[Nikos]

My computer is not exactly the fastest or smoothest performing, but I get the feeling I could always make it run a little more smoothly and efficiently.

My basic specs are, 1ghZ, 386RAM 80GB (25 of which are filled).

I was wondering, what are some things I can do to make my computer run as smoothly as possible? What can I do to make it move faster and more efficiently?

Would DeFrag help a lot? If so how often should I do it?

Would changinging the PAGEFILE MB help (perhaps increasing it since I have 50-55GB free)? Would that help?

Anyone know what I can do to just get rid of pop ups and unncessesary lag time my computer is creating due to my lack of cleaning it up or making it run more efficiently by altering certain settings etc....

Can someone help me here?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[MD1032]

Firstly, once a week, run disk cleanup and disk defrag. Secondly, put your PF on a drive you're not using too much that has a decent amount of space left. It should be set to half your RAM to double your RAM. For me, I have 512 MB RAM (DDR PC2100), so my PF is set to 256-1024.

 

[Permonic]

If you have XP, these tuning tips would be useful: http://www.musicxp.net/tuning_tips.htm

Similar tips exist also for Win 9x, 2k, Me, NT...just search the net.

 

[Stephonovich]

Biggest thing people overlook is programs that are running in the background, or visible in your systray. How many different IM clients do you have, pop-up stoppers, Anti-Virus, etc? Try closing things you don't need, or better yet, disable them from starting using msconfig (Start/Run, type msconfig, then the startup tab).

Also, if possible, an upgrade to 512MB of RAM (if you're using Win2K/XP, or Linux, or what-have-you. 98 and older don't handle greater than 256MB very well) would help.

(-:Stephonovich

 

[wallijonn]

also (after doing the above),

how big is the disk drive? if it is about 10GB then you are probably running at 16MB/s, a 20GB is probably at 33MB/s, a 40GB at ATA66 (66MB/s) and a 60GB at 100MB/s (ATA-100, UDMA4 or 5).

Then there's the whole chipset issue - VIA USED to run slower than Intel.

Make sure that you have no IRQ conflicts, map them accordingly (unless you use the SIS chipset).

If you have an 100GB HD you don't need to have the recycle bin set to 10% if you are fastidious in emptying it out. 10% is also reserved for the Health files.

always clean your internet cache before closing it out. keep only pertinent data on it. if you have the last 16 nVidia drivers downloaded and installed, just put on the most stable or the latest 2. If you have the last 100 McAfee dat files, just keep the latest one on disk, etc.

If you have W98SE, re-install Windows over the present installation every 6 months then redo all the security patches and updates.

save your email and contacts and favourites once a week, do all your updates once a week. then clean and defrag once a week.

If it is slow, you may need to go back 1 OS. If you run WXP you may want 512MB of mem., W2k 256MB, W9x 128MB.

If you have WXP turn off all the bells and whistles.

If you use IE download the www.google.com tools which includes a popup stopper. That should stop about 95% to 98% of your popups. You may have to turn it off when you do system updates from MS.

remove any programs you do not use. If you are into MP3s you do not need 6 different decoders; if you are into burning, you do not need 3 burning programs, just turn off MS and install the one you want to use LAST so that it makes the correct file associations.

run a registry cleaner, like www.jv16.org AND system mechanic.

update Adaware once a week. update SYSBOT once a week. run them religiously.

it may be time to retire your PC. in which case turn it into a gaming machine with W98SE and buy the latest and greatest with WXP.

if you do not use a lot of off the shelf software you can install SUSE9.0 (Linux) on it and it'll run a lot faster.

make sure all your memory is the same. try not to mix cas2 and cas3, 256MB and 128MG sticks.

if you do not use FAX make sure that it doesn't run in the system tray.

get a "regular" keyboard instead of one with all the bells and whistles.

if you have a lot of USB1 devices, make the PS2 mouse use the PS2 port instead of USB.

buy a faster CDRom and HD.

Download and install TweakUI and MSConfig.

Don't install the MS Plus packages, like themes and sounds.

don't put a picture in your desktop.

keep it simple as possible.

if you do not need all those Creative programs (I never use the task bar), don't install them.

using msconfig turn off the intellimouse software in the systray. you don't need the video systray app if you do not use it more than 1once a day.

keep only the programs you use everyday in your systray, like McAfee AntiVirus and McAfee firewall. There's little need for having CD burning software in the Systray.

since you have 384MB of mem, try not to have more than 4 systray apps. going.

tweak, tweak, tweak. clean. defrag. reboot. repeat.

