Suggestions for utils to speed up PC

[herulach]

Basically GFs laptop is dieing on its feet, tried all the usual stuff, adware spybot, av, theres plenty of disk space left, im kind of getting bored of her going on about it being slow, so does anyone have any suggestions for things to try short of nuking the whole OS and starting over?

[rox0r]

You're gonna get only two/three answers to this.

a) Re-install the OS etc

b) Buy her a new laptop and have done with it.

or

c) (Insert comedy answer along the lines of "replace girlfriend etc")

In short, no app is going to magically make it "go faster", only people who believe that they'll "get a b!g_ger r0d To_da y!" by replying promptly use those

[Ceefer]

Defragment the HDD and clear out the Registry.

[Taz]

1. Buy something like ZDelete (that will clear out all the junk on your hard disk inlcuding temporary Internet files, temp directories). Alternatively, use Disk Cleanup in Accessories which is free but nowhere near as good
2. Buy something like Registry Mechanic to clean and compress your registry
3. Defrag your hard drive(s) - you could buy something like Speedisk which is supposed to be a better defragger than the Windows one.
4. Buy something like SiSoft Sandra and run the benchmarks. It will make recommendations.

The problem is that buying all these utilities costs a fair bit and the time required to tidy up your laptop will be significant.

One other option is to buy a replacement hard drive for the laptop. Also, buy a USB enclosure for the existing one from E-Bay and reinstall the OS onto the new drive. Connect the old drive and restore anything you need. This will also give you an external HDD for very little cost assuming you can find a suitable enclosure.

[irishjoe]

If she usies the internet for simple things like browsing internet and office stuff, install SuSE linux. Runs damn fast on my P3-800 laptop...
And I think its better than windoze anyway. I aint a linux freak, I've been learning lately and its really good.

[0iD]

Clearout temp files, uninstall unwanted progs, clean registry (try something like reg seeker, or regcleaner form jv16.org) then defrag.

[herulach]

Cheers for the replies guys, i was pretty much expecting something along those lines. Which have all been done short of the registry clean up. Shes getting a new laptop in a week or so anyway, but its a free one from her job, so itll probably be god awful. Mightget her to let me have that one for a week and just reinstall without her knowing.

[killie99]

what is the spec of the laptop she has and what is she useing it for - that way we might be able to give you some better pointers as to how to get it running a bit better - first choice would be to whack some more memory in it it you can and get it to at least 512 if it's running XP

[farooqm]

Plan A:
Ive deleted any unnessary files on HD
Run PerfectDisk in Smart mode to defragment the disk.
Run East Tec Erasor to clear Windows and IE Temp files and clean/blank any Free space on disk.

This did it for me.

Plan B:
Assuming you've got an 'old and slow' laptop.
Take her current laptop off her, and tell her you're working on it to make it better
Give her the old slow one...
After a day or so give her 'normal' laptop back... she'll think its really fast and maybe you'll get a 'Brucie' bonus

[noTHINGface]

On this note, webroot do an excellent piece of software (window washer).

[eloquence]

I'll second the memory question - if it's running OK up to a point, and then grinding to a halt, then it's probably memory. You can check this easily enough by going to the Task Manager - the performance tab will tell you how much of the Physical Memory is available - if it's at or around none available, then you know that's the cause of your speed problems - virtual memory is always orders of magnitude slower than real memory. If it's a memory shortage, then a quick RAM upgrade may do wonders.

[herulach]

Memorys not an issue, got 512, and althoguh it could do with another stick, im not shelling out for a gig of ram (has 2x256 already) Boot up time is the real issue, as in about 5 minutes. Defrag and registry cleanup, together with disabling a couple of services (ones that do **** all, messaging etc) has speeded it up a bit. Shes getting a new one in like a week anyway, so ill wait till then, copy all her **** across and then just reinstall i think.