slow slow computer. please help

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steve bain

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hi all. i'm new on here so please be nice (and patient)
i'm not too clued up on computers but i'm not as bad as some ;)

so anyhow, heres my question. hopefully it will be easy for you guys but for someone like me it is harder and a learning curve so please descibe everything like i'm 10 years old. you will be teaching me!

my girlfriend bought a Packard Bell off our neighbour for £15. she said it was 3 years old. it was running windows me. it is nothing fancy. it was fairly slow then. (but its hard to tell as were both used to faster computers at work). we got rid of me and installed xp proffesional. it was still slow, but now its really slow. it has only 34% of its memory left yet there is hardly anything on it. just xp, office, bit of music etc.
in order to try and help it i have run, avg, ad aware, cwc shredder, spybot s&d, disk cleanup, defrag, scan disk. as well as deleting any unused programs.
i'm basically scuppered. is a computer that is designed to run me not powerful enough to run me? i thought it would be as her old one did.
also not sure if its relevant but 3 of the usb ports misteriously don't work. would this affect anything?
also when i say slow, it take 5 or so seconds to open the 'start' menu!
nothing seems to be running that shouldn't be. also the lighton the front is working overtime. it stays on 24/7. even when you do nothing.

any help would be much appreciated as i'm getting it in the neck at the moment.

thanks again, steve
 
if you post the model number (or more helpfully) the specs on the computer (googling the packard bell brand number will probably get them) then we can see the details on it. I'd wager a 3 year old PB has only 128 or 256 MB of RAM, which is easily boosted and is the best way to get a PC that at least skips around the web a little.

Cheers,
peter
 
PZEROFGH - i have tried all the bits in there that are recommended. except tweek now. i will try that.

chu - i think you catch my drift. this computer really is just to search web or maybe write a essay or 2. it doesn't need to be fast. just to start up in reasonable time!!

also i didn't mention before it changes on how slow it is. sometimes its slow, sometime its really slow and unusable.

will try and find more info as chu suggests



thanks for a crazy fast response.

steve
 
its a imedia 6200,

heres what i found from quick google...

http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/pc-desktops/packard-bell-imedia-6200/

64mb ram - i guess that is why it is slow???
18.1 gb harddrive

apart from that i know little else. 'A' drive, re write cd. 4 usb.

so asumming it is because it is a real slow computer how would i go about improving it (remember i am useless) what do i buy and how do i install it. i have an old computer under my desk. could i steal anything out of that?? its a pentium 1. it had 32mb of ram, so even worse!!


steve
 
thank you very much for all of your help. from all of the replies it seems my ram is slow. so i will upgrade to 512mb of pc100ram.

heres my last question. like i said. i'm a bit bad at all this. where is best to buy it? is there anything specific i need to make sure it is when i buy it? how do i know i'm buying the correct item? is it simply plug it in, and the computer will do the rest.

sorry to ask such simple questions, but i really am new to all of this.

thanks again, you have all been a great help.

steve
 
http://www.crucial.com/store/listpa...ard+Bell&tabid=AM&model=iMedia+6200&submit=Go

if that isn't a clicky, copy and paste it to your addy field. Someone said it can take 512 MB of RAM, but check how many RAM slots it has. Installing RAM is a breeze, crucial has a lifetime warranty, so go ahead and buy 512 MB of it, and your machine should be good to go. RAM is really the big deal for what you want to do... the OS eats most of it, and one or more applications later all you hear is the grinding of a struggling PC.

Cheers,
Peter
 
Yes, u need more ram with that OS...

Also, how full is the hard drive?

Also, you could do a reformat and renistall and that may help.
 
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