Computer running slower recently.

[styley]

I've run ccleaner a few times and defragmented it but it just seems to be running slower recently. Is there anything else that I can do to speed it up a bit? It's 4 or 5 years old now so that may be a reason. Any suggestions appreciated, thanks.

[samak]

How much RAM have you got? Probably not enough in a computer that age.
I had a similar problem and decided to get a new computer eventually. It's got 4Gb of RAM and runs brilliantly. I think my old one only had 256Mb.

[Jemisa]

My PC is 11 years old and runs fine. Phone up your BB supplier and ask 'em why.

jem

[galeck1947]

You could have a virus What OS are you using? Scan your computer for a virus using your antivrus program .Download and run Malware Bytes to see if you have any nasties present as well.

[ChuckFickens]

"Phone up your BB supplier and ask 'em why. "

Eh??

Why would they have anything to do with a computer running slow?

If it's 4-5 years old it probably has the bare minimum of RAM in it for a system today, you also probably have accumulated loads of junk installed that you don't need.

so, check the amount of RAM you have, if less than 1GB you should consider upgrading the RAM, also uninstall all unused programs and junk that will be installed through add remove programs, then run a full defrag on the hard drive about 2 or three times.

Also as Galack says, run full scans with both your antivirus, and even more importantly malwarebytes to ensure that the system isn't running any nasties in the back ground.

If it's still running slow after that then it's time to look at the startup processes and see what isn't needed and disable anything that's not.

[styley]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm never too sure what sort of stuff I can delete. For example I've got a temp folder that I saw the other day that is almost 1GB but I'm still not too sure if I can delete all the contents or not.

Also, how do I check the amount of RAM I know I've got 24GB of free space from a 50GB C/Drive. Also I'm running Microsoft XP.

[ChuckFickens]

Right click on my computer and select properties for the RAM

And you should be able to delete anything from the temp folder without problems.

[styley]

Cheers Chuck, I've got 504MB, so not great by your reckoning. I uninstalled firefox last night as it was really slow to load and that seems to have helped. Also I deleted most of the stuff in the temp folder to recycle bin and will delete completely in a few days if there are no problems.

How do I go about getting more RAM, is it an internal hardware issue or can I get a device like an external hard drive?