How can I speed up my pc?

[ShyBaby]

It is painfully slow...so irritating.

Its three years old and there's hardly anything on it. 85% of the memory is free. I keep defragmenting, running disk cleanup and letting the security software scan all to no avail. It gets fast enough to let me onto the internet etc but the next day its back to square one.

[AvenaLife]

You need to clear some memory space by getting rid of files/programmes that you don't use. Put them onto a memory stick if you want to keep them. An external hard drive might also help.

[frasersmummy]

disk cleanup is fine as far as it goes but you really are better manually tidying up

delete all your temporary internet files which are in c\documents and settings , your user name local settings

delete the temp folder in the same dir and delete the temp folder in c:\windows

if you cant see any of these folders you need to go into my computer, click on tools, folder options and go to the view tab and click unhide hidden files and folders

you need to empty your recycle bin after this

if this doesnt help.. download spybot from the internet and run that .. might suprise you what malware and spyware that you have that is clogging up your machine

good luck

[ShyBaby]

Have done all of the above. Clear some memory space Avenalife? 85% is free!!

We have nothing on here apart from the very basics.

Will look into spybot frasersmummy.

[frasersmummy]

i run spybot every few weeks... really seems to make a difference

[frasersmummy]

if its really chronic and you cant find the problem, and you have all the disks for your software then you could always try a clean install of windows

Its a last resort but there might be something hidden in your registry .

[Haylstones]

I hope I don't sound too unintelligent but could anybody give me an idiot's guide to cleaning up/ deleting junk? My laptop is really slow (only 6 months old) and I am a bit of a technophobe

[frasersmummy]

haylstones

I would say deleting your temp files etc as above would be your first step

I need to reliquinsh pc to dh just now but will be around tomorrow if you need more step by step..

or maybe there is someone else around tonight

[nannynick]

I can do one better... just download Piriform CCleaner. It will clear all your junk for you.
It will do a dummy run, if you click the Analyze button. It only deletes things when you click the Run Cleaner button.

IMPORTANT: It will clear your Internet Cookies (which may be used to help you remember login details by some websites). BEFORE clicking Analyze, check under both the Windows and the Applications tabs that no entry saying Cookies is ticked.

[nannynick]

ShyBaby - Can you identify under what situations you get a big slowdown?

On my 3-year old laptop, boot sequence takes about 6 minutes. Once up and running though, it will generally behave itself. Applications may take a little while to start sometimes, but this is due to Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware checks going on.

Slowdowns can be caused by overheating. Check all the air vents. Check the fan(s) is working.

[ShyBaby]

Lovely ladies (and men), I have downloaded spybot. Surprise surprise, ds's name came up again and again. (Him and his gaming websites).

Bless him, he offered to buy me a new pc out of his thousands .

Seems to have made a real difference (fingers crossed).

Darn thing is so fast I cant keep up with it.

[frasersmummy]

aha ...shybaby gaming sites are a nightmare..

glad you got it sorted