Of the topic

[hansfz6]

I'm sorry this has nothing to do with our LOVE :Flash: FZ6 but I need your help, since you are the smartest group of people I know . Ok my computer is running really slow, it's about 8yrs old I know, I know money is tight can't afford new one. It's a DELL. Very slow to start up, and when it does it takes forever to load Homepage. It's just overall slow. Any way to clean up the whole unit with some kind of program? Whatever you got I'll take it. Thank you very much for all your help.

 

[Fz6Sa]

Do a complete reinstall.
That should bring it's youth back.

 

[Fred]

If it's an older Dell, go into the BIOS setup and make sure that the CPU speed is not set to Compatibility Mode.

Compatibility Mode = slower than a frozen zombie.

 

[Stumbles06]

What version of Windoze are you running?? 8 years, id guess either Win ME, maybe XP?? If you have the original disks, save (copy to disk or another HDD) what you need on the hard drive, then format and re-install windows.

I just did this to my daughters pc 3 days ago... so much faster now.

Also, add RAM, will help out a bit too.

 

[hansfz6]

I'm running XP, and how do I get to BIOS ? to change CPU

 

[SovietRobot]

8 years, ouch. Not much you can do other than a complete reformat/reinstall of whichever windows you're using.
If you're using Windows ME, just throw it away.

I usually do a complete reformat on my computers once a year.

 

[mstewar1]

It may differ by bios, but usually you can press the "delete" (del) or the F8 key as the system is beginning to boot. Watch the screen as the machine begins to boot and you'll see a message such as, "Press (key) to enter bios" You don't have to press and hold it, just watch for the message, press the key that's mentioned once, and then wait for the bios screen to come up.

You'll want to be a little careful while in the bios as one can do a fair bit of damage if one is not careful. But as Fred suggests, if the bios has the "compatability" setting set to "on" or "enabled", it'll slow your machine down. I'd suggest only changing that, then save the settings and exit. The machine will then boot as normal.

As the others have also suggested, if you haven't done so in the 8 years you've owned it, you should format the drive and re-install your operating system. Just back-up your files to a cd or external drive then do the format/re-install. Since it's a dell, it should have come with a system restore cd.

And, as has also been suggested, get as much ram as you can afford/as the board will support. Though it won't make it as fast as current systems, it'll help to speed it up some, and ram is pretty cheap right now.

Then if you're running xp, turn off all of the ui visual "enhancements" such as that hideous blue or silver ui...

 

[SANGER_A2]

STOP! Before you reinstall Windows, make a backup of any files you want to keep. Music, documents, Outlook data file etc. Stick them on a DVD or USB hard disc or something.

You DO need a Windows reinstall. But also, buy some extra RAM (memory) if you can get it cheap. You'll need to find out if you have SD-RAM, DDR or DDR RAM. Also find out the speed of it. You can download a program called CPU-Z that will tell you what you have in the memory tab.