Is there anything I can do to speed up my computer?

antone227

New Member
Hello everyone! Sorry for such a newb question and I hope I am posting in the right forum. I just want my computer to be faster because as of now it is so slow. Trying to do 2 things at once is almost impossible and the lag is so frustrating. I am a student and I dont have the money to buy anything extra unless its really cheap. I don't play any games... just basic office applications and web surfing. Here are my specs:

Dell Inspiron 530
CPU Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 / 2.4 GHz E6550
Windows 7 Ultimate
4gb MAX (2.754gb usable)
64-bit operating system
Hard drive: 135gb free of 232gb
Geforce GT240

If there is any other information you need please let me know thank you. I just want to do what I can to try and reduce the lag when I try and open an application or when I run multiple windows. Sometimes it'll go to that infamous blue screen when I have too many windows opened at once and restart. Please help thank you!
 

_Pete_

Active Member
More RAM would help but I doubt you would actually notice much difference, that is an old slow machine with an old slow hard drive. An SSD would speed things up but again I would doubt you would notice much difference. Installing Windows 10 might speed it up, yeah yeah I know someone will be bound to jump in here about the problems with Win 10 but it is faster. Bottom line though, you need a new computer and if you want speed you are going to have to spend some money. Oh yeah that graphics card is way way old.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Graphics card is fine for basic usage.

Reinstall of Windows 7 or 10 would be the most effective means of speeding it up. Maybe through another 4GB of RAM in it, can find that pretty cheap usually.
 

antone227

New Member
Graphics card is fine for basic usage.

Reinstall of Windows 7 or 10 would be the most effective means of speeding it up. Maybe through another 4GB of RAM in it, can find that pretty cheap usually.

Thank you everyone for your response. Just curious how would the reinstall help with speeding my computer up? Also my computer already has 4gb of ram which is the max.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Thank you everyone for your response. Just curious how would the reinstall help with speeding my computer up? Also my computer already has 4gb of ram which is the max.
Over time OS's generally just get bogged down with stuff and could use a clean wipe. You know how a brand new computer always feels fast but overtime it seems slower? That's not the hardware changing or aging in anyway, it's just the OS getting gunked up. Clears out stuff you don't use, just a fresh start overall.

I'm seeing online you can actually get up to 8GB.

https://www.dell.com/community/Desktops-General/Inspiron-530-RAM-limit/td-p/3345626
 

Shlouski

VIP Member
4gb MAX (2.754gb usable)

Why is only 2.754gb usable, what is allocating the rest of it? I know neither the Q6600 or the E6550 has integrated graphics, does that motherboard have onboard graphics?

Looked at Darren's link, is it a bios problem, but they are saying 3.2gb?

I guess try updating your bios.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Why is only 2.754gb usable, what is allocating the rest of it? I know neither the Q6600 or the E6550 has integrated graphics, does that motherboard have onboard graphics?

Looked at Darren's link, is it a bios problem, but they are saying 3.2gb?

I guess try updating your bios.

On 32bit systems I've seen it say only 3.25GB usable. Usually it'll say 3.5 or 3.75GB.

Was going to ask about the amount usable too, that seems funky. Also given that it's Ultimate I'd hazard a guess it's a cracked copy. Legitimate copies of Windows 7 Ultimate are pretty rare, particularly on consumer based machines. (not accusing you of anything, you likely bought it that way unknowingly).
 

Intel_man

VIP Member
Why is only 2.754gb usable, what is allocating the rest of it? I know neither the Q6600 or the E6550 has integrated graphics, does that motherboard have onboard graphics?
Integrated graphics back in those days are located on the motherboard yes.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Integrated graphics back in those days are located on the motherboard yes.
I wouldn't expect it to be taking quite that much though...? Shrug, hardware pre 2011 mystifies me as it's before I paid any attention.
 

Jiniix

Well-Known Member
If you're only using it for office applications, the Q6600 is more than enough for most people. My friend went to global elite in CS:GO on that CPU, and that's a very CPU intensive game.
DDR2 RAM can be hard to come by, but upgrading it to 8GB would be good.
Definitely the major upgrade for your use-case is an SSD. The SSD can be re-used in any newer system down the line, and the load time performance between an HDD and SSD is immense, the SSD won't degrade in performance at the same rate as an HDD.
And yes, the amount of VRAM can be adjusted on any LGA775 board I've ever had my hands on. Are you plugging the display cables in to the motherboard and not the GPU? It shouldn't be active with a dedicated GPU.
 

Shlouski

VIP Member
Integrated graphics back in those days are located on the motherboard yes.

Yes of course, but does this mobo have onboard graphics, it should be deactivated by the dedicated graphics card?

I believe on some boards, the amount of vram and be adjusted in the BIOS.

Yes, it can be adjusted to use a fair bit of ram, often much more than the graphics could ever hope to use.

On 32bit systems I've seen it say only 3.25GB usable. Usually it'll say 3.5 or 3.75GB.

I've seen this many times too, but I didn't know they did a 32bit version of windows 7 ultimate, you learn something new every day, but you wouldn't expect a window 7 ultimate user to be installing the 32bit version.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
I've seen this many times too, but I didn't know they did a 32bit version of windows 7 ultimate, you learn something new every day, but you wouldn't expect a window 7 ultimate user to be installing the 32bit version.

I don't know if they actually do or not.
 

antone227

New Member
I'm sorry but I'm just useless when it comes to this subject. I'll see about upgrading my ram to 2gb sticks to replace my 1gb ones. So about the SSD so I should replace my hard drive with that correct? I'm assuming it's just plug and play by taking my old one out and replacing it with the new one? Thank you all for the replies I'm learning so much hopefully I can get all of this done without spending too much!
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
I would get a 250gb SSD. You'll run out of room on a 120 pretty quick. To see what your computer actually will recognize, go to www.crucial.com and click scan computer after checking the box to agree to terms. But if its only supports 4gb then you won't be able to replace 1gb sticks as that is all it supports, it won't support 2gb sticks. But honestly you may want to buy something newer that can be upgraded. DDR2 memory is quite expensive since its old unless you find it on ebay. You really need something that can take 8gb.
 

antone227

New Member
I just scanned my computer with the crucial website and confirmed it is only 4gb max (bummer). I'm going to try and save enough for a 250gb SSD and have someone install it when I can hopefully that will speed things up. I really wish I could have 8gb of ram that would have been a game changer. Thank you guys so much for all the useful information you guys are great!
 
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