How To Speed Up Windows On An Old Computer

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I re-installed Windows XP Pro on a HP Pavillion 6735 631Mhz computer with 128mb of memory. The computer is running better now than it was yesterday before I did the reinstall of Windows, but
it's still a little slow at bootup. and when at Windows desktop its still a little bit clumsy. I defragged the hard drive, deleted temporary files and set perfromance options to best performance, but still Windows is a little clumsy.

So I added some PC 100 memory to it. And still it runs a little clumsy. Does anyone have any suggestions that would make Windows XP run a little bit faster/cleaner on this computer . I want to mention that the hard drive does constantly make a little bit of noise, so the hard drive might being causing Windows XP Pro to run a little bit slow than usual.

Thanks,
Professor Falken

 

I'll second that. Install more RAM. Even though XP will run on 128MB of RAM, I would never recommend it. My PC at work runs with a 3GHz Processor, and has 512MB RAM and is as slow as Christmas. If you can get hold of it, install as much RAM as the motherboard will support.

 

when it comes to specs for operating system, I like to double what the mimum says, so if it says 128MB RAM then I would make sure it had 256MB RAM.

You could also stop hard drive indexing, Double Click My computer > Right Click C:\ > Uncheck Hard disk Indexing.

You could also Right click My computer > Advanced > Click Performance settings > check Adjust for Best Performance.

 

The computer will be sluggish because the hardware is slow! I have an old Pavilion from 2001 clocking in at !GHz with 512MB of RAM (the max that it will support. I've done everything to make it go faster and it does run at a reasonable speed. Alas, even though it goes well it is a slow system and will perform as such.

 

Professor Falken,

Does your HP Pavillion 6735 computer have a sticker on it saying something like "Designed for Windows [version]?" If so, which version is listed on that sticker?

 

I agree. You may get more out of this equipment if you installed Win2000 on it rather than Xp. It depends what you want to use it for.

 

overclock
update drivers
adjust virtual memory
defrag
install more ram
msconfig and remove the startup crap

Theres also lots of XP tweaks out there

Grim

 

Thanks everyone, will take all the advice given under consideration.


Thank you,

Jose Vizcaino

 

128MB RAM running XP pro eeek.

This is why the hard drive is thrashing all the time because the 'swap file' is being heavily utilsed.

256MB is a minimum if you want to run XP and stay sane.. more would be even better.

I agree, Windows 2000 Pro would run much better with those specs.

A defrag wont make much difference, as this is a new installation and the systems files haven't had a chance to fragment yet.

NTFS may give you a slightly better performance for disk access as it doesn't fragment as badly as FAT32.

 

Certifications: Comptia A+
I understand You joined 2005, but dude common know if you had this Cert you would not be asking this question!!!

 

coz you not got much ram its page filing it to your hard disk to compensate when means your disk is in constant use and there for slower when you're trying to run apps/open files etc.

Linux wtf

Grim

 

JukE,

Do you hold a valid CompTIA A+ certification?

 

Plenty of valid choices...

...the choice is yours.

Please do, let us know, on what you decide...

 

:hhhmmm just looking at HP Pavilion PC Model 6735 CN (US/CAN) - Product Specifications


It shows the OS to be windows 2000 the max ram shown is 512mb

PF I can't find 512MB PC100 but have found this link on ebuyer

Extra Value 256MB PC100 168pin Extra Value SDRAM £15.00

 

Army Skillsoft: CompTIA A+, N+, 291

 

Erm.. i think you'll find from the spec, that the PC in question supports a max of 2 x 256MB DIMMS.. which would give you the 512MB total for 30 quid.

 

Yep, like I said earlier double what it says or you may get problems.