Slow computer

My dell computer seems to be getting slower would more memory make it better, Or if I bought another pc could I keep the monitor and keyboard etc to help with the pricing

 

Yes you could just buy the base unit (ie just the computer, minus the keyboard, monitor, mouse etc) as all the connectors are standard.

More memory often helps, but if it has just been getting slower, sticking more memory in will be like using an elastiplast to fix the underlying problem. More likely it is time to do a bit of house keeping.

First up, run a virus scan and malware/spyware scan to make sure there is nothing lurking. Uninstall anything you never ever use and never will use, and in the start menu in accessories, if you have the cleanup wizard, run that to delete any temporary files. Delete temporary files in IE as well but leave cookies (so you don't need to remember your logins for sites like this).

Once you've deleted all the superfluous stuff, run a defrag. The defragmenter is usually to be found in the start menu under Accessories->System Tools. Allow several hours for that when you won't need the computer, as using the machine while it is defragmenting causes it to never finish.

Once all that is done, you will probably find it runs like new.

 

Its not just a case of how full your hard disk is, or even how fragmented the data is. Just to throw an extra spanner in the works there's another reason why we should get rid of temporary and other unwanted files from time to time.

Stand by, I'm going to get slightly techy

When we talk about memory in a computer, often we are talking about the RAM (the solid state memory, the working memory, the stuff that isn't your hard disk). More RAM usually means better performance because the processor has more leg room so to speak.

RAM is not all there is to it though. A PC uses what we call virtual memory. Lets say you have 1GB of RAM, your applications might think you have 2 or 3GB. The trick is this: when a program uses up all the space in RAM, but is not currently using the data in there, it gets copied off to your hard disk and then the resulting space is freed, and an application is none the wiser that any of it has happened. The user might hear a couple of ticks of the disk or see the light flash briefly, but other than that it all happens by magic. When a program needs that data back, the whole switch happens again and the old data is copied back from the hard disk.

There will be a big file on your main hard disk called a swap file, this is where all that data gets shuffled to and from. That file should never become fragmented because it is generally one big file of constant size (ok, there are exceptions). However, on the disk there is a data table (the file allocation table) that basically tells the operating system where abouts on the disk each file starts. The more files you have, the bigger this table is, and the longer it takes to search through the table for a given file (albeit a very short amount of time, but when virtual memory is regularly switching it mounts up significantly).

The other thing, and perhaps the worst culprit for Windows go-slows is the registry database. This is a huge ever growing database of everything that is installed on your machine, along with lots of configuration settings. Practically every time you start an application, or an application tries to load a certain type of file, or Windows tries to do some system function, the registry has to be searched for the necessary configuration details etc. The registry is far to big to sit in RAM, so it is a disk search and lots of processing every time. A bloated registry can really grind Windows to a halt. Uninstalling unwanted applications removes the registry entries associated with those apps from the registry, thus keeping the size under control.

There used to be a good registry cleaning tool from Microsoft called RegClean, but they withdrew it after finding bugs in it that could cripple a system. I'm sure there are other ones, but I don't know of any off the top of my head, and being a Linux user (at home at least) I have no need of one.

 

Trying to find a reliable registry cleaner, if indeed you actually need one at all, is a minefield. To clean up unwanted files, I use CCleaner, which is free and very easy to use. It also has a registry cleaning utility, though anything affecting the registry should be used with care, and an uninstaller.

 

The trick is to make sure you back up the registry. On Windows XP (and presumably Vista and 7) you can set a restore point, so you can roll back any catastrophic changes.

Always worth doing once in a while just as a precaution anyway.

 

Yep, what I like about CCleaner is that it prompts you to create a backup before you delete anything.

 

Incidentally, in Windows XP, theoretically your registry should never become excessively bloated. This is because well designed software packages should have an uninstaller that removes any registry entries that the installer created.

Where it goes a bit pear shaped is when any of the following happens:
* A user simply deletes an application, rather than uninstalling it, in which case the application its self has gone but all its registry data is still there.
* An uninstaller doesn't clean up properly all fails to complete
* The uninstaller finds that some registry entries might be being shared by another application, so it can't delete them or it would bust the other program.

Unfortunately all these things happen quite frequently, and the result is registry bloat which eventually grind your machine to a halt if left unchecked.

 

Many Thanks to you all , It is a bit of a minefield when you dont know things, Will try and do what you all advise Many Thanks colin

 

Hi, Clueless1
As I understand it the "Swap" partition is part of the Linux system and as you say stays at the same size. Unless they have changed it, the Windows system uses any spare space on the HDD as virtual memory and that is why it is important that you never exceed 90% of the HDD capacity and regularly defrag it. The Linux system only fragments files when the HDD is nearly full.

 

True.

Nearly true. By default, Windows typically sets your swap file size to be roughly five times your physical memory size, or a fixed percentage of the available hard disk space, which ever is the greater. Once Windows has set it, it typically never changes size unless you either change it manually or change something significant in your hardware.

The main reason for avoiding a full hard disk on any system, not just Windows, is that some apps will want to create temporary files (seperate to swap files etc). Also a full (or nearly full) hard disk is a nightmare for becoming fragmented because you tend to not have big continuous chunks of available space so any files that are written have to be broken up to fill all the little bits of space left over from previous files being deleted or changing size.