My Computer is slow

[NLSoldier]

I have a dell laptop with a 3.2 ghz pentium 4 proccessor and 512 MB of ram. Yet it runs incredibly slow. For example it does things like take a long time to open programs, and when I type the words on the screen lag behind the speed I actually tyep them at, and when I scroll down pages fast it lags a ton too. It also takes a while for my mouse clicks to register, especially on the poker action buttons. I have 2 dell 2001pfs hooked up to it, im not sure if that affects anything or not. Basically, it lags a ton when I try to do more than one thing at once, such as browsse 2+2 while playing poker. And it cant really handle more than 4 tables of poker. In a different post, someone reccomended making a perm swapfile...I have no idea what that is. Ive also been told to make sure nothing is running in the backround. Is there a way to see/change which programs run when the computer starts up? I run virus scans and ad-aware fairly frequently, so I dont think its virus/adware problem, but its still possible. Any ideas?

Thanks.

[KenProspero]

Try all of the following

1. Good anti-spyware
2. Good anti-virus
3. Bring the memory up to 1 gig

Those are the easy possibilities.

[MyMindIsGoing]

[ QUOTE ]
3. Bring the memory up to 1 gig

[/ QUOTE ]

Some people seem to think that upgrading memory will do wonders for any computer no matter problem, face it, it is not like that.

[TheTROLL]

lol, exactly - I *knew* that was going to get picked up on as being too little RAM as soon as I saw the spec.... probably by someone who hasn't been round PCs very long.

[KenProspero]

[ QUOTE ]
Some people seem to think that upgrading memory will do wonders for any computer no matter problem, face it, it is not like that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course it isn't. However, I've personally found that with a windows xp machine 256megs can have problems running with multiple apps, and 512megs may be light on memory depending on what you have going in the background. I know a number of people go up to 2 gigs, but unless one is a Major power user, that's overkill right now.

The reason I recommend upping the memory, as one of the first things is that it's cheap, easy, and often works.

[TheTROLL]

Generally speaking it'll just buy time, until the startup clutter on the PC or their laziness fills up the increased capacity.

It's far better to encourage people to understand what is running, and to learn to close down applications they don't need running right now. So often people complain about the PC being slow when there's "nothing running" and you look at the systray and there a bajillion stupid little icons for apps they don't even know are there, far less need.

If you go to the start button on the lower left side of the desktop and left click it, then left click the "run" icon in the menu that pops up, then type "msconfig" in the command line without the quotes, then on the window that opens go to the tab labled "Startup", you can change what programs start every time you start your computer.

My advice would be to click everything off except any antivirus or antispyware programs. If you see lots of entries in the C:\Windows\System32 folder you more than likely have spyware and/or viruses.

[FouTight]

This is hard to read (use paragraphs people!).

Windows XP?

CTRL+ALT+DEL and view the task manager. Go to processes, see what is using a lot of RAM, post results. Also, go to performance and see how much ram and and cpu is being used on average.

Do this with both your poker app running and closed.

[NLSoldier]

I also just realized that I am somehow using 51.9 of my 52GB hard drive. Im not really sure how this is possible because I dont really have any games or anything like that installed. Im gonna try to figure out whats taking up all that space. I do have quite a bit of music.

[StevieG]

There may be a bunch of temp files, cached files, and so on that you can eliminate.

Right mouse click on the drive from the Explorer and choose properties. In the General tab, choose "Disk Cleanup." It won't eliminate anything without your say so, but will sho wyou what it can remove safely.