Ok so my PC is so slow it's ridiculous. It locks up every 5 minutes or so and I can barely run my Linksys off of it. Would clearing its entire memory and swiping it completely possibly help the problem of this 6 year old PC? One very important question, though. If I did this, would my modem and linksys still work with it? If so, how would I "clear my ram"?
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Help with PC
- Thread starter JoshLV
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Well locking up just means it's trying to do too many things. If you have recently upgraded to Vista or XP, it may not be able to handle it. Try running spyware and virus programs. Also, get rid of all the programs that you don't need. Lots of things load at the boot, and just run in the background, taking system memory. Those are my thoughts, but if it just recently started acting up, then it's probably a virus or something.
Ive had the same problem recently, mine (2 year old dell) wont even run firefox. I hardly have anything installed on it.
Some apps (like yahoo messenger), slow it down even further. I ran a virus scan and while it revealed alot of tracking cookies, it didnt reveal anything malicous. Im probably going to reformant and reinstall windows XP.
Some apps (like yahoo messenger), slow it down even further. I ran a virus scan and while it revealed alot of tracking cookies, it didnt reveal anything malicous. Im probably going to reformant and reinstall windows XP.
system specs?
Every Windows OS requires an abundance of RAM. Vista especially.
The file system may need to be defragmented.
Do disk cleanup to get rid of resource hogging temp files.
Make sure your virtual ram (page file) is large enough.
Open task manager and kill programs you don't need.
(Look into preventing them from starting up on boot up)
uninstall any bloatware that may have come with the system
delete temporary internet files
make sure you have enough free space on the hard drive (1GB+)
If possible, reinstall the OS. Don't use the silly system restore disks, as they'll install a bunch of bloatware. If possible, use a clean Windows OS disk. The difference between a system restore installation and a clean installtion of Windows is night and day.
Every Windows OS requires an abundance of RAM. Vista especially.
The file system may need to be defragmented.
Do disk cleanup to get rid of resource hogging temp files.
Make sure your virtual ram (page file) is large enough.
Open task manager and kill programs you don't need.
(Look into preventing them from starting up on boot up)
uninstall any bloatware that may have come with the system
delete temporary internet files
make sure you have enough free space on the hard drive (1GB+)
If possible, reinstall the OS. Don't use the silly system restore disks, as they'll install a bunch of bloatware. If possible, use a clean Windows OS disk. The difference between a system restore installation and a clean installtion of Windows is night and day.
If you have a 6 year old PC, then its probably too old to run Vista. You need a min of 2gb ram for Vista, and 128mb or better vid ram. Anything less than either, will slow it down. I run a year old Toshiba, 2gb ram, and 128mb shared ram and run Vista ultimate on it, and it runs fine.
Also, do the Ctrl+ALT+DEL and see whats running in the back ground. Norton or other firewalls and anti-viruses hog memory.
As to clearing ram, simply restart your computer, and the ram is cleared.
Also, do the Ctrl+ALT+DEL and see whats running in the back ground. Norton or other firewalls and anti-viruses hog memory.
As to clearing ram, simply restart your computer, and the ram is cleared.
Yes but then 2 seconds later you be needing to do this again. The best advice for people with older PCs that can't run current software well is to get a copy of Ubuntu Linux and use that. Wipe the hard disk clean and start over with softhing that runns better on low end hardware. Ubuntu is very "Mac-like", you will like it.
Well the better solution is to chuck the PC into the e-waste re-cycle bin and buy a new Mac but if you lack funds for that, Ubuntu is free.
When the system locks up too frequently.
I would suggest
1. clean your system, this means
- Search your add/remove program list and de-install unused apps.
- goto application data folder (its hidden by default, so try to find it) and delete any old residue of the non-existed apps
- Clean your HDD to free up more disk space as much as you can.
- If you can, goto registry and delete any unused entries. leave it alone if you are not sure, do a backup before you make any changes
- goto msconfig and disable the startup items that are not important, such as AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Quicktime etc
- find replaceable apps for notorious system hogs, again, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, quicktime, Norton AV, etc
3. Think about hardware upgrade, your system is 6 years old, It might be just that old hardwares are breaking down.
I think 1G RAM is min and provides good enough performance for most day-2-day use., 2G would be very smooth.
graphic card doesn't need to have discrete VRAM, shared VRAM with intel GMA 950 is good enough for even aero. In windows, GMA 950's VRAM size can be dynamically adjusted by windows, so the number of 128 is not very useful.