 

[Kirosia]

Uninstall and shut off everything you don't use. Get more ram if possible. Tweak visual settings (shading, anti-aliasing, etc) and set your priorities. Defrag and clean up your HD. You're lucky to have such a nice PC, I'm running WinXP Pentium 3 500 mhz with 64 megs of ram. And due to numerous viruses and soft resets, My computer freezes if I look at it funny (it's happened).

 

[ch1nkster]

i was in your situation about a year ago when i was stuck with a 900mhz, 192mb ram old Sony Vaio computer. basically, just limit the amount of apps you have open at any given point for a smoother experience. there are literally tons of different apps you can use to optimize different aspects of windows and to optimize your computer needs. first, i would reccomend that you get rid of all your unneeded junk. also, be sure to clean the IE cache pretty often and run Spybot a couple times during the week. if you are having tons of pop-ups while surfing the net, don't download other pop-up stopping apps; get Mozilla FireFox because IE is a horrible broswer, IMHO. i highly suggest you getting Start-up control panel by Mlin so that you can control the apps that boot upon start-up. there are a ton of different programs out there that will help you through your computer woes. you can try MajorGeeks for tons of programs that do everything from monitor your availble RAM to optimize different settings. you might want to get a ram upgrade to speed things up. try going to different forums and asking people there what is good (Hardforum is a great community of comp-geeks who know more than i do). biggest tip: use common sense on google, the best resource there is.

 

[daveman]

Take some tips from someone in the trade. Defrag provides no performance increase in most modern computers.

http://www.techbuilder.org/article.htm?ArticleID=47626

 

[pedxing]

If you are running MS Windows, you can check out this web site which has hints for memory, speed, and security enhancements:
http://www.blackviper.com

After turning off some window services, my 800 MHz pentium 3 computer ran a lot faster and it stopped most of my freezes.

 

[wallijonn]

daveman,

All Nikos told us was that he had a 1G PC w / 385 MB. Defrag might be useful with W9x.

Do you enable cache write back on your HDs?

 

[taoster]

Quote:

My basic specs are, 1ghZ, 386RAM 80GB (25 of which are filled).

not too bad. more ram will be better but no matter. Do you need it for surfing or games? if game, a higher spec machine and a good video card is paramount.

Quote:

Would DeFrag help a lot? If so how often should I do it?

every FEW month will suffice. You dont need to defrag a lot as you have over 55GB free. It's more neccessary for those with less Hard disk space left.

and DO NOT RUN CLEANUP every week. This would only remove your cache and make it slower, not faster!

Quote:

Would changinging the PAGEFILE MB help (perhaps increasing it since I have 50-55GB free)? Would that help?

maybe, maybe not. Don't bother, at best you'll only manage to ink out a tiny increase in performance.

Quote:

Anyone know what I can do to just get rid of pop ups and unncessesary lag time my computer is creating due to my lack of cleaning it up or making it run more efficiently by altering certain settings etc....

REMOVE ALL SOFTWARE NOT REQUIRED ESPECIALLY FROM YOUR STARTUP!

 

[wallijonn]

if you have AOL, clean the caches. every day. then get rid of AOL. turn off Aol / Yahoo / MSN mesaging (it's in your systray).

use a registry cleaner to keep it trim and fit. a bloated registry will slow down the machine as associations are re-done endlessly.

 

[stereth]

http://www.annoyances.org <-- more Windows tweaking tips

Know what's running in the background. Some don't put an icon in the system tray but still take up a couple dozen megs of ram.

Install and run Adaware and Spybot: Search & Destroy.

 

[Braver]

XP runs like a breeze here, on a P3 800, 256MB. unless I get overambitious and try to multitask between Photoshop and Illustrator with images over 100 MB

yeah, have a real close look at what's running on the background. lot's of ******** taking up precious memory and CPU cycles. the fade-in/out effects in XP are real silly too.

what has helped me a lot in using my comp more efficiently is having a system diagnostics running. takes up like 3MB of RAM, and keeps you up to date on your online activity, usage of pagefile and RAM, and you can quickly see if your CPU is maxed (so you should chill out a sec, or close some stuff).

there tends to be lots of **** running just so it'll start faster if you need it. thing is, do you really need that every day? and would the extra 2 seconds of start-up speed make up for slowing down all other activity the rest of the time?

****...my comp is real slow now

...another tip: when ripping a CD to Ogg, go read a book

 

[Nikos]

Quote:

the fade-in/out effects in XP are real silly too.

How do you take these off?