computer question

ian1954 wrote:Are you running Windows XP?

Windows XP is a memory hog and 2gigs of ram is not enough. If it's your internet, changing the computer won't do much. But upgrading to 4gigs of memory would help and with an older computer shouldn't cost much.

the old one is 'Vista' and new one would be Windows 7

The old one has no space to expand, cheep Wal-mart version, the new one i don't know?

Fastest ISP's
ISP Name Avg. Speed Tests Run
shawcable.net 5711 K 871
charter.com 4488 K 787
Your ISP --> comcast.net 4163 K 2826
rr.com 3975 K 1949
cox.net 3597 K 932
verizon.net 3348 K 1390
qwest.net 2591 K 568
bellsouth.net 2171 K 640
com.mx 2077 K 1514
myvzw.com 1994 K 2767

Also set up a backup system and store your files off site.

This is one example

http://memeo.com/en/premium-backup/features/

It is the one I use. You can also use this together with a USB hard drive connected to your PC for backup and have a backup on site or off site.

i picked up a 500G external hard drive for tranfering photos to new computer.

So switching computers is not really going to speed surfing for me?

Internet speed is more a function of your browser version, which is easy to upgrade online if you have an older version of Firefox or IE. Other than watching streaming video, web browsing does not use much system resources, as long as your temporary internet files don't get excessively large. A free program like Ccleaner is good for that sort of housekeeping.

Now Vista IS a memory hog.

Depends what anti spyware you're running as well Mark most relaaaaaaaax all over your hard drive,
bung it up and really slow the system down.
I run Malwarebytes then delete it then reinstall it a couple weeks later, run it then delete it again.
Same with anti virus soft ware Norton and Mcafee are shockers, consider getting rid and install AVG run it
then uninstall for a couple weeks.
I've got XP, a fairly warm graphics card and my Pheonix flight sim runs better on my office workstation
than all my pals with their Hokeycokey 2000 new devices.



PS
If you're still using IE consider replacing it with Firefox.

I have the lowest tier internet service from Comcrap, web pages load instantly. Any way you can get the newer computer on your network and see if it is faster?
That older computer is a dinosaur, you should back up your photos ASAP. I would guess your bottleneck is the old computers processor and ram. I have a 7 year old
Compac running XP that sped up alot when I quit running Norton, what a ponderous piece of crap that is. For the last 6 years been running Macs, way fast and no software
problems. Do they cost more? Yea, but worth every dime.

Most people still use Internet Explorer, even though it's not the fastest browser out there, it would be a good idea to check out different browsers, like Chrome, Firefox, and Opera to see which one works best for your connection type and your hardware configuration. For example, Chrome is particularly good for computers that are low on RAM, as it's not as memory hungry as Firefox and IE.

If you are using wireless Internet connection, make sure that you are not sharing it with the whole neighbourhood. The more people use your connection, the slower it is for you. So at the very least set up a WEP password to stop unauthorised users from using your Internet connection. Or if your hardware is compatible, set up WPA encryption.

There are many applications that will use your bandwidth in the background, like Windows Update, Windows Live Messenger, Skype, Real player, Adobe Reader updates, and other similar software. Most of them usually start automatically when you log on to Windows and connect to the Internet as soon as there is a connection. This means that these programs use your bandwidth when you are not actually using them.
Most of these applications can be configured not to start on Windows log-on or to at least ask permission to connect to the Internet. If you are not sure which programs are secretly using your bandwidth, you can usually find a tool to do this. With the help of this program you can track which applications and processes are consuming your network traffic.

If your computer is slow, it doesn't matter how fast your Internet connection is – everything will be slow because you computer can't cope. The answer to that is to keep your computer in good shape and perform regular maintenance like disk cleanup and defrag, registry repair, and other tasks like monitoring your startup items and optimizing Windows services. This way you will not speed up performance, but also speed up your Internet connection.

I think long term Doug has the best solution.
Certainly my next machine will be more fruity than this one.

Norton Internet Security is no longer the rude invasive memory hog it was before 2011. It's now an efficient program and works extremely well. AVG works well too but I believe you still have to install its internet security separately from the antivirus. McAfee still belongs on the trash heap as far as I know. Malwarebytes(AKA MBAM) is a must have, as a run-on-demand program for double checking the files every week or so. Ccleaner is another must-have program. Just untick anything you don't want it to clean or it can cause you to have to re-enter passwords, and websites and other programs may forget your preferences.

Wireless needs secure with a non-trivial password (can still be easy to remember) This is for more than just protecting your bandwidth.

If your hard drive is near "full" then performance is going to lag considerably. (I believe WinXP wanted 2+ gig of swap space on my old EEE with only 8 gig of SSD) An external backup drive is good in many way for relieving this. It also means you can easily transport very large amounts of data if you need to. For non-replaceable documents and information (photos, videos, business and personal files) don't trust just 1 backup! There is no reason at all to do full system backups on most computers since you can reload the software from install disks and downloads. Clean installs generally perform better anyways.

The I3 can be a heck of a computer, the I5 is what middle of the road gaming systems are based on now.

If you want more than 3 gig of ram then you *must* have a _64bit_ operating system. 32bit won't address a full 4 gig. Putting more than 3 gig of ram into an XP machine isn't going to improve anything either, which is a pain since most can take 4 gig. The 3rd gig of ram will be a big difference if you can get it cheap enough.

Win8 is a pain in the ... I won't say "don't do it", since it does work, but it has not had most of the wrinkles ironed out of it, and documentation is not fully available yet since it is still being written/published. I wish I went with Win7 on my new gaming machine.

Phil

I love 7, it's the most stable OS from Windows yet. The only trouble I ever have with it is my task scheduler gets confused sometimes with the tasks I manually add.