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Any answers to following problems would be appreciated-
I am considering getting a new PC since my cheap e-machine w/2 ghz, XP SP2,
256 mb of RAM, older Nvidia riva tnt2 model 64display adapter are 5 years
old and I also have another e-machine in about the same shape and
specifics -ISP is Verizon DSL modem and Lynksis router- all the following
problems are on both PCs and either with IE7 or Firefox2- I clean both PCs
weekly with Adware, spybot and have AV avast! no viruses have ever bween
detected
1. Both are slower than they were about month ago
2. many .com web pages load extremely slow (especially Adobe to upgrade) or
if at all with the "cannot display" message
3. Videos load slowly - have WMP, RP, and QT
4. Have problems loading newer computer games apparently due to older game
hardware
5. a wierd problem- when I use favorites menu sometimes, one of the
favorite boxes remain on the screen and will not go away until I exit from
IE7 all together
Sorry for length- all above are just frequent enough to be annoying - not
always - I have no idea what ultimate performance should be since I do see
that everyone had problems from time to time - and as I said - I cannot
blame problems on MS and IE7
Thanks in advance for any response and I'll understand if I do not get any -
I've already been told to get a MAC or at least upgrade gaming and video
hardware - but before I act

ButchKersh wrote:

> Any answers to following problems would be appreciated-
> I am considering getting a new PC since my cheap e-machine w/2 ghz, XP
> SP2, 256 mb of RAM, older Nvidia riva tnt2 model 64display adapter are 5
> years old and I also have another e-machine in about the same shape and
> specifics -ISP is Verizon DSL modem and Lynksis router- all the following
> problems are on both PCs and either with IE7 or Firefox2- I clean both PCs
> weekly with Adware, spybot and have AV avast! no viruses have ever bween
> detected
> 1. Both are slower than they were about month ago

First, 5 year old machines "suddenly" getting slower and slower may as well
be caused by a harddrive on the way out - check that first (watch
eventviewer for atapi type errors, run a hd diagnostic floppy from the
harddrive manufacturor, run s.m.a.r.t tests)
2nd, if the drive(s) prove ok, clean
- old update uninstallers (%windir%/$NtUninstall*), the %windir%/temp,
your temporary internet files with ie control panel or firefox privacy
panel)
- defrag the damned thing. Jkdefragcmd is a excellent tool
- get UPHcleanup and install that (should keep your registry from growing)
Then, check again.

> 2. many .com web pages load extremely slow (especially Adobe to upgrade)
> or if at all with the "cannot display" message

Clean these damned temporary internet files, and set maximum cache amount to
somewhat near 50...100 Mbytes, not 10 percent of the harddrive as is by
default.
Check if you can ping the questioned sites by name. Get in touch with your
ISPs configuration site, maybe you should change some DNS setting.

> 3. Videos load slowly - have WMP, RP, and QT
> 4. Have problems loading newer computer games apparently due to older
> game hardware
> 5. a wierd problem- when I use favorites menu sometimes, one of the
> favorite boxes remain on the screen and will not go away until I exit from
> IE7 all together

Even when you check the "rebuild screen"?
Hope for the next hotfix on IE7 or use firefox.

.....
> - I've already been told to get a MAC or at least upgrade gaming and video
> hardware - but before I act

Yes, even updates/fixes of programs you already have for 5 years, can make
these programs become bigger and slower on old hardware like yours. Not to
mention new software and virus scanner updates, which are all built
on/assuming you have/ a "todays standard" pc.
A MAC may have a longer lifespan though ....
--
vista policy violation: Microsoft optical mouse found penguin patterns
on mousepad. Partition scan in progress to remove offending
incompatible products. Reactivate MS software.
Linux 2.6.17-mm1,Xorg7.1/nvidia [LinuxCounter#295241,ICQ#4918962]

