i was just wondering is there anything that i can do to improve my pc performance. as when it starts up it seems rather slow in booting up. it takes a few minutes to do so. i have only used up just over a third of hard drive space.

i am looking into putting in a bigger hard drive but as my pc is not even a yr old i dont want to do that just yet

a guy at work says that i should try de -fragmenting the disc space.

all good advise welcomeblktype

Thanks for the advise

i am using xp home

not too sure of boot process but i think basically the first thing i usually see is "go back" then i see the wondows xp sign welcome the my desktop. various things seem to be loading and in about three - five minutes its ready to use. today it took just over three minutes to boot

1. Defrag PC.=i did an analysis today and it said that i did not need to defrag the hardrive yet. so i di not de-frag. the report said that 76% of hd space is free
2. Check BIOS for Fast Boot options. = i do not know what this means please advise
3. Validate boot sequence i.e. is virus checking initiated at boot. = i think virus checking is done at start up. i use norton anti-virus professional and zone alarms
4. Validate Windows Boot using F8 key. = dont mean to sond completely clueless but i think you will need to further explain this for me


as for log in screen i do not really get one as i have only got one user account on my pc.

i hope this additional info helps

a checklist sounds best. when it comes to the tech jargon especially if i have not come across it. its giberish.

you see with point 4. should that be done after or before go back appears. as my pc turns on go back screen appears giving me the option to press space bar to fix faults then within a few seconds windows screen appears.. should i press f8 as soon as i switch on the pc

i am trying to learn. i may need to invest in a windows xp for idiots guide or pc know how book- we have got to start somewhere.

Just out of intrest, how much RAM does your computer have? If you right click on My Computer and then click propities it will bring up a window. Down in the bottom of this window it should say x amount of RAM somewhere.

Any less than about 256MB and this is proberly a major cause of the slow down.

EDIT: Oh and one more thing, try holding down left shift from when you log in(if it automatcially logs in, do it when it says "loading your personal settings") till when it has finished loading everything. What this does is bypass loading all things at startup. So if it improves it a lot, then you can look into removing some items that startup.

@ Ijexa


Come on, she doesn't know about all this bios stuff you talking about(not trying to say she doesn't know anything about her computers), it is not that easy for someone who just do normal work on the pcto knowabout all this computer jargons you have mentioned. You need to state it step by step, I remember in 2000 when i had my first PC, all those bios stuff was unknown to me. it's actually good you tried to help, but you were talking as if your talking to another Guru.

@ Nick wrote :Any less than about 256MB and this is proberly a major cause of the slow down

I have 196MB and my PC works absolutely fine and it is not slow.

Anyway Ido agree that if thereare a lot of programs that are running at startup, it may slows down the pc. So Ladyday, if you have programs like kazza etc which runs automatically after startup, you need to make sure they dont run at startup, because they slow down the pc.

Also, Norton Antivirus does slow down PC a lot, it is always checking some stuff after startup, it may be one of the causes. But like Nick said, if you have a small ram just , it will probably slow down your pc.

Ladyday, you saidare trying to learn and you may need to invest in a windows xp for idiots guide or pc know how book. My advice is thatyou may not need to buy a book, you should check google, type in whatever problem you may have there, and you will see thatsomeone has had the problem before. You can go to forums on google, you will learn a lot that way.

Most of the guys learn fromsuch forumsand theexperience of doing it themselves. I think the Computer Gurus are so nice, after finding a solution to a problem, they put it on the net in case anyone needs help or find himself/herself in similar situation

However, if you have the money to spend, why not, then you may go and buy a book, but trust me, you won't find the solution to all the problems your pc will give in the book.

Ok fair point. I was thinking along the lines that most manufactureded pc's tend to double the amount of ram ie 64->128->256->512mb every generation. So if she had less than 256, she would most likely have 128mb. I have used XP on a machine with 128mb of ram and while a fresh install is fine, once a few things have been installed it really starts to crawl.

There are a few other things that could be causing this however. But without knowing more about the problem it is very hard to diagnose the problem. When is it slow?

Starting up, upto the point where you login?

