Easy / Free ways to improve CPU performance?

[Jonesy]

My cpu is slow. If I have a few windows open browsing it always makes me wait when swapping between windows, gives me heaps of "not responding" messages and takes forever to boot up.

I have heaps of space on there (have all of my songs, movies etc stored on an 500 gig external hardrive) and it isn't that old so what can i do to make it better?

I have tried googling but it just brings up a bunch of program's that cost money and i don't want to pay for something that i can hopefully do for free.

Any tips / tricks to improve my cpu's performance?

[daflyboys]

Re: Easy / Free ways to improve CPU performance?

Maybe if you post your specs, it would help those here responding to you who know better then me. I. Me.

Predominantly, a memory upgrade is typically the first suggestion. Check out www.pcpitstop.com for some free online tests, depending on what you want.

Other free apps that you might find useful are:

Defragging >>> Auslogics Disk Defrag
various optimizing options >>> Glary Utilities
Malware >>> Malwarebytes Anti-Malware
Process shut down>>> Process Explorer (shows you whats running and unneeded)
Registry Cleaner>>>RegScrubXP
Spyware>>>Spybot - Search & Destroy
Adware>>>Ad-Aware

Also, running commercial anti-virus like Norton and McAfee are system hogs. Get rid of them and anything in your cpu related to them. There was an anti-virus thread on here a few months back. Search that for suggestions.

Also, check what you're startup programs are. How many little tray icons are showing in your lower right corner and how many of those do you really need running?

good luck

[Blzer]

Re: Easy / Free ways to improve CPU performance?

Here's that other thread:

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...ird-virus.html

[Jonesy]

Re: Easy / Free ways to improve CPU performance?

Thanks for the tips daflyboys and for the link Blzer.

My specs are: Pentium 4 CPU 3.20GHz with 512ram, 32 bit operating system and 80gig of space. Windows vista.

I do have Norton's Anitvirus and have paid for another year so that is a shame i have to get rid of it if that is causing the slow down.

[fishepa]

Re: Easy / Free ways to improve CPU performance?

You need more RAM, that is really not enough for Vista. You should have at least 2 GB.

[Moses Shuttlesworth]

Re: Easy / Free ways to improve CPU performance?

You need more RAM, that is really not enough for Vista. You should have at least 2 GB.

Nah, if you have 1gb for Vista that's fine. I have 4gb, but I had 1gb for the longest time and didn't have a problem. As a matter of fact, I was running Vista Ultimate and it was flawless.

[daflyboys]

Re: Easy / Free ways to improve CPU performance?

Thanks for the tips daflyboys and for the link Blzer.

My specs are: Pentium 4 CPU 3.20GHz with 512ram, 32 bit operating system and 80gig of space. Windows vista.

I do have Norton's Anitvirus and have paid for another year so that is a shame i have to get rid of it if that is causing the slow down.

If you run your task manager, go to the processes tab and then the mem size column, it will tell you were it is on the list (click ON the mem size tab). I"ll guess that Norton is at the top 1 or 2.