Speed up home pc

The_Mowgs

The_Mowgs

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So I have a pc that I built about 7 years ago and lately it has become extremely sluggish after booting it up.

I want to speed it up again seeing as applications now takes forever to open and run like it should.

The main, and only use for this pc is web browsing, printing, emails and office so I am not looking for something spectacular.

Is it possible to only swap the motherboard and RAM for something new and keep the rest of the components?

Here is what I currently have;

Summary
Operating System
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1
CPU
Intel Pentium E5300 @ 2.60GHz 64 °C
Wolfdale 45nm Technology
RAM
2.00GB Single-Channel DDR2 @ 399MHz (5-5-5-18)
Motherboard
MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO.,LTD G31TM-P35 (MS-7529) (CPU1) 63 °C
Graphics
V193HQL (1366x768@60Hz)
Intel G33/G31 Express Chipset Family (MSI)
Storage
232GB Seagate ST3250318AS ATA Device (SATA) 36 °C
Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS40 ATA Device
Audio
USB Audio Device



Even when on idle the memory use is at 1.21Gb

Any suggestions except buying a whole new pc?
 
Agree SSD will give you best bang for your buck. Aside from that I'm afraid you would need a new mobo, cpu, ram & storage drive - a new system pretty much.

Edit - changing the mobo would normally mean cpu as well as ram..
 
SSD (if it will fit) and a reinstall of only what you need, this will speed up and get rid of any residual junk. At the very least, backup, format and reinstall only what you need. This won't cost you a cent and you should see a speed improvement.
 
Format, reinstall.
Add another 2GB ram for a total of 4GB.
Buy a SSD if budget permits.
 
I suggest you first download and install ccleaner.
Run that to clean out all the temp files in your system.
Install and run Malwarebytes anti-malware free to clean up any adware/malware

Then install a good defragmenting program and run that at least twice.
Defragler, My Defrag are good ones to use. There are also many others.

It is also worth running the Microsoft fixit tool for slow performance - http://support.microsoft.com/en-za/mats/slow_windows_performance
 
Dont bother cleaning, just reinstall. An SSD is unnecessary, you can get a hybrid drive (90% SSD performance, 1/3 the cost).
 
Defintly more ram, then an ssd if there is budget for it.
 
Apart from the SSD your RAM is pretty much the minimum for Win 7. I would consider increasing the RAM to 4GB, that should reduce memory swapping.

However I would start by cleaning up your disk. If you don't already have it download CCleaner and delete all the unnecessary software that you have accumulated / all unnecessary software that loads at start-up / etc.
 
Elro said:
Agree SSD will give you best bang for your buck. Aside from that I'm afraid you would need a new mobo, cpu, ram & storage drive - a new system pretty much.

Edit - changing the mobo would normally mean cpu as well as ram..
Click to expand...

werfie said:
SSD (if it will fit) and a reinstall of only what you need, this will speed up and get rid of any residual junk. At the very least, backup, format and reinstall only what you need. This won't cost you a cent and you should see a speed improvement.
Click to expand...

The above guys are right. The below needs some tweaking.

ponder said:
Buy SSD.
Format, reinstall.
Add another 2GB ram for a total of 4GB.
Click to expand...

http://www.wootware.co.za/intel-ssd...-5-inch-sata-iii-6gb-s-solid-state-drive.html

http://www.wootware.co.za/crucial-c...6gb-2-5-sata-iii-6gb-s-solid-state-drive.html

http://www.takealot.com/ocz-arc-100-2-5-ssd-240gb/PLID33054507
 
Thanks for all of the suggestions guys, really appreciate it.

1. Will run all of the clean up, defrag, diagnostic software and see what happens
2. I really dont think I need a SSD.
3. Regarding RAM - This seems like the biggest problem but the mobo can only taker up to 4gig RAM thats why I thought of just replacing the mobo and CPU and then add 4gig new RAM and then there will stilll be space left for more on the new mobo then I can just use the same HDD as I have now
4. I have malware bytes and have ran all the scans, nothing comes up.
5. I have also dissabled all non essential programs from the start up

If I want to replace only the mobo, cpu and RAM, which will be best for my current situation keeping in mind that I only use this pc as a home / office pc.

And again, thank you for all of the suggestions.
 
If you are not into gaming I would suggest the following.

Use a smaller hard drive reserved for your os only. Here you can choose to dualboot with windows and a Linux distro that's quick on its feet like the kde or xfce versions. Do not install any programs on Windows apart from obvious system upgrades like flash .net etc etc also a reliable system cleaner, ccleaner or the like.

On another hard drive, one significantly larger for your files I recommend portable apps.
Now, im not recommending it but there are pirated modified commercial apps made portable for office and well anything really, but legal and free portable apps are available for any or most purposes. You can choose to use the portable apps menu or simply create shortcuts to your windows menu folder so it shows up in the start menu. I think you can just bring up the menu and paste, cant remember.

The obvious advantage of this is that if schit goes south (as it always does with windows) you can simply reinstall without inserting disc after disc and clicking next next next when reinstalling. The apps are safe. The speed improvement will be significant from the fresh new smell of a newly installed os with no fracking programs installed apart from the upgrades via wed and that your system cleaner.
Oh. As a bonus theres that wintoflash and other programs enabling installation from flash drives which even with your system literally takes under 20 minutes to install.
 
SSD is unnecessary, IMO (not unnecessary, but not the clear bottleneck). You could get a different CPU 2ndhand for not much more than R3-500, and 4-6gb of ram. You're running below minimum level on ram, and the CPU is slow even by lga775 standards. Then if you can budget, go ssd by all means.
 
The_Mowgs said:
If I want to replace only the mobo, cpu and RAM, which will be best for my current situation keeping in mind that I only use this pc as a home / office pc.
Click to expand...

Cheapest option would be to get a used quad core (Q6600 etc) + RAM second hand on Carbonite and use your existing MB.

If you wanna go new you can get the following which will be fine for office work,
R636 - MB - MSI Intel H81M-P33
R1693 - CPU - Intel Core i3 4160 3.60Ghz (Raru has it for ~R100 cheaper)
R488 - RAM - Adata 4GB DDR3 1600Mhz
-or-
R916 - RAM - G.Skill F3-1600C9D-8GAB 8GB (2x4GB) Good deal!
 
Last edited:
DrJohnZoidberg said:
SSD. There is nothing that slows your computer down more than a mechanical hard drive.
Click to expand...

SSD is not gonna sort the OP's 2GB RAM issue out which is his biggest hassle at the moment, the OS + Browser with a few tabs open will chow through that 2GB quickly resulting in the swap file being used which really grinds things to a halt as RAM contents now gets swapped out to the hard drive. An SSD is a nice to have in the OPs situation.
 
ponder said:
SSD is not gonna sort the OP's 2GB RAM issue out which is his biggest hassle at the moment, the OS + Browser with a few tabs open will chow through that 2GB quickly resulting in the swap file being used which really grinds things to a halt as RAM contents now gets swapped out to the hard drive. An SSD is a nice to have in the OPs situation.
Click to expand...

SSD and RAM. I would start with SSD though, because RAM only helps on apps that are already open and using the memory efficiently.
 
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