Bad ware and other computer nightmares to avoid.

[johndowe]

Hi there.

There is a bit of a problem in the cpu industry, not a really serious one but it can be anoying in the end.

Often people take their cpu to a cpu store because it doesn't run as quickly as it used to, and the "selesman" there asks questions about your cpu's specs, and then suggests a ram u/g.

The thing is most people in the cpu stores are salesmen and not techs, and they "try" to solve the problem by throwin money at it, which eventually will solve the problem, but at what price?

But there are many reasons your cpu might be running slower than it was, memory can be the problem, and the more memory the better, but it is far from being the only reason, if your hard disk is almost full it will slow the cpu down, if you have a virus or spyware again it will slow your cpu down, if your hade disk is "fragmented" it wil be slower, there are ways to regain some cpu speed without spending ANY money, and they should be used before going to the cpu store.

First and foremost: Cleaning your hard disk, removing temporary files, they are suposed to be temporary, but no one (programers) bother to delete them after they no longer need them (sloppy guys, sloppy (progremers)) and when you go onto the internet, internet browsers all save all the files (pics, html etc files) on your hard drive, as to load it faster the next time, it helps but not that much with hi speed internet, you should delete them regularily, all the files you d/l also use hard disk space so if the file you d/l'ed is not what you wanted and is not useful to you delete it, there is a program in "Start Menu-All Programs-Accessories-System Tools" called "Disk Cleanup" which will delete alot of the system's temporary files and make some more free space.

Removing programs you don't use or you don't use anymore, like games you went through and no longer play, they usually use up alot of space.

Then after that you DEFRAGMENT your hard drive, when you use your computer and make a lot of files and then delete some and so on, newer files are saved on the hard disk in a fragmented way, and it makes the hard disk work harder and slower, Defrag reads your hard disk and puts all the files togather in sequential order so the access is easier for the hard disk and thus faster, Defrag is found @ "Start Menu-All Programs-Accessories-System Tools" Defrag, the program will reorganise your files to not be fragmented but it will take a several hours to do, so i suggest you start the program before bed and let it run overnight and maby even throug the work day, with the monitor and other peripherals off, and when it is finished, see the speed difference.

If it is still slow, do a virus/spyware check, if there are viruses try to have them removed, but it is usually not that easy.

If you have done this and have (relatively) alot of free disk space, you may need the ram upgrade, but if you have an older cpu like a Pentium 3 it will always be slow compared to a P4 or newer cpu.

JohnDowe.