Advice on what to do with my desktop, sort it out or start again?

[ihatethecold]

My desktop computer is really rubbish, takes ages to load pages and freezes a lot.
Take a good 10 mins when I switch it on before it will work.

I think its because my son plays minecraft and battlefield heroes on it.
The computer is only used for homework and the above games.

I've had it about 4 years, the hard drive isn't full, but it's driving me nuts.
My friend sorted it out before and got it working ok. But this only seems to last about 6 months before it's playing up again.

So my question is.
I need something that has windows on it, I can connect it to my printer that doesn't cost the earth.

Should I look at a laptop?

If so what spec would I need?

Thanks

What spec is the PC? Do you know what processor and/or memory it has?

If it's taking 10 mins to load, it could be a case of malware. Have you done a scan?

Personally I wouldn't rush to a laptop. I find desktops much faster than laptops and more convenient to work from.

Unless of course you want to just give the desktop to your son and you have a laptop you can keep away from sticky fingers.

No I would prefer to only have one item.
I can't really afford a laptop but the desktop drives me spare.
I will do a scan for malware.
Don't know the processor, is it easy to find out?
I know that there's quite a lot of memory still available.

I took all my photos off and put them on another hard drive.
C drive is half full.

try downloading and running ccleaner it can clear off a lot of junk and stuff and it also cleans up the registry
running defrag can sometimes help, have you thought about upgrading the ram that can speed things up as well

Thanks. I'm removing malware at the moment.
There was a lot of it.
Should I also use ccleaner afterwards?

yes I would .
I run it around once a month or so , well when i remember anyway
what operating system are you on ?

Thanks. I used ccleaner.

Will try to remember to do this housekeeping a bit more.

The computer is running much better after following the advice on here.