunes and FrostWire are now on the computer. Machine really started to get sluggish after Itunes and Frostwire.

Any advice, suggestions?

Go buy some RAM and install it?

 

max out your RAM. look up your model# and find the max RAM. I think crucial.com has a scanner that you can put on your machine to check for you. Free and easy. 512MB is way too little. Go with 2GB at least if you can.
uninstall frostwire. You can get some nasty viruses from that shit. Do you have antivirus or just the Windows Defender? If not install the Microsoft Security Essentials. Also install the MalwareBytes software and scan with those.

 

Your big problem is you're running Vista with only 512 MB of RAM. Vista requires at minimum 2GB worth of RAM to run all of it's shell and bloatware. Unless you're really familiar with Windows and how to turn disable a lot of software on startup, you're going to need to juice up your RAM to 2 GB minimum.

 

I can vouch for cruicial.com.

Had them scan my computer for the type of memory I needed. Purchased 2 sticks. The only problem, was one of the sticks they sent me was bad and I had to send it back for another one. Inconvenient but painless.

 

7 is much lighter than Vista and I run it on a machine with 1GB RAM but it will cost you the upgrade. Firstly, you do need to add a virus scanner, so check out AVG. They have a free version that is light enough that it doesn't bog down everything. You may have to search around their site a little to find the download, but it is pretty easy after that. Next, download Spybot Search and Destry (also free) to clean up anything you have picked up running w/o a virus scan for a while. It will take it a while to run and clean up everything, but let it do it's thing.

 

All good things said here.

-AVG is not needed if you have Microsoft Security Essentials. Last time I checked the reviews, MSSE does a better job
-You can run Spybot and Malwarebytes, they will sometimes find different things. If you have to pick just one, go with Malwarebytes; again it does the better job (this is coming from our IT director, who is really on top of things)
-Crucial's tool is pretty handy, but you can also look for other manufacturers for cheaper RAM. Mushkin, Corsair, Samsung, and Kingston are good, sometimes OCZ will have a really awesome sale. PNY I have mixed feelings.

In the future do yourself a favor and don't buy eMachine. Unless they have completely changed their mentality, all the internals I've seen are the lowest quality possible to the point where it looks like they had to actively TRY to make things worse.

 

Thanks for all the replies.

After a day of missing out on TW, I think I've got my computer running well again.

I did buy an AV program. ESET NOD32. Ran it, only found 2 things.

Also bought a 1 GB stick of RAM and now the computer is running much faster. Internet is actually loading in a timely fashion.

 

do yourself a favor, get a good antivirus program if you continue to use frostwire.
i speak from experience.

 

what are some other good/safter options for getting Ipod songs?

 

buy music
or my nephew tried to explain to me some torrent download or something like that. i haven't messed with it.
if you just try to make sure the downloads you are doing on froswire are only in mp3 format you should be good. beware of .wav files

 

Hahaahaa sell it and buy a Mac!!!

Yup I am that guy!!!!

 

Probably same risk factor

Doesn't matter. I can change the extension of any file I want.

Buy them.
I admit that I may have used alternate means of obtaining music during college, but with how easy it is to use Pandora, iTunes, and the price point, there's no excuse for me. It takes me longer to scour through a bunch of questionable sources to come up with a questionable quality mp3 than it does to buy an entire album. My time is worth more than that.

 

The RAM upgrade is a good start, but changing to win7 will help as well. When you factor in both the ram and os upgrade, it might not be a bad idea to look at just getting a new computer.

 

^^ If you get to this level you might as well just be reinstalling windows as your first measure. I'm betting the OP hasn't reinstalled since buying so he has all that bloatware. If you don't already have a vista disk, then I'd follow Toph's advice or see about getting an XP disc and checking into the sticky in this forum.