ye’ Old slow tower

I have a 6-7 year old HP pavillion. its getting bogged down pretty bad, to the state its almost un-useable because it takes so long to load anything.
its an hp pavillion, 512 mb ram, 2.8ghz, 140g hard drive (only using 15% of it).
i did some clean up last night, ran a glary utilities scan, and an austlogic defrag(26% fragmented yikes!). Its slightly faster now, but i would like to bost some more speed out of it. i dont want to put too much money in it since all it does surf the web for my parents.
what else can i do to nurse it back to health?
Answer #1
Add some RAM, possibly upgrade the CPU (depending on socket/PSU), and install a light OS.
Answer #2
Your RAM does need to upgraded, 512 just doesnt kick it anymore these days. Also try using light weight AVS and Firewall Programs, for and example Norton on a machine like this would kill the machine rendering it useless. Aviria runs great on low resource machines and so does COMODO firewall, they run great together. Also a program like PerfectDisk could be used to defrag your machines (The windows defrag utility is inefficient). A good program to scan your registry for errors like Uniblue RegistryBooster. Also you could shutdown useless servvices and startup programs, if you go to Msconfig and go to the services tab > check the box at the bottom that says hide all microsoft services and you will see what is running at boot. If you go to startup tab look at some of the program that are starting up at boot. I use these methods all the time on customers computers, I hope they help you.
Answer #3
If you have the install disc for your operating system, you could back up your important files and drivers to an external drive, then reinstall the OS. This will practically return your PC to the way it was when you bought it.
If you don’t have an install disc, you can search on this forum for the same copy of your OS, burn it to a bootable disc and install that way. The cd key that you would use is the original key on the bottom or side of the HP Pavillion and it will be validated as genuine by Microsoft, provided that you download the right copy of your OS ( I’m assuming XP 32 bit).
Hope this helps.
Answer #4
o ya, its an XP, id assume 32 bit home, i also forgot to mention both disk drives are busted lol, wont reconize being loaded with a disk and wont read said disk….. i know its pretty rough, but all it has to do is run IE for a couple hours a week tops
Answer #5
thanks for the help guys, ill be trying out some of these tips later today.
ill post with some feedback and updates
Answer #6
One thing you can do is go to START, RUN and type in MSCONFIG go to the start up tab and just uncheck everthing except for ccApp and your firewall and antivirus, and reboot and say yes to the small box, this way nothing will run untill you ask for it, many apps run in the back ground and really slow down the old machines,
Answer #7
There are copies of XP you can boot from a flash drive.
Answer #8
One thing you can do is go to START, RUN and type in MSCONFIG go to the start up tab and just uncheck everthing except for ccApp and your firewall and antivirus, and reboot and say yes to the small box, this way nothing will run untill you ask for it, many apps run in the back ground and really slow down the old machines,
will be trying this later today, along with a virus/spy/male scan and maybe a 2nd defrag just to be sure, a registry scan and uninstaling programs that are usless/wont be used ever
Answer #9
another thing, it does only have 512mb ram (uggg i know) is there anything i can do to make sure im using it as effective and effentient as possible?
Answer #10
Honestly dude you should just reformat with a copy of XP that you can boot from a flash drive.
Answer #11
another thing, it does only have 512mb ram (uggg i know) is there anything i can do to make sure im using it as effective and effentient as possible?
You can check your virtual merory, in Windows XP you have an option to increase virtual memory to help with low Ram, you open your Control panel,System,Advanced. go to Performance,Settings, Visual Effects now click on the best performance dot, then open the Advance tab go to the bottom and make sure the Virtual Memory is set to at least 1550 mbs and hit the apply, reboot and see what happens,
BTW if you need a good Malware cleaner use this one its a 35 mb download and its free

http://www.norman.com/support/support_tools/58732/en

Answer #12
stupid me I hit the reply and sould have hit the edit, Warning for me I guess
Answer #13
Reinstall OS, install light AV like Avira and Comodo Firewall. Disable uneeded services, set it up so you have no programs starting up when computer starts up. 512MB is plenty for web surfing, but more RAM is always good. I assume the PC uses DDR ram, its pretty cheap this days go buy another 512MB stick. It will make huge difference.
Services that you should disable for perfomance
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm
Use CCleaner (freeware) to remove temp files. Then later do disk defragment often(every 2 months or so), and allocate 300MB for virtual memory. Use a light web browser such as K-Melon its very light and fast. Lighter than Chrome, and based on Mozilla, but not as ram hogging as Mozilla Firefox.
http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/
Answer #14
Save some ��� and do a total new build ;> Sell that computer on then, make a bit back, wont be much but will help.