How do i make this computer faster?

[suraswami]

upgrade ram to 8GB, install 64 bit OS (Fresh OS is like brand new car, zippy). Ofcourse SSD.

But to be more conservative, I imaged my family machine from 5 yr old OS running on an old 200GB IDE to 120GB SSD. It feels like the same OS suddenly woke up from dead!

 

[kajson]

I can tell you I have installed windows 7 starter edition on an old laptop of a friend of mine, there was 1gb of ram and a celeron singlecore 1.7ghz processor in there. And much to my bewilderment, it actually ran very very smooth, before the reinstall it performed about the same as your system does now,
my reasoning was that if an eee pc can run it, it might be my best bet, I didnt want to go driver hunting for win xp.
It's definitely the win 7 with the lowest memory footprint by far, designed to run smoothly on 1gb ram. And it is actually quite functional if you don't have too high demands.

But still I'd go with removing the dust first as 80c processor is always a good thing to try to avoid.

PS. Shortterm solution download ccleaner, use the cleaner and turn off anything you dont use in the startup manager to free up memory and reboot.

 

[BiggieShady]

80 degrees on core 2 quad, that poor cpu is throttling ... and only 1 GB of RAM is not helping either.
At that temp cpu fan should be screaming loud, and if you haven't noticed the noise, check if the cpu fan is spinning, is cpu heatsink seated well, is fan connected to 4 pin pwm connector and is fan control properly set in bios.

 

[Peter1986C]

We cannot know whether that CPU temp is actually correct as long as we did not verify this via the BIOS or monitoring software from Gigabyte itself. Although of course there is a chance it is throttling. BTW, what is the matter with the other PC you said is unuseable?

 

[Frick]

Haha, I remember one of the things I do after installing Windows is to completely disable updates.

And I never update my Linux system after installed as well. I hate updates...

Disable the option for the system to use HDD space as RAM.

I was running 2GB on Windows 7 + running a game (1.7GB+ used) and the system stayed fast as it should on "alt+tab" and everything.

This is ... this is stupid. DIsabe updates on a Windows machine? And are you suggesting disabing page file with 1GB RAM? That shouldn't work.

 

[Blue-Knight]

And are you suggesting disabing page file with 1GB RAM?

No, with 2GB. I quoted the "girl's" post.

This is ... this is stupid. DIsabe updates on a Windows machine?

I did not say it is a smart decision, I just shared what I do. And I didn't recommend it as well.

 

[ste2425]

As others have said drop 7 and get Ubuntu or any other flavour you want on there. It's free then you can spend your money and time on fixing your main rig. If all you doing is browsing the net you'l probably find it a more enjoyable experience regardless of the system.

 

[Blue-Knight]

As others have said drop 7 and get Ubuntu

Ubuntu eats a lot of memory... Get a lighter alternative.

 

[ste2425]

Ubuntu eats a lot of memory... Get a lighter alternative.

Did not know that.

 

[Ja.KooLit]

Ubuntu eats a lot of memory... Get a lighter alternative.

id say xubuntu. or linuxmint xfce. if you want even lighter, puppy linux, lubuntu

 

[Derek12]

Lubuntu. I run it on my netbook with 1 GB and fine. Installed win7 after upgrading it to 2GB
Anyway quad core with only 1GB RAM???? Veeery unbalanced computer

 

[Arjai]

Something I just noticed from your screenshot: The 80 degree celcius temp of your cpu! That seems a little excessive. I wonder if it is throttling as well?! Do you have CoreTemp, so you could see what temperatures each core is running at?

Anyone else think the CPU temp is contributing to the problem?

+1
Buy a fan. While your at it, grab another 512MB DD2. Consider it 25 Bucks well spent.

 

[Arjai]

 

[Capitan Harlock]

Like the guys tell you already 1gb is not good for windows 7.
From my personal experience with a core 2 duo and 2gb of ram and now with a quad with 8gb of ram is another world run windows 7 but all depends on what you run on start up and what antivirus are you using.
1 week ago i was using on my actual system avg free and a lot of times i noticed that some times from 8gb of ram in use without other things open my ram on use was much more than 2 gb but after change it with bit defender the ram use was much lower but is not only that so i suggest too to change os like linux mint or other linux distro plus control your system inside the case for lower you cpu temps like change termal paste,clean dust and for my curiosity i wanna know if this pc is a hp or like pc you buy in a store o is build by yourself? because for pc temps the case airflow means a lot as well .

