wiping pc and starting again

[learntojive]

My pc is about 3 years old, decent spec and not much on it really (few pics, music, a game, nothing really big) so there's still plenty of room on the hard drive
It's really labouring to start up and open programmes, it's unbelievably slow - I've done a defrag and a registry cleaner, and uninstalled norton etc but nothing helps.
I went to the shop I bought it from and they said �45 for a clean up - seems a bit steep to me, I thought I could maybe do it myself.
There's nothing on it that I can't put on again so I wondered about wiping the whole thing and starting again. I don't have any rescue discs or a windows disc though, it came with Windoes xp installed on already so would that pose a problem?
Thanks for any advice you can give me.

[Ethel]

Have you run anti-spyware and anti-trojan programmes?

Have you got programmes in the start up folder that you don't need to start up every time you log on? These can hog your resources.

In task manager, how many processes are running? What is the CPU useage %?

How much RAM have you got?

[ACtheTROLL]

3 years ... it neds re-building if you can put up with the hassle ...
I do mine 12-18 months.
even with low use it's surprising the ammount of rubbish that collects.
you could clean out the temp folder (that's where most collects) - I assume XP?

to clean the temp folder
copy this lot between the ****s (not the ****s)to a notepad TXT file
********************
echo off
rd /s /q %temp%\
del /q %temp%\*.*
pause
*********************

save the file as tmpcln.bat on your desktop
double click ... and you'll see the results.

If it's 3 years old .... I'm guessing a 2-3 Ghz p4 with 128- 256 ram?

if xp 512 is a good number 1Gb is even better (www.crucial.com - run the checker)
98 will fly with half that.

if you have the time a rebuild will make a big difference (add extra ram and you'll be amazed )

before you start however .... make sure you have all the CDs that came with the machine (without drivers you've got problems)

or back them up using http://www.innovative-sol.com/drivermax/ (it's free)
before you start

[Mac70]

Simpler run ATF cleaner from here
http://www.atribune.org/content/view/25/2/

Remember, after 3years you will have gathered up a lot of XP updates too. A memory upgrade would be a good start, as suggested above.

[ACtheTROLL]

's true ... you will have many hotfixes ... (I assume you have broadband?)

but sp2 is the biggest if it's needed.
many of the others will have been replaced - so 50 individual fixes could now be only 10 downloads to do the same job - don't let it put you off

after all they are part of the detritus you need to loose

[learntojive]

thanks very much for taking the time to answer, I think some of you may have helped me before actually when I had trouble with my laptop, I recognise some names, and that was sorted out great. The kids have this one upstairs now, so although there' s not much loaded onto it, it is most likely to be stuff from the internet I would think that's clogging it up.

I'll have a look at everything that's been suggested and post back
...oh, it has broadband, windows xp, 512 mb ram, 120gb

[boobesque]

your hard disk may be starting to die. They have a life of about 5 years before the magnetism fades along with all of your information.

go to start => run and type cmd.exe

here type:
cd\
chkdsk /f

it will tell you that your volume is in use. Restart your pc and it will check (and fix) magnetic errors with the disk.