Loading up your desktop?

Opening programs?

Does the light(Hard Disk)of the front of your pc flash a lot while it is being slow?

Try that holding shift thing I talked about, if it works then it should be fairly simple to find out whats going wrong.

Hi thanks for all the advise

here is some more info ram 256 hd 40gb amd athlon 1.73 ghz speed

i noticed that msn messenger was starting at the beginning so i have stopped that by going in and unticking things. i do have kazaa lite but that does not run at start up.

is it worth me taking a look in misconfig.........

oh yeah the last thing to load is zone alarms. should i set this run just before i connect to the internet or what? usually i can start using things prior to it finish loading.

once my computer is on and the icons appear it is not ready to use it takes a minute or two.

in the start bar i can see yahoo msg zone alarms msn msg norton printer spyware gaurd go back ms money volume key board and sound max. hope this helps.

um....right ok that gives me a bit more to go on. You do have a fair ammount of programs loading at the start, but not enough to make it take a couple of minutes to load.

When you say a minute after the icons have loaded, do you mean desktop icons or the icons in the system tray near the clock?

Try holding shift down, if this makes it load up fast, then it is definitly to do with the amount of programs loading at start.

right..........i held down shift key and it did load up alot quicker .

Ok. I think holding down shift only effects the programs present in the startup folder of the start menu. If you try hunting through this and see if you can remove any programs, this will hopefully make it load to a similar speed to when you held down shift.

Another thing you could try. Is to right click on the taskbar and select task manager, then select the performance tab. Check to see what the memory usage is. I know Saint said that it should be fine with the amount of ram you have, but its best just to check everything to be sure. If your mem usage is over or near 256MB then thats proberly not helping either.

I have win 2000 and not quite as many programs as you open. And I am running at about 220MB usage at the moment, so you maybe you mught be pushing it, but check and find out.

LadyDay wrote:

blkscholar

If your PC is slowing down, it seems that you havebuild up temperary files on your computer.

If it was aBIOS problem, the PC would be slow all the time.

To clear the build up of temp files:

1 - click start

2 - programs

3 - accessories

4 - system tools

5 - select disk cleanup

6 - check boxes that you want to clear !

This should clear the temp files that is slowing your PC at boot time.

Let us know if this tip works.

@eboney

@All. Had the worse two weeks of my PC career. Had one day left before my Norton Internet Security ran out so I went to buy an update and downloaded as normal. The PC did not like it at all and would not accept the download. After two weeks I decided to take it back. By this time and don't ask me how as I tried everything I could think of but it would appear to have completely thrown my machine out of sync. My browser started to play up, I could not open links, especially PM's and even now I can only open links when the PC allows.

Been completely unable to contact the makers of the product on their convuluted and it would appear designed to frustrate web services, I went back to the shop and because by this time I had taken my original Norton 2003 package off they told me to try the full 2004 package. Same drama. It downloaded successfully but in a second I realised something was off as the Norton icon and menu was not visible, despite my hard disk saying the software was on the system. When I clicked the Norton icon you can see it struggling to fire up and at times the Norton page would appear and then disappear. Then I tried to delete/remove the Norton Package and it would not allow me.

The whole thing has become a nightmare. as the people in PC World cleary don't know what they are talking about. Symantec the manufactures hide behind this electronic wall so you cannot speak to anyone. My PC nowhas no protection and has distablised my system some how. My PC is less than a year and half old and has never given me a days problem, until I innocently tried to update my securit protection. Initially I tried to buy the download on line and when I saw how confusing this was, I cancelled. Guess what they took the money off my credit card anyway.

A couple of my pals who can fix anything are completely bamzooled and I am going absolutely ape as it seems as if the minium requirments as stated in the mannual and the reality are not one and the same. I have even downloaded higer service packs with no joy and honestly am at a complete loss. I simply expected to insert a disc and let it does its work, and did not bargain for this.



Any help would be appreciated because I am really loss on this one and want to kick somebody really hard as my work has been severely disrupted. Apart from bringing the package back I am not sure what to do and even then the damn thing will not allow me to delete or remove it.

Fredconfused2