Re: Speeding up XP

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"JoeSpareBedroom" <newstrash@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Twayne" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"R. McCarty" <PcEngWork-NoSpam_@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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An upgrade won't help. The Sempron is a lower-end processor.
They have internal hardware limitations (Cache size) that would
prevent other upgrades from being cost effective. Your money is
better spent moving to a new system. Anything you upgrade won't
deliver any major benefits.

A Gig or RAM will help as it will alleviate some of the substantial
pagefile usage.
A larger hard drive will help as it is currently an almost full
bottlenece for that system. An 80 Gig drive is VERY cheap right now!


"JoeSpareBedroom" <newstrash@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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I'm running XP SP2 with a 1.6 ghz Semprom processor, 1/2 gig of RAM
and a 19 gb hard disk with 4 gig of free space. Gets pretty slow at
times. If you were going to throw money at some part of the system
first, would it be more RAM, or bigger HD? I know they're both
cheap, but money's a bit tight and flipping a coin is not giving me
the clear answer I want. Most of the work I do for my job does NOT
involve huge files. Rather, the machine gets creepy when I have 4-5
apps running. I could be wrong, but I don't think registry clutter
is the issue. I don't constantly install & uninstall experimental
software like some people. I defrag monthly, and the computer is
scanned nightly for viruses (AVG) and other nasties (ZoneAlarm).






If I'm reading Task Manager's performance numbers correctly, more RAM
should be the priority. Physical memory: 458224K. The "available"
figure is dropping as low as 45K at times and I only have 3 of my
usual 6 apps running so far this morning. No wonder there's disk
thrashing.

That's sensible, especially since you have so little disk space to let a
pagefile live in; the machine must get really slow at times. But it's
not a permanent solution unless you can move a lot of your personal data
off the drive and onto DVDs/CDs to free up a little space. It really
needs both the RAM and a hard drive added to the mix. A lot of things
eat away at disk space so you'll be receiving low space warnings fairly
soon unless you can clear out some data.

HTH,

Twayne`



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