[aaberridge]

Hi there,
You guys have helped me immensely in the past so I'm hoping you can help again.
This is my mother's desktop:
Dell Dimension
Windows XP
2.53GHz
640 MB RAM

It is really really slow to do just about anything: boot, programs, internet, shut-down. She does have like 4 years worth of TurboTax on it which I would guess should probably be moved/stored externally? Alright, I'm going to stop typing now because I'm sure I'm appearing more stupid by the minute.
Thanks for any help!
Aubrey

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Hi aaberridge,

640 MB RAM

This will not help, with the demands made on computers today 1GB as a minimum would be more appropriate.

She does have like 4 years worth of TurboTax on it which I would guess should probably be moved/stored externally

As a priority, the slowing down could be the HDD showing it is getting tired, which means it could fail at any time.
What is the storage capacity of the HDD and how much space is left on the drive

[phillpower2]

Hi aaberridge,

640 MB RAM

This will not help, with the demands made on computers today 1GB as a minimum would be more appropriate.

She does have like 4 years worth of TurboTax on it which I would guess should probably be moved/stored externally

As a priority, the slowing down could be the HDD showing it is getting tired, which means it could fail at any time.
What is the storage capacity of the HDD and how much space is left on the drive

[aaberridge]

Capacity is 37.2GB and there is 12.3GB unused.

[Neil Jones]

A 40Gb means the machine is going to be the best part of six, seven, maybe eight years old. If it's on its original hard drive that means it's possibly going to be on the way out soon.

The best thing to do would be to find out what brand of drive it is (it'll be printed on the drive itself),then go to the website of the manufacturer for their diagnostic tool.

[Macboatmaster]

Both the previous posters are of course absolutely correct.
40Gb is really nothing these days, you would find it more or less impossible to buy a hard drive that size.
and with 640Mb ram - 512 + 128 it is NEVER going to be fast.

However to deal with the original question - lets see if we can make it a little quicker and smoother than it is.

Firstly download this please, check Select all.
THIS will delete any saved passwords for websites. It will NOT alter the Windows passwords.
Make sure you have any website passwords - within your knowledge.
http://www.atribune....id=25&Itemid=25

Then go start - Programs, Accessories, System tools, Diskcleanup, check all boxes and run that.

Then do this please
Auslogics Defrag in my opinion is better than XP`s own because:
http://auslogics.com...defrag/download

It does a more comprehensive job at Defragging
It will actually show you what it is doing
At the end of working it will show you how much speed you picked up
You can view a online log of the files that Auslogics defragged
NOTE PLEASE - on that site you will see registry cleaners - NEVER USE ANY REGISTRY CLEANERS/BOOSTERS, they are generally a recipe for disaster.

Now download this please
http://www.malwareby...startuplite.php
Run and follow insructions to cleanup your startUp list in msconfig.

Please post after this how it is.
There will be more to do.
Please download this and attach the report as a zipped word doc.
http://winaudit.zymi....com/index.html

PLEASE ENSURE that you delete the personal info and the product keys BEFORE attaching.

Edited by Macboatmaster, 14 January 2011 - 07:06 PM.

[aaberridge]

<PLEASE ENSURE that you delete the personal info and the product keys BEFORE attaching. >

Thanks for the help.
Where is the personal info and/or product keys? This is a huge doc....
Also, I was unable to save as a word doc, so i have it saved as a txt file.
Did all of the other tasks listed above.
Thanks,
Aubrey

[Macboatmaster]

Please attach it then as a zipped txt file.
I cannot just remember where on the WinAudit it is.
I think it is near the start, you will have to peruse the file.
The reason is, you never know who is watching and they may try to "USE" your product keys.

[Macboatmaster]

Further to the above, having completed ATF, diskcleanup, defrag and startuplite - DO YOU notice any improvement?