old computer

surawy

Have a nine year old computer--getting slow and low on virtual memory balloon appears.
Is it worthwhile getting extra RAM---as we only use it for basic stuff--no movies,music etc----or should i ditch it --as the bloke in the shop told me.
Any tips re transferring data--if i were to get a new machine.

Thanks.

Quasar

Have you ever cleaned the hard drive of cookies, temporary internet files etc? You might not need extra RAM if as you say you don't use it for resource-hungry stuff.

Download ccleaner here http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/ click next to the green arrow on the upper right. Then run ccleaner to clear all cookies etc. You'd be surprised how much space that can clear. Do that at least once a week and it will keep your hard drive clean and fast-ish. My oldest lappy is exactly 9 year too, W98 still, 128 ram, slower than the newer ones but still in good working order.

Also, delete all restore ponts except the last one, as they take up space too.

Good luck.

motorguy

surawy wrote: »

Have a nine year old computer--getting slow and low on virtual memory balloon appears.
Is it worthwhile getting extra RAM---as we only use it for basic stuff--no movies,music etc----or should i ditch it --as the bloke in the shop told me.
Any tips re transferring data--if i were to get a new machine.

Thanks.

Depending on the type of RAM, it could be quite expensive to upgrade.

Personally, if its lasted 9 years, i'd say its time for a new one.

Exo

Agree with Quasar, clean up the hard drive in order to free up some disc space.
Defrag the hard drive.........you need at least12% free space for this to function correctly.
Which operating system are you using?
What size hard drive(s) and how much free space is there?
Are you allowing Windows to manage your virtual memory?

If you opt for another computer, just insert/connect your old hard drive and you will have access to all your data.

Robertf

If you do get a new PC, and want to most easily move your data, even older PCs tend to have USB ports, so easiest way to transfer data is to use a memory stick - you can get a 4gb stick for around £10 or even less.

If you're not going to upgrade, make sure you are backing up your data - the PC will fail sometime, and you don't want to lose your data. Again, most cost effective way providing you haven't got too much data, probably get away with a memory stick.

asininity

If you're open to a new OS you could try linux out, some of the lighter weight distros would work on your machine.

vyseyboy

Best course of action to speed it up is to remove any unnecessary programs that are run at startup (can do this with ccleaner, as posted above, just deselect the unnecessaries in the "startup" tab.)

Also make absolutely sure you are free of viruses, malware etc... check the sticky at the top of the techie forum.

Then if you still aren't happy with how it's running, consider maxxing out your RAM.

How much RAM do you have, and what operating system are you running?

gaming_guy

on some of my older XP systems i found that setting the classic windows theme helped a bit.

also, if its running XP install service pack 3 as on all the systems i installed it on it made all of them run slightly faster

surawy

its intel pentium----has 60 GB hard disc--only using something like 17 GB.
It only has 256 mb RAM.
Have cleaned it up ---thanks ---is working better.

PeterPerfect

With XP, 512Mbytes is the recommended minimum memory size. Virtual memory should be set at least 512Mbytes on your system. If you want to use Vista, a new system would be required.

aliEnRIK

Fitting 1 gig of RAM will make a hugh difference to how fast it operates