[Vroom]

My desktop PC has a 3.33 GHz Intel Celeron D processor, but only 512 MB RAM. When I originally bought the thing, I thought the processor would work fine and help cancel out the 512 RAM, but I know understand that a gig of RAM is a minimum requirement for basic PC usage. The trouble is, my PC runs incredibly slow, taking as much 5 minutes to startup. Are there any freeware programs I can use to help speed up my machine?



-Vroom

 

[JohnWill]

Well, I'd start by checking for spyware/malware, because a 5 minute boot doesn't sound like a memory shortage. 512mb is fine for normal applications, and certainly wouldn't knock the boot times for a loop like that.

After making sure you don't have spyware/malware, you need to check what loads during boot and trim the list if possible.

 

[Vroom]

I've checked for spyware, viruses, etc. and turned up only a few cookies. How do I change what loads during the boot?


-Vroom

 

[Frank4d]

Are there any freeware programs I can use to help speed up my machine?

You can download HijackThis http://www.merijn.org/files/hijackthis.zip (please install in a folder that is not a temp folder) and post a log file here. We will give it a lookover to see if it shows something slowing you down.

 

[Rich-M]

Go"Run,msconfig,ok,startup" and uncheck everything except antivirus, antispyware programs and firewall as nothing else needs to run there...hit apply then reboot.

 

[Bego]

Usually, unless your heavy on gaming and such, 512MB of RAM is more than enough, if your more savvy, 1GB is pretty much a regular amount, any more and you might just be wasting your money.

A good way to check if you need more RAM is to monitor the task manager, in the performance. If you see your page file usage is going up and down, then you need to get some more RAM. 512MB of RAM shouldn't be used up during a restart.

Of course, do the usual, clean up, but usually after a year or so, computer get groggy, and I always reformat annually, it keeps my computer in top condition.

 

[TRS-80 vet]

My desktop PC has a 3.33 GHz Intel Celeron D processor, but only 512 MB RAM. When I originally bought the thing, I thought the processor would work fine and help cancel out the 512 RAM, but I know understand that a gig of RAM is a minimum requirement for basic PC usage. The trouble is, my PC runs incredibly slow, taking as much 5 minutes to startup. Are there any freeware programs I can use to help speed up my machine?

-Vroom

If boot-up time is all that is slow, as opposed to process time after boot-up, check this info...
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2006/08/31/453100.aspx
... . It says somewhere in the article (08/06) that MS is working on the problem. So the problem is not likely your ram capacity, but start-up processes.

My machine is still working relatively well with a 128 M ramstick.