Hi ? I?m running 1024mb of DDR2 533Mhz (2 x 512) RAM with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2.13GHz, 1055Mhz, 2MB) CPU. The OS is XP MCE.
The machine is for general home use, and includes a modest amount of video editing (holiday videos transferred to DVD), some video downloading, disc burning etc. AVG9 is running, with occasional additional virus checks from Malware Bytes.
I?ve noticed the machine seems to be getting a little slower and I wondered if it was the RAM ? Task Manager shows Total Commit Charge of 701,404, with a Peak of 884,260 when I do a sensible level of multitasking. Otherwise, Peak seems to tick over at around 620,000.
The question is ? do I need more RAM and if I get some, will this speed things up ? Otherwise, I am mindful that prolonged XP use can leave fragments which will slow me down / corrupt the Registry so is there (straightforward) software which could clean things up ?
RAM should help. Windows is automaticly using the swap file rather than ram...this is the only reason you are not at 100% load when multitasking.
Also, it is windows XP, and as such tends to destroy itself over time. There are lots of reg-fix tools and such that can help with this...I have never tried Glary; so I can neither recomend it or recomend against it.
Research & trial & error will solve it,adding more software that runs in the background never a good thing especially if it's to solve an issue it's kinda like the lady that swallowed a fly,cnet,pcworld,techrepublic,pcmechanic just to name a few have articles on how to speed up xp
Ram upgrade ? YES a definite performance gain for me on a single core cpu from 1gb to 2gb
next best upgrade was a second large hdd where i placed the page file,extra space was needed for data storage n such like
Software-yeah a lot of it running in the back ground even on start up looking at your task manager how many of the processes need to be running, like for instance the printer software even tho the printer isn't being used,other crap like jqs.exe (java quick start) along with any auto updaters including java..sheesh,anyway old unused software should be removed or disabled if it's not needed,ccleaner can disable crap on start up if need be
Ok when it come to maintenance i prefer small foot print software to maintain the comp that i start not something that is continually running then again each to their own so
tweakui-microsoft-set & forget
xdntweaker-adds more function to tweakui-set & forget
ultradefrag-can be set to run before boot which means pagefile & hyber files get defragged,normally in safe mode or windows neither can be done,once it's run that's it till nest boot if you so decide (no run in background)
CCLEANER-What you don't already have it
That's it,those 4 progs above as well as ram upgrade & pagefile on 2ndary drive make this comp fly,well within reason it certainly doesn't hang when going from one prog to starting another,you know the usual xp quirks,lastly check for free software including open source utilities before buying software.
PS:If ever you do a reformat install most used progs first & ffs get an imaging program like ghost,acronistrueimage or macrium reflect there's nothing worse than loosing data
I see your problem right away. Get rid of the avg 9.0 and instead use avira free version. (or any of the other free antivirus)
I also use to use avg free version but notice that version 9.0 (is no longer a fast running software). It slow down my computer too much. Removing that software gave me my speed back.
