Help! Can my PC run faster?

jammy_c

jammy_c

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James
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I have got loads of programs on my PC, mainly photo editing, camera software, web browsers, etc.
I have them all installed to the C drive, which i believe is used to boot the OS (Windows XP).

If i move all (or most of) these programs to the secondary hard drive (my "E" drive) will this make the computer run any faster?

cheers.
 
When did you last do a fresh install? When I was on XP I found that really helped speed things up. I tended to have XP and programs on one drive and files on another so that when I needed to do a fresh install my files were separate.
 
When did you last do a fresh install? When I was on XP I found that really helped speed things up. I tended to have XP and programs on one drive and files on another so that when I needed to do a fresh install my files were separate.
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Yeah, that's exactly the way I have it arranged atm. I have not re-installed since I had the PC (2nd hand) in about November. it's not particularly slow, but not as quick as when it was fresh. I've gotten rid of all the files/software i don't use regularly and ran virus scanners/de-frag/clean-up regularly.

just had a random thought about the programs being on the same HD as the OS and wondered if it made any difference when you have 2 or 3 programs open at the same time.
 
If it is bothering you then I would suggest a fresh install if it wont cause to much trouble. I have mine set up so I can wipe the partition and be up and running again within 30 minutes, which includes installing the main applications as well. You could also upgrade some of the hardware, RAM is a cheap option but depends on your OS.


I also have Ubuntu installed on a seperate partion for those 'just in case' moments.
 
By 'moving' them to the new HD, I hope you mean uninstall and reinstall them to the new HD as if you just move them, the registry will still be looking for them on the old HD and they probably wont work.
 
it depends
How much free space on C ?
If less than 30% free then probably gaining drive space will help as it will be falling over itself as it is trying to spread its swap file (temporary memory space, additional to system memory) and all saves (& hence loads) across the gaps in the disk which takes extra mechanical disk access time.
When did you last run defragmenter? Is your file system NTFS?

How much system memory? Not enough memory will dump excessive operating memory requirements into the swap file in the disk system, and thats very slow. Extra memory is about £10 to £30 per GB.

What unnecessary software do you have running? Everything you load these days tries to install iteself to run everytime you boot . . . grrrr! uninstall the unused stuff or at least remove its shortcut from the "startup" folder in Start>All Program so it doesn't start every time you boot (create a new folder called "NOT AT STARTUP" and drag to there if you're worried that you may need again at some point ).

Similarly, how much have you got running as Tray icons? again unnecessary unless useful. If you cant disable in the software package or by removing it's shortcut from the startup folder then can you shut it down after it is running?

Moving programs generally means uninstalling and reloading with a custom non-standard software directory. DON'T try cut and paste type moving because nothing will work right ever again.
 
By 'moving' them to the new HD, I hope you mean uninstall and reinstall them to the new HD as if you just move them, the registry will still be looking for them on the old HD and they probably wont work.
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yeah, that's what I was getting at. I was aware that i'd have to do that if it was the route i was going to take. cheers. :thumbs:
 
neil_g said:
more importantly what is the spec of the computer and what are you trying to do on it?
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off the top of my head i think it's a 4Ghz dual core processor, 3gb ram, decent graphics card and a 250gb and 80gb internal HDs. it's faster than any pc i've had before, but could always be faster (can't they all....:lol:).

on a general day i'll have several tabs open in firefox, photoshop or GIMP running, occasionally Nikon ViewNX and maybe media player for a bit of music.
 
thanks Wookie, have followed the advice ;) system tray is now a bit less crowded. should help. also removed a few programs from startup.
 
jammy_c said:
off the top of my head i think it's a 4Ghz dual core processor, 3gb ram, decent graphics card and a 250gb and 80gb internal HDs. it's faster than any pc i've had before, but could always be faster (can't they all....:lol:).

on a general day i'll have several tabs open in firefox, photoshop or GIMP running, occasionally Nikon ViewNX and maybe media player for a bit of music.
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Christ on a bike, you could control the Hubble and Large Hadron Collider with that.....unless......maybe it's running Vista!

Just (slightly) kidding.

That setup should eat multitasking alive and you really shouldn't feel it's slow running the few applications you've mentioned.
 
Christ on a bike, you could control the Hubble and Large Hadron Collider with that.....unless......maybe it's running Vista!
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Didn't NASA send someone into space on the processing power it takes to run a calculator? :lol: it's running XP btw.
 
also check if there is anything running search or indexing services, I've found that its another function that all modern software adds that is totally unneccessary. Why do they all need to sit there thumbing through my hard drives 24/7 to catalogue changes in my media and documents? I use an older and less resource intensive system called "directories".

check device manager and make sure there are no error icons showing on the tree to indicate bad drivers. Fix any problems.

if you can trust yourself to do the job then switch off all automatic updates you can find and set them to run manually. I let them do the check & notify bit but not to download or install. Most only nag me when I go in on the admin login, I always use a user login for running most stuff. I leave the virus system on automatic update! Windows update on XP I find is best run through using auto to notify me of new updates, but I then use internet explorer to download from their update website so that it is run as a proper activity and not a background task that takes for ever and slows everything else down.

