SpeedupmyPC...anyone use this software, or something

[BERIGAN]

For the last several months, my Compaq(5410) that I purchased back in 2002 seems to have slowed down on quite a bit when browsing the internet. Most noticeably on ebay if I am checking out old cars that have 30-40 large photos, and even on amazon when looking at DVD's with lots of reviews. I get the old hourglass instead of a cursor for 10 to 30 seconds. Never used to have this problem before. I am sure both sites have more ads than before, and other "improvements"...but this gets pretty annoying. I have had DSL modem (ZyXEL Prestige 600) for about 7 years now. I am guessing it's more my computer than my connection. I just checked my upload and download speeds....

Download Bandwidth (KBit/s)

1205

Upload Bandwidth (KBit/s)

158

So....a week or so ago I downloaded a seemingly legit program called SpeedupmyPC(did some googling to check them out) of course the download doesn't do really anything but monitor your system. Oh, you want to free up RAM or get Deep RAM recovery???? That'll cost $29.99.

Anyway, it shows the amount of Free and used memory (I have 512 MB of RAM, all I can use sadly enough with this system) right now, with 3 browser windows open it says 146 MB free, 364 MB used(they show 510 MB total memory) Doesn't that seem awfully high??? If I close them down, then start up browsers again, it will be less, around 250 MB used.

Windows task manager shows wildly fluctuating usage, 19 % spiking up to 44% briefly. Page file Usage shows 318 MB.

Checking around the web some more, one review of SpeedupmyPC says if anything, it slows your system down! So....long story short, anyone have any ideas of speeding up my system, besides buying a newer one??????

[7/4]

Use Ad-Aware to find and remove spyware.

[BERIGAN]

Use Ad-Aware to find and remove spyware.

Thanks, I use that already....well....I haven't run it in awhile......

[RDK]

Could be spyware/adware (and you should be usng something to block and/or remove it), but it also sounds like your machine is underpowered given modern programs/websites. You might try something like Eusing registry cleaner to clean up your reg, but also to kill some of the unneeded resident programs that can clog up memory. For example, Quicktime and iTunes can be loaded upon startup, but they're not usually needed unless you're actually using those programs. So kill 'em when you don't need them.

[7/4]

Gotta run it frequently.

[RDK]

Use Ad-Aware to find and remove spyware.

Thanks, I use that already....well....I haven't run it in awhile......

And Ad-aware doesn't catch it all either. My wife had a problem with pop-unders on her browser, and neither ad-aware, Spybot or Norton caught it. I ended up using an on-line scanner that finally found the bug and deleted it from the registry.

[rockefeller center]

XP? Date of last installation? Sounds like a reinstallation is in order. If you decide to stick with a Microscrewyousoft OS on your PC - put a properly configured router between your modem and your machine.

Edit: for everyday-use -> use a user account that doesn't have administrator rights.

Edited December 29, 2007 by rockefeller center

[BERIGAN]

XP? Date of last installation? Sounds like a reinstallation is in order. If you decide to stick with a Microscrewyousoft OS on your PC - put a properly configured router between your modem and your machine.

Edit: for everyday-use -> use a user account that doesn't have administrator rights.

Yes, XP....Date of last installation??? Let's see, it says version 2002, service pack 2. Sorry if I gave the impression I know anything more than a typical 4 year old knows, computer wise(I ain't)

When you say reinstall, are you talking about "just" XP alone???? And you talk of a properly configured router between my modem and computer...Never heard of that!!! How do I go about doing that? Still being up at 9 am means this is the wrong time for me to ask questions!

[Chalupa]

Have you tried running disk clean up and defrag??? Both of these tasks should be done weekly. Also, if you can increase your RAM I would get the maximum amount for your computer. RAM is very cheap right now.