 

[silentbogo]

With your current CPU temp i would suggest to open up your PC case and do some serious cleaning. Swap the thermal compound and preferably get a better HS(used ones are cheap). With 1GB RAM on Win7 the only thing you can do is disable Aero and switch the appearance to Windows Classic.
Also it won't hurt to disable some unused services and unload OS startup as much as you can. Don't forget to run defragmentation on your hdd(s) and cleanup the registry. If windows 7 can run on my gf's EEE PC, it can definitely work on your computer.
Another serious bottleneck is the speed of your RAM (size was mentioned many times already). You could significantly improve your system's performance by running Dual-channel DDR2-800 sticks. Corsair XMS2 PC6400 2x1GB set will cost you under $20 on ebay. Better than cashing out on a new system.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I agree - 1 GB RAM isn't much. Also, have you tried using Krojam Cleaner? I use that and it speeds up my laptop.

this sounds more like a shameless plug more than anything else if not a trap...

CC Cleaner has the same functionality and their more widely known then Krojam - cleaning up temp files will do very little to speed your pc or laptop up unless your main hard drive with the OS on it is down to its very last gig of space

::EDIT::

Also Krojam isnt free - CC Cleaner is.

 

[Derek12]

As said if you don't want to buy more RAM, you can't do much, defrag your disk (I use Mydefrag, better than Windows defragger) clean your disk, registry and startup programs (I use CCleaner) and defrag your registry (I use Auslogics) and if you are using Chrome, enable plugins on click (settings / show advanced settings / content settings / plugins, click to play) to avoid flash based ads to eat CPU and memory.

Check with HWinfo if your CPU is throttling due to overheating.
Also always install updates, they can improve performance besides security.

With your current CPU temp i would suggest to open up your PC case and do some serious cleaning. Swap the thermal compound and preferably get a better HS(used ones are cheap). With 1GB RAM on Win7 the only thing you can do is disable Aero and switch the appearance to Windows Classic.
Also it won't hurt to disable some unused services and unload OS startup as much as you can. Don't forget to run defragmentation on your hdd(s) and cleanup the registry. If windows 7 can run on my gf's EEE PC, it can definitely work on your computer.
Another serious bottleneck is the speed of your RAM (size was mentioned many times already). You could significantly improve your system's performance by running Dual-channel DDR2-800 sticks. Corsair XMS2 PC6400 2x1GB set will cost you under $20 on ebay. Better than cashing out on a new system.

Windows 7 does run in 1GB netbooks/computers but it does horribly at least for me and I tried everything to optimize it, Since I've upgraded it to 2GB now it's smooth as butter. Today's program specially browsers and office require more and more RAM and 1 GB is not enough

Even my desktop with 2GB was on the limit (though I use a 64-bit OS). Now with 6 GB it is still smoother.

 

[Aquinus]

This is ... this is stupid. DIsabe updates on a Windows machine? And are you suggesting disabing page file with 1GB RAM? That shouldn't work.

That's because @Blue-Knight already said that his posts are stupid and that we're all stupid for replying to him so really, just ignore him.

Ubuntu eats a lot of memory... Get a lighter alternative.

Ubuntu Gnome eats 512Mb on boot on my i7 rig. A clean Ubuntu install using something like i3 will eat as little as 128-256Mb. Windows 7 eats 3Gb of ram on my tower with 16GB, it used 1.5Gb with 8Gb of ram, and if you use less, Windows uses less, but all in all, Windows uses significantly more memory than Ubuntu does, regardless of the particular distro.

You really should stop talking about things you don't know.

 

[micropage7]

if you still want to run win7 with limited ram, try disable unnecessary services, disable any background process that you dont need, turn off aero
using light weight applications

 

[Derek12]

That's because @Blue-Knight already said that his posts are stupid and that we're all stupid for replying to him so really, just ignore him.

Ubuntu Gnome eats 512Mb on boot on my i7 rig. A clean Ubuntu install using something like i3 will eat as little as 128-256Mb. Windows 7 eats 3Gb of ram on my tower with 16GB, it used 1.5Gb with 8Gb of ram, and if you use less, Windows uses less, but all in all, Windows uses significantly more memory than Ubuntu does, regardless of the particular distro..

Windows takes more RAM because of prefetch

 

[LagunaX]

Definitely need more ram, 2x1gb minimum but 2x2gb ddr2 preferred for Win 7.
New 2x1gb will run you $30 and 2x2gb $50ish.
You can probably find a nice matched pair used on thee forums here for less.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

This thread should be closed, the best possible answers have already been given and everyone here is just repeating whats already been said. The OP hasnt given any other feedback other than the fact that he doesn't want to spend any money on it. He wanted our advice and he didn't accept it when we gave it. There's nothing more to see here

 

[Aquinus]

Windows takes more RAM because of prefetch

I consider cached memory free memory. Windows still eats more even without SuperFetch.

 

[Derek12]

I consider cached memory free memory. Windows still eats more even without SuperFetch.

I though prefetch counted as used memory instead of cached (which are closed apps) but well I may be wrong. That would explain why memory usage (not cached) won't sum up in the active process list which shows every component.

 

[Hugis]

just fork out some cash and get it up to 2Gb as everyone suggest, crickey thats about 20€uros