Speed up horrid IBM PC running XP

[ayabrea38]

I(well OH really) bought a second hand IBM desktop monster from hell cos it had office 2003 on it.I know it was silly,but now I am trying to make the best of it and use it as a second computer.I know people raved about XP,any hits as to get the best out of it-such as how do I speed it up a bit,it seems sooooo slow,I think there must be something wrong.
It came pre installed with a few programmes and wasnt that bad but since the kids put a few old graphics and music programmes(like ulead,acid type old programmes) and I tried to connect it to the internet with a dongle its crawling.
Ant hints and tips would be great,I am a new user,using windows 7 and Vista and think XP is a bit alien to me!
Thanks to anyone who can help make the old snail run!
Aya

[ChuckFickens]

Well this is new, it's normally people used to running XP ant tips on vista or windows7, not the other way round!

The first thing is to check the amount of physical memory (RAM) installed in the computer, even the fastest computer on the world will run slow if it's not got enough RAM

Right click on the my computer icon and select properties and it will tell you how much RAM it has installed, if it's anything under about 700MB then XP will run like a snail.

[ayabrea38]

Oh my......
256MB ram
No wonder its slow
OH did try and put more RAM in when we first got it,but it threw a massive wobbler,bleeped and would not start.Apparently it was the right 'type'of RAM so he was at a loss as why this happened,thought maybe cos it was an ex office OEM version.
Thanks Chuck,a nice simple answer that saved me messing around removing/re installing the kids programmes.
Chuck Rules!!
Aya

[ChuckFickens]

256MB is very low! and it's no suprise it's running slow. out of interest on the same place it will say what the CPU speed is in MHz or GHz what is that? as that will indicate if it's worth upgrading the RAM.

On another note, if you bought the computer just because it had office on it, Did they supply you with the proper office CD and the official license key sticker? if they did just use them to install office on one of your newer computers and forget about the IBM. If they didn't supply the proper media and license key than that version of office is not a legal licensed version and you have wasted your money.

Also, has the OH considered open office, it's free, is compatible with MS office documents and for most users needs every bit as good as MS office.

http://www.openoffice.org/

[joko]

sorry if this is obvious to you, but have you done all the usual clean up stuff? such as defragment the hard drive, run chkdsk, and disc cleanup?

these can help, especially if the person who owned never did them

[ayabrea38]

2.5GHz, I will double check that(its a bit late to fiddle with the old thing!)tomorrow,but OH said it had a agood processor and was worth upgrading.As I said when he tried,it freaked and the upgrade had to be removed.
Any ideas on what to do about that?
Office was for the kids,but OH was fed up of the IBM and went and bought office 2007(money to burn or what?)so thanks for the openoffice link anyway
Finally,yep done defrag etc,everything clean as a whistle,slow as a snail,but my little chap said when AVG was removed it was quicker,only problem is now is no protection apart from what comes with XP,I dont think thats enough,do you?
Thanks all
Aya

[ayabrea38]

Just checked,its a 2GHz Pentium 4.
snail

[ChuckFickens]

A 2Ghz pentium4 is perfectly capable of running windows XP well if it has enough RAM in it. if you were to upgrade the RAM and put another1gig in it it would be usable machine for everyday use.

you can goto crucial's website and they have a system scanner that would tell you exactly what RAM to get and how much it would be

http://www.crucial.com/uk/

[jake-the-peg]

My father has a machine quite like that - it was running with 256 MB of memory.

I added another 512MB ( I know it was a Sunday and PC world was open and £30 is blackmail for that - but I wanted it fast).

Now it runs quite OK

I did remove a bunch of viruses too which will have helped no end!

If it's 256MB that's not really enough upgrade it to 1MB preferably 2 and it should be fine for basic office tasks.

Probably won't be up to things like playing videos and gaming would be right out but for office applications it should be OK

[ayabrea38]

Thanks Chuck,I will use this link.I think its a temperamental thing though,everything is so crammed together,even changing the mouse can cause it to throw a wobbler.
computers carnt live with em,cant live without 'em!

[ayabrea38]

That always catches me out,just posted when I saw your answer,Jake-the-peg.
We do have another 2 Gb ram from another pc,but going to use chucks link to check its the right one,if not,Amazon here I come
Thanks everyone
Aya