PC Is EXTREMELY Slow, Even With 13.2Gb Left!

I've only had my PC for about a year and it's beginning to get so slow that it's hard to do anything on it. I'm not new to PCs at all and I've tried many things to try to stop it from being so slow. Here's the things I've done:

- Run sweeps with Adaware, Spysweeper, Ewido AntiSpyware, CWShredder, AVG Antivirus & Spybot (Search & Destroy).

- Cleaned unwanted files using CCleaner, System Mechanic & Registry Mechanic.

The sweeps I did only revealed about 3 pieces of low risk malware, nothing serious & the cleaning tools only cleaned around 150mb worth of files so I'm really not sure what to do next to speed my PC up.

Here are the specs of my PC:

OS - XP Service Pack 2
RAM - 512mb
Graphics Card - 256mb ATI Radeon 9200
2.6GHz Intel Celeron Processor
Hard Drive Space - 33.2GB (13.2 Free, 19.9 Used)


HK

 

I recommend that you follow these instructions to tweak your system for performance.

This covers every software tweak I can think of (short of formatting and re-installing), so if after this you are not satisfied, consider a hardware upgrade (RAM and CPU prioritized) or at least following the instructions in the Overclocking Guide

 

Is there any other way to increase the speed rather than changing the appearance back to an older version of Windows? I only ask because the appearance is a big factor of me upgrading to XP and changing back to what I used to have, is depressing to say the least.


HK

 

You never posted if you have defragged lately.

I'd use a trial of diskeeper to defrag the computer, even though diskeeper is "kinda" part of XP anyway.

http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=1208

I'd go with the pro, due to the fact you can defrag the page file and system files.....

 

I used to have Diskkeeper but it began to get rather annoying as 'DKService' would always cause Zonealarm to ask me whether I want to allow it to act as a server or not, and this would appear between playing games etc so I got rid of it. Can I not use the inbuilt defragmenter instead?


HK

 

Out of curiosity, try the following:

Click START, then RUN, then type in: msconfig (press enter).

Click the RADIAL button () next to "Selective Startup"
Uncheck [ ] "Load Startup Items".

Press ok, then yes to reboot. Does the system seem more responsive?

 

No that hasn't done much other than boost the startup speed. It still takes about 15-20 seconds for folders, files etc to open.


HK

 

What is yoru page file set at?

What about running a:

Click START, then RUN, then type in: cmd (press enter).

chkdsk /r c:
Yes, yes, yes (exit), reboot.


Is safe mode quicker?

 

Sorry, what do you mean by 'page file'?

I tried running 'chkdsk /r c' but just got an error message saying "The drive, the path or the file name is not valid".

Did you mean just typing 'chkdsk' instead of adding the '/r c' at the end?


HK

 

After finally figuring out what it was you wanted me to do I ran the DskChk in CMD and got the following results:

HK

 

You can set zonealarm to remember this setting, you know. This way it won't ask you all the time. When it asks, tick 'Remember this setting' and click Allow.
It is perfectly normal DK behavior, because of the way the DK engine works. No internet connections are established, only loop back connections to your own computer.

Run chkdsk /f, otherwise it won't fix errors. It will ask to scan on next reboot, enter Y and press enter. Reboot.