you do have upto date firewall & antivirus switched on? . . . and using anything other than Norton? (I found that to be another system killer)

another system check:
close all application windows so nothing is meant to be running then control-alt-delete and and have a look at the task manager.
1. networking tab - check there is no network activity unless you know an update is running.
2. performance tab - zero with upto 10 % occasional blips ?
3. Applications tab - should be empty
4. Processes tab - click on CPU twice so it orders as most CPU at the top of the list, watch for a couple of minutes, should be "System Idle Process" at about 97% on the top, but watch the ones shuffling around for no.2 spot - anything you dont expect to be running? if you dont recognise a process name that is using more than a couple of percent cpu when you dont expect anything to be running then you can track it down by a search, all files & folders, enter file name and select to search c: and then RIGHT click on it when found, open it's properties. The General tab will tell you where it hides, the directory name should be a clue if its a software package hogging your system, or try the Version tab and click down through the categories in the left window, there's usually something there to say whose fault it is.

I've found that quicktimeis trouble, make sure that is disabled as much as possible, preferably dont install it, it insinuates into your system and even loads into the files run while your PC is booting. If its a problem shout out as I think I have used a dirty fix to stop it running at boot up, but I'd have to go and check up how from my admin login.

I used to have a scanner process that would kill the old win 98SE system, like qt.exe it loaded itself into the boot files, tracked it down through watching cpu usage on task manager and then searching for the file and then doing an internet search to find out more. There was the dirty fix for that too.
 
As Wookie pointed out, a lot of anti-virus software REALLY bogs down your system, Norton being one of the worst offenders in terms of hogging memory etc. Running anti-malware / anti-spyware etc will also slow everything down as this along with progs like Norton will examine every file, every action etc slowing your system down, same with anit-spyware / malware etc.

As a few of the guys here have mooted, a fresh re-install of XP is sometimes the easiest option, just backup EVRYTHING under "My Documents", all you photos, your browser faves, cookies etc, then you're ready to rock. XP just tends to bog down after a while, something I've yet to see under Vista..

If you re-install XP I'd use a dedicated disk for that and all programmes, keep all your data on another drive which makes it easily transferable in the future.

Carl
 
CReid said:
As Wookie pointed out, a lot of anti-virus software REALLY bogs down your system, Norton being one of the worst offenders in terms of hogging memory etc. Running anti-malware / anti-spyware etc will also slow everything down as this along with progs like Norton will examine every file, every action etc slowing your system down, same with anit-spyware / malware etc.

As a few of the guys here have mooted, a fresh re-install of XP is sometimes the easiest option, just backup EVRYTHING under "My Documents", all you photos, your browser faves, cookies etc, then you're ready to rock. XP just tends to bog down after a while, something I've yet to see under Vista..

If you re-install XP I'd use a dedicated disk for that and all programmes, keep all your data on another drive which makes it easily transferable in the future.

Carl
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Sorry but for several iterations now that is just not true. Norton Internet Security now has a very small systerm footprint and receives good reviews.
I have many computer sytems and some run Norton and on those that do there is absolutely no problem.
 
Norton may have improved, but it's still light years behind NOD32.
 
PsiFox: fair do, I heard Norton were trying to sort their act out a couple of years ago, but I'd already been burnt by them by then. Maybe they have learnt, but after the amount of trouble they gave me I'd not go back to Norton no matter what their marketing department says.

CReid: I've never found XP to bog down and need re-install. I've had annoying software that needs pruning out, and needed to keep some clear space on the C: drive and defrag it (worth repeating a few times if its a mess, it improves slightly each time). I had to fully re-install one XP system due to hard disk failure (the dreaded IBM Deathstar, shortly before I had already decided to re-install due to Norton trouble), and another XP repair/re-install due to saying no when I should have said yes to a registry change blocked by a spyware blocker (cant remember its name) that left me locked out! I never saw any performance improvements other than making the systems work again.

The really BIG system slowdown I've seen on XP is when there is insufficient memory for an application, then it has to start hitting the swap file on a badly fragmented hard drive with almost no space left . . . yuck.
 
Norton AV was developed by the Devil IMO and he is laughing at us all now
 
I read somewhere that Photoshop/lightroom can slow things down if it's catalog, files and programs are all on the same HDD - it was recommended to have all 3 on 3 different HDDs...
 
4ghz machine?? are you sure???
i've seen muppets advertising 9ghz PC's because they have 4 cores...jeez!

anyway
MSCONFIG, remove some of the unrequired startup files
make sure your page file is a decent size and not fragmented.
Norton is the devils work, you can get Norton removal tool and use something like kaspersky perhaps (free for barclays internet bankers)
make sure you have 20% free of your primary drive
run a checkdisk and defrag your HDD
I wouldn't move the programs but you could move your mydocuments folder to the 2nd drive, that would help and it's easily done.
 
Also download and run ccleaner, first run cleaner on then run reg cleaner... also check for viruses etc... Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is the one I use... Norton is a real memory hog
 
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