Goomba

My computer has been really slow lately, REALLY slow. It's a miracle if it can run a flash application without any difficulties. The cursor even lags at times.

Now, I'm 90% sure this is the problem, but I need to confirm it with some professionals first before I do anything.

Specs:
Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.00GHz
Microsoft Windows XP Professional (Build Service Pack 22600)
2.0 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT (GeForce 8600 GT)
DirectX Version 9.0c
SigmaTel Audio
OCZ GameXStream 800W Power Supply (NVIDIA SLI-Ready)

That should be a perfect computer to run just about anything small, wouldn't it?

This is my pathetic hard drive space, however:
Capacity: 149 GB
Used Space: 147 GB
Free Space: 1.76 GB

I looked up effects on computer speed, and I found that it mostly had to do with the RAM (I already knew this). But not entirely the hard drive space.

Could upgrading my hard drive to 1 TB boost my computer speed to not be terrible?

Thanks,
Goomba.

manic

All kinds of things can slow you down. I would first try to get rid of
unneeded stuff on your pc, that hdd is almost full, you have no move
room, there is no room for the hdd to move things around, not to
mention swap file.
Clear out cookies, clear out history, make sure you have no malware
running. Look in startup items, if you have things starting up and running
that you are not using at startup configure them not to start. Once
that is done, do a defrag on the drive. You may notice a big improvement
after that.
A new hdd would not be a bad idea. I have a external hdd that I use for
stuff that I want to protect, and for stuff I rarely use. Pretty handy only
turn it on when I need it.

Goomba

I actually have tried clearing things up, but there are so many programs that I want to keep.

So if I were to get a 1 TB hard drive and transfer all my data to it, are you sure that the performance will be much more acceptable?

manic

It wouldnt hurt, but nothing is for sure. If I had hands on the machine
I could be more certain. Regardless you are going to have to do some
thing. The drive is to full....

raptor_pa

Much more? Maybe, mor importantly is what you have running. Use MSconfig to look at startup, remove toolbars, search bars etc. You can use disk cleanup to clear put temp file recycle bin, and other leftovers. Also, clear out old restore points, that can occupy a LOT of space.. Start - programs - accessories - system tools. Check add remove, you will probabnly find stuff you can get rid of in there. Once you have some free space then you should definitely defrag but you wil need at leats 15% ( say 20 GB on your current drive) to be able to defrag. I'm willing to bet tho, that with some good housekeeping you can free up a TON of space.
My laptop has a 40 GB drive - I have 18 GB free. It has Adobe Premier, After effects, Paint shop pro, Office Pro 03, About 3 - 4 GB of music, Visual Basic 6.0, Microsoft map point ( almost a GB in that alone ) Half Life 2 and CS - my start programs menu is 2.5 columns, so it's not lightweight. I also have a 2 GB fixed size swap file on that drive.
What is NOT on my drive - Most pics ( I have maybe 200 - 300 , MP3s I only listen to occasionally archived documents I rarely open. These are all on DVD's that are labeled. Also on DVD are video's etc. I carry a 250 GB external drive I use for ongoing video projects and for dumping some documents. I have a directory of forensic software tools, reference docs etc for work that is just hy of a GB, There is another copy of this on the external that is about 6 GB. The stuff on the HD is what I use regularly.
Just some ideas how you could cleanup. I guess it's good to come from the old DOS world - my first hard drive was 20MB LOL, and I ran a 4 line dial in BBS off of that - including the FIDOMail messages and all the shareware downloads. Ahhhh those were the days!!

manic

Yup those were the days! We were taught to be tight with space,
unlike nowadays,5gig games, movies etc. Remember my first 6 gig drive.
Was in hog heaven, paid around $300.00 for it. Things are very different
now, alot for the better, I could not imagine going back to win 3.0
I digress...

raptor_pa

LOL, I still miss DOS... My first wordprocessor ran off a 180 kB sigle sided floppy, and there was plenty of room on that disk to store my documents. Funny thing is, even now, 25 years later, with the latest and greatest in MS office - my letters still read no better LOL... I can however write them with wingdings as a font :)

manic

laugh:old dogs new tricks syndrome,same here

Goomba

Whoaaa, I feel so young. :O

I have tried most of this, though I shall try again.

Also, if that works, I'm probably going to get one anyway, I could need more space.

Goomba

Sorry for the double post, but I just noticed my CPU Usage under task manager runs close to or at 100% a lot. It doesn't really help if I terminate the processes using the most memory either. Any way I can figure this out?