Thanks a lot - will do as much as I can -thanks again

"Walter Mautner" <> wrote in message
news:s5i9b4-...
> ButchKersh wrote:
>
>> Any answers to following problems would be appreciated-
>> I am considering getting a new PC since my cheap e-machine w/2 ghz, XP
>> SP2, 256 mb of RAM, older Nvidia riva tnt2 model 64display adapter are 5
>> years old and I also have another e-machine in about the same shape and
>> specifics -ISP is Verizon DSL modem and Lynksis router- all the following
>> problems are on both PCs and either with IE7 or Firefox2- I clean both
>> PCs
>> weekly with Adware, spybot and have AV avast! no viruses have ever bween
>> detected
>> 1. Both are slower than they were about month ago
>
> First, 5 year old machines "suddenly" getting slower and slower may as
> well
> be caused by a harddrive on the way out - check that first (watch
> eventviewer for atapi type errors, run a hd diagnostic floppy from the
> harddrive manufacturor, run s.m.a.r.t tests)
> 2nd, if the drive(s) prove ok, clean
> - old update uninstallers (%windir%/$NtUninstall*), the %windir%/temp,
> your temporary internet files with ie control panel or firefox privacy
> panel)
> - defrag the damned thing. Jkdefragcmd is a excellent tool
> - get UPHcleanup and install that (should keep your registry from growing)
> Then, check again.
>
>> 2. many .com web pages load extremely slow (especially Adobe to upgrade)
>> or if at all with the "cannot display" message
>
> Clean these damned temporary internet files, and set maximum cache amount
> to
> somewhat near 50...100 Mbytes, not 10 percent of the harddrive as is by
> default.
> Check if you can ping the questioned sites by name. Get in touch with your
> ISPs configuration site, maybe you should change some DNS setting.
>
>> 3. Videos load slowly - have WMP, RP, and QT
>> 4. Have problems loading newer computer games apparently due to older
>> game hardware
>> 5. a wierd problem- when I use favorites menu sometimes, one of the
>> favorite boxes remain on the screen and will not go away until I exit
>> from
>> IE7 all together
>
> Even when you check the "rebuild screen"?
> Hope for the next hotfix on IE7 or use firefox.
>
> ....
>> - I've already been told to get a MAC or at least upgrade gaming and
>> video
>> hardware - but before I act
>
> Yes, even updates/fixes of programs you already have for 5 years, can make
> these programs become bigger and slower on old hardware like yours. Not to
> mention new software and virus scanner updates, which are all built
> on/assuming you have/ a "todays standard" pc.
> A MAC may have a longer lifespan though ....
> --
> vista policy violation: Microsoft optical mouse found penguin patterns
> on mousepad. Partition scan in progress to remove offending
> incompatible products. Reactivate MS software.
> Linux 2.6.17-mm1,Xorg7.1/nvidia [LinuxCounter#295241,ICQ#4918962]

In article <uCnEh.4241$tR1.3578@trnddc05>,
says...
> Any answers to following problems would be appreciated-
> I am considering getting a new PC since my cheap e-machine w/2 ghz, XP SP2,
> 256 mb of RAM, older Nvidia riva tnt2 model 64display adapter are 5 years

The usual problem is that you need more RAM memory to cope with the
expanded size of registry you have. 256MB is a bit small these days.
I've moved from a 256MB Win2k desktop to a 512MB XP laptop at work and
despite a slower processor it is a lot more nippier especially on start
up. As well as more memory you should uninstall all the software you
don't need and go over to portable software (where possible and where
available) as it does not use the registry. And a defrag and system
cleaner like CCleaner and EasyClean (be very carefull what you clean out
of the registry) will help a bit but I'm assuming you do that
occasionally.

Keep the browser size buffers down to 50MB as otherwise the browser only
wastes time looking through old cached objects it is never going to use.

If you are really serious you could try trashing the operating system
and doing a completely new install. It's a bit drastic, but it will get
rid of all the spurious keys clogging your registry built up over the
years.

On 2007-02-25, ButchKersh <> wrote:
> Any answers to following problems would be appreciated-
> I am considering getting a new PC since my cheap e-machine w/2 ghz, XP SP2,
> 256 mb of RAM, older Nvidia riva tnt2 model 64display adapter are 5 years
> old and I also have another e-machine in about the same shape and
> specifics -ISP is Verizon DSL modem and Lynksis router- all the following
> problems are on both PCs and either with IE7 or Firefox2- I clean both PCs
> weekly with Adware, spybot and have AV avast! no viruses have ever bween
> detected
> 1. Both are slower than they were about month ago
> 2. many .com web pages load extremely slow (especially Adobe to upgrade) or
> if at all with the "cannot display" message
> 3. Videos load slowly - have WMP, RP, and QT
> 4. Have problems loading newer computer games apparently due to older game
> hardware
> 5. a wierd problem- when I use favorites menu sometimes, one of the
> favorite boxes remain on the screen and will not go away until I exit from
> IE7 all together
> Sorry for length- all above are just frequent enough to be annoying - not
> always - I have no idea what ultimate performance should be since I do see
> that everyone had problems from time to time - and as I said - I cannot
> blame problems on MS and IE7
> Thanks in advance for any response and I'll understand if I do not get any -
> I've already been told to get a MAC or at least upgrade gaming and video
> hardware - but before I act

You might want to think about deleting all the programs you don't use, and
any data you no longer need (and making backup copies of all the data you
really want to keep!) and then using the 'system maintenance' tools to
make sure that temporary files, dead cookies, broken fragments, etc, are
cleaned out of your disc space, and then 'de-fragmenting' the hard discs.
(De-fragging is worth doing weekly if you have a FAT32 file system; NTFS
is a lot more efficient).

Make sure that only programs you want to run at start-up are actually
starting.

Defensive programs such as anti-virus, adware detectors, spyware
detectors, etc, running continuously 'in the background' will slow
everything down. Consider scanning periodically instead, perhaps on a set
timed schedule so that the scanning happens when your PC is normally on
but not doing much. (Your 'firewall' should be running all the time there
is an internet connection, of course).

I don't think there is any reason your PCs shouldn't be just as quick as
when they were new - although recent software seems to be getting more and
more 'bloated' in terms of the load it places on the computer.

I'll just slip in the comment that Linux seems to make much better use of
computer resources than Windows on the same hardware )

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~