How can I speed things up?

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ogetnom27

New Member
I'm a newbie here, so please understand if that looks painfully obvious in some of my questions.I do a lot of surfing on the net.Yahoo Instant messaging,mailing photos and links as well as music downloads,shopping on e-bay and other e-tailers etc... At times my computer seems to really slow down while going from site to site,to yahoo mail and back and forth from the net to my mail. :mad: I have a high speed cable(Comcast) connection,anti-spy ware,anti-virus,and firewall protection.I do notice that after I re-start(which takes almost 8 minutes) things do speed up.My computer is a Dell 4500 Dimension 1.8ghz pentium4 w/ 128 RAM.It's about 2 1/2 yrs old OS system is xp .What can I do to speed things up in those areas.Also I do have Kazaa Plus and I've heard from some that it's like a form of spyware in sheeps clothing.If you need any other info please let me know.Sign me,
Bogged down in Boston
 
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Rambo

Rambo

New Member
Hey Ogetnom.

Are you running Windows XP?? The average computer nowadays should have atleast 256 MB RAM, and windows recommends having 256 MB RAM and up (i have 512) if you are running XP.... Have you ran any adware/spyware porgrams, like 'Ad-Aware' and 'Spybot - Search and Destroy'. Although, with a computer like yours, it shouldn't take 8 minutes to reboot... :confused:

You could run a program called 'HiJackThis' which give a detailed file of everything and anything running on your computer at that time. If you ask someone like Lorand he can look at it and tell you if you about all the junk that's running on your PC (he did it for me).

Ad-Aware - http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

Spybot - Search and Destroy - http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,22262,00.asp

HiJackThis - http://www.spychecker.com/program/hijackthis.html

Copy and paste the HiJackThis file (if it is too big to copy and paste as one post, post the rest on a second).

:)
 
R3D

R3D

New Member
heyy

yeah also try and defraging your computer, i really find a big improvment in that.
 
Blue

Blue

<b>VIP Member</b>
all above, really good suggestions :). I do think it's the ram though. You really need to run that spyware every few days to remove spyware but do yourself a favour and dont let it run in the background blocking spyware because you just dont have enough ram for that :). And if you are running Windows XP then your drowning your poor system and it needs ram badly. If your running Win 98 then you'd do yourself a big ol favor if possible and purchase at a "MINIMUM" 128mbs more ram and Winodows XP operating system which i'm guessing your running already ;-).
 
Praetor

Praetor

Administrator
Staff member
yeah also try and defraging your computer, i really find a big improvment in that.
Click to expand...
You shouldnt. At most you'll find 1-2% improvement, if that ... and even then, its only a one-time benifit since you'll frag the cluster upon access :p

I do think it's the ram though
Click to expand...
Bingo
 
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ogetnom27

New Member
Then some more RAM it shall be. I guess I should just go to the 512. Any suggestions on a site to purchase? Thanks for your help, much appreciated, Mike
P.S. I am running Windows xp
 
kof2000

kof2000

New Member
just dont multitask unless you're going to upgrade the ram to at least 512mb from the things you said you're running.
 
Rambo

Rambo

New Member
Well Ogetnom, there are many different types of RAM (they have different numbers of pins, run at different speeds..etc).

If you could tell us what motherboard you're using we would be able to tell you exactly what kind and what speed of RAM you should be looking for.

:)
 
i picKed a winna

i picKed a winna

New Member
i have a dell dimension 4600 too and it takes pc2700 ddr ram and is dual channel so maybe yours is the same..you could always download cpu-z to see whats in there now.
 
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