How do you speed up your computer?

I hit control alt delete and looked at my processes and noticed that there is 34 running, and when I first got my computer I noticed that I had less than 20, each process eats up some of the speed of the computer and I was wondering how you figure out what each one is and whether or not I can stop it without crashing my computer..........:confused


Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

There are two ways of handling this.
Take care that you don't terminate or eliminate anything that is essential.
If you're not sure about an item, leave it alone, do some more research on that
item and/or come back to the forum. You can do an "Advanced" search to see if
there has been a previous thread that will answer your questions.
If not, start a new thread and Ask.

The most productive is to examine the programs that start automatically when
you boot up the computer and determine if any of those can be eliminated.

I like to use Startup Control Panel Standalone Version

It's small, fast and has a simple interface.

The next thing is to modify the Startup services.
Be very careful here. If in doubt, leave it alone.

The best resource is www.blackviper.com
Look under the heading "Popular Content" and find the link that matches the version of Windows you are using.

This is a learning process so read the explanitory material.
Some services configured as Automatic can be changed to either Manual or Disabled.

A secondary resource is The Elder Geek
Look for the Services Guide for your operating system (see right panel).

 

In addition, adding RAM and keeping your drive defragged.

 

Yeah, sure. :major

Other things as well:

• Uninstall programs you don't use.
• Remove Windows components you don't use:
  Add or Remove Programs > Add Remove Windows Components
• Use CCleaner
• Empty the Recycle Bin (that's in CCleaner too)

 

Here's one that applies mainly to Win XP, don't know about Vista or Win 7.

• Open My Computer
• Right click the C: drive and select Properties
• Uncheck "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for faster searches"

It may take a couple of minutes to process.

For Really fast file searches: Everything search engine

I use it probably every day.

 

I currently have 36 processes running (XP Home SP3 1GB RAM but lower because the video chip steals some RAM). Check out the CPU usage. Mine was at 2%. That is more an indicator of problems rather than the number of processes. I have a few things in my tray that load up but do not use CPU until I need the program. I make sure that nothing is running that I do not want to run (adobe reader speed up, java update scheduler, realplayer and quicktime).

 

34 really is not a high number of processes. My Win XP system, as I recall (not using it now) normally has about 46 running even after just starting up. Right now, I have 56 processes running in Windows 7 and the only software I have open is Firefox.

If you have enough memory, 34 or more processes should not be an issue, assuming none of them is using an abnormal amount of CPU resources. Look carefully at Task Manager's list of processes to see whether any one process is gobbling up CPU resources. For example, my CPU usage in Windows 7 is vacillating between 40 to 60%, which is high, but I can see that Firefox is the culprit. But, I have over 50 tabs open and some of those web pages may be heavy laden with Flash content, etc.

Again, Task Manager can help you identify any processes consuming an inordinate amount of resources.

 

Ya, 34 processes is about the lowest ever that I remember with XP. I can't duplicate it now as I don't have XP running, my boss(webmaster) remarked at how well his XP speeded up when he created a new admin profile, he was astounded really. Perhaps there's a lot of crap that builds up in there, I have no idea. :confused Just don't delete your main account when trying this.

 

try this program its a process viewer and you can look up online to see what each does and if it can be turnd off try not to be too afraid if some of the links call it a virus its probubly not depends on where itsa located and how its spelled and stuff with some of the online referances ask for scanns and stuff some donts but its a great starting point to find out which does what.
attachment zip.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=229929


check for IE addons brouser helper objects disable most if not all unless you need them .
auto uploaders from firmware will use bandwidth in the background as well.

 

Just did a reboot and checked Task Manager.
After a minute or two, when auto-updates form Avast! and Malwarebytes, etc. had completed,
the processes count was 28 and there are 3 that I could eliminate:

• jusched.exe which is the Sun Java auto-update process
• FreeRAM XP Pro.exe which puts a graphic in the system tray which allows me to constantly monitor available free RAM
• openwide.exe which is a utility that forces most "Open" dialogs to be in Details mode rather than List or Icons

So removing those would bring the total running processes after bootup down to 25.

@augiedoggie
Could you provide a little info about creating a new administrator profile. :major
Don't think I've ever heard of doing that and don't know where to begin.

 

New User profile that has Admin rights.

 

Oh wow, thank you all. I ended up using that StartUp tool to disable everything I didn't need. I literally just sat there for a few hours and looked up every item listed in the different menus and slowly disabled and uninstalled everything I didn't need. I brought my process list from 34 down to 22. And I can definitely see the difference.

For now I am satisfied, but I will be working on more later, I will post on what I want to change later. Thanks all, the responses definitely made me happy.

 

Wow, sounds like you had a lot of stuff loading, was it loaded by the PC maker? Jeez at 22 processes, you really cut that down quickly!major

 

OK, thanks hrlow2.
It's easy enough to create a new user account with administrator rights.

However, that's not what I intended to ask about.
My impression of augiedoggie's comment about a new administrator account was that
the original administrator account was deleted and replaced with the new account.

I know that this can be done, but I don't know what effects it would have on the system overall.

The way I understand it, the Windows XP administrator account, which is created during the install process,
is sort of a safety fallback account with Full Privileges.
It is Invisible in normal running mode, does not show in User Accounts and is
only accessible in Safe Mode.
I suppose you could create a new Administrator Account named "Administrator2"
and try to configure it similar to the original one. Then you could delete the original
and ReName "Administrator2" to "Administrator".

Since augiedoggie said his boss's computer got much faster after creating a NEW administrator account,
I thought that the Original had then been Deleted
which somehow Released a substantial amount of resources.

 

I am not sure that the "fallback" Admin account you refer to can even be changed to Limited, much less deleted.
Never had reason to try it.