why is my computer really slow?

Question

I have emachines INTEL computer with 384 RAM, AND 111 GB of space,Broad band connection ,I have norton antivirus downloaded ,now I have 2 more computer systems attached to same cable line but they are fast rather this computer is very slow and stucks for every ten minutes.......What should I do to improve it...

Answer 1

several other questions need answering before "we" can give you a complete response.

is this XP or Vista, What CPU? old or new PC. How much free space?

1st. XP performs a whole lot better with 1Gb of RAM, Vista requires a minimum of 1Gb. From your specs i suspect you have XP with 512Mb of RAM with 128Mb shared with the onboard Video, if you can double it to 1Gb. (check the motherboard specs to see what sort of Memory to buy and how much you can install)

2nd. Norton on your low side specs is slowing your PC down everytime you access a file or webpage.

3rd. Broadband make no difference to how fast your PC runs, it is an access point to the internet and the bandwidth of the connection determines how fast the pages load.

If the PC pauses every so often try this to try and clean it up a bit.

go here and download this - http://www.tuneup-software.co.uk/download/ it is a 30 day trial version but fully functional.

Use it to sort what boots with Vista or XP, all those extra software progs that you don't need at start up you can disable them.

It will allow you to clean the registry of all broken links, this in itself can speed up your computer.

It will clean the Temp files, internet files all from this one program. You can also defrag your hard drive, check the free space, run checkdisk, even defrag the registry and edit it, change Windows Icons and much more (I think I will buy shares in this company I recommend it that often)

Answer 2

Well I know an antivirus may seem like a good idea, but you have to be careful. Norton is pretty bloated, and I imagine it is slowing that computer down quite a bit. so you might want to change antiviruses. I can't really recommend a good one since I'm not really into that kind of thing,



Here's what you can do to speed up your computer (and keep it from becoming slow again):

Download CCleaner:

http://www.ccleaner.com/

Use CCleaner to remove temporary files and cleans up your registry. Also use it to delete some startup entries.





You might also want to upgrade the RAM, 384mb is a little small compared to today's computers. Go to http://crucial.com/ and choose "Scan my computer"

It will tell you what kind of RAM you need and how much RAM your computer supports. You could also buy the RAM from the site

Answer 3

The reason the computer gets slow is due to the registry files becoming corrupted, or messed up, in simple terms. These files tell the computer or laptop how to operate the software installed on the system. If any of these files get messed up, the computer is not sure what to do and this will really slow down the computer. The other scenario is where you download other software, screensavers, pictures, videos, or even music, and this will somehow change the settings on a registry file. When this happens, the original program that needs that file now has the wrong instructions in it. So, it will cause the computer to run slow, or in a worse case, crash.



You can speed up your computer with a thorough analysis and repair of your registry. The registry Scan will identify corrupt files, paths,and registry keys causing your computer to have errors and run slow.Go to http://www.registry-bot.com to download registry bot.It is the most advanced and comprehensive registry repair product on the market.It will speed up your computer and make windows startup faster.

http://www.registry-bot.com free download Registry Bot.

Answer 4

change your anti-virus. Norton Anti Virus really needs a lot of time in scanning your system components. It is also a bit large in capacity. And upgrade also your RAM and Hard Disk Drive and also the processor. (^_^)

Answer 5

Anti virus is bit heavy, me too had the problem, increaing you ram can solve your problem, go for 512 ram :)