Computer needs a tune-up!

[Shift]

Well, my computer is getting pretty out-dated and needs a tune up. It goes way to slow for me now a days compared to other computers. What can I buy for it to speed it up and optimize it?

[DiGiTaLiS]

I think more ram would speed it up quite a bit. im not a computer expert but im pretty sure ram helps

[Shift]

Alright, I'm not very good with comp hardware so I need as much help as possible. What is a good amount of ram to have?

[hellsing293]

i used to have 128ram and it was horrible. I upgraded to 512ram and i love it. runs like a charm. cost me like $100 but i supposedly had a different kind of ram and it costed more. if you really want to pimp out your computer though, 1024ram or higher.

[Shift]

Ok, so far the ram needs to be upgraded, what else should i get? A vid card?

[hellsing293]

how much hard drive space does your computer have? depends what you use your computer for. if you use a lot of games then go for id card. if you use it for tons of music and shit but have those random games like diablo II that eat up space then go for hard drive space i think.

[wm_hunter]

The best thing to speed up your computer is...

1 Get Rid of Temp Files
A great program to do this for you is called CleanUp. Scroll down on the page and select CleanUp451.exe

Many programs store files on your computers harddrive to make them boot a little bit faster, or have that webpage load a little bit faster. The problem is, these add up big time. Usually when I run just a standard scan (recommended, there are other scanning options though), it cleans up about 1-2 Gigs from computers people have owned for about a year.

I run it once a week but all you really have to do is run it once, more free diskspace means your computer can use more of it to help out the memory when it comes to computer speeds.

2 Update Your Memory

Get 512mb SDRAM... cost you about $90-100? You will see a big improvment in performance from your current RAM.

3 Do You Really Gotta Startup?

There are often programs that startup when Windows begins that you don't really need. Take a look through your startup and remove anything you don't need. It will improve Windows loading time, and not having it run in the background will improve computer performance

4 Nasty Nasty Spyware!

Spyware has a nasty habbit of slowing down computers. Download either\both AdAware SE and Spybot Search & Destroy and run scans. They work well together and catch what the other one might miss.

Questions\Comments? Reply here or PM me.

[Tool]

Ok, first off, download this:

http://www.download.com/Everest-Ultimate...tag=button

Then I'll PM you something you need for it and then we can talk. If you could, IM me on AIM or MSN.

xxtoolskxx for AIM [email protected] for MSN.

[hellsing293]

wm strikes again lol. but once i heard about running a disk defragment and it helps clean up your comp from fragmented files or whatever. last time i ran one i could restart my computer so i'm personally not advising it but doesn't that help clean up some space in your hard drive too?

[Shift]

Thanks wm and everyone else, Tool has everything taken careof now and I should have new stuff soon.

[wm_hunter]

wm strikes again lol. but once i heard about running a disk defragment and it helps clean up your comp from fragmented files or whatever. last time i ran one i could restart my computer so i'm personally not advising it but doesn't that help clean up some space in your hard drive too?

I only suggest running a disk defrag before you reformat (wipe) a harddrive or maybe run one once a year. It has become almost useless on any harddrive made in the last five years, but on older harddrives it does improve performance a little bit.