Faster Computer

[DBru]

Okay, I have recently installed BOTH RCT2 & RCT3, and Microsoft Office Professional on my computer, and both take up a LOT of space! Now, my games are lagging badly as well as my internet (and I have DSL)!

 

I don't know what to do. Here is what my computer came with (its a 2006 ACER laptop):

 

-100gb hard-drive

-1gb RAM

-Windows XP

 

So what do I do? Should I upgrade my RAM? And what is a graphics card?

[Carnage]

How much free hard drive space do you have?

 

I'd check that first. Because if your hard drive is low on space it will affect performance like you're experiencing.

[Chris Benvenuto]

Okay, I have recently installed BOTH RCT2 & RCT3, and Microsoft Office Professional on my computer, and both take up a LOT of space! Now, my games are lagging badly as well as my internet (and I have DSL)!

 

I don't know what to do. Here is what my computer came with (its a 2006 ACER laptop):

 

-100gb hard-drive

-1gb RAM

-Windows XP

 

So what do I do? Should I upgrade my RAM? And what is a graphics card?

 

 

A graphics card is what allows to see what your doing on a computer

 

But seriously, hard drive space could be the problem. How much space do you have left? I'd suggest if you're low on space, to delete some crap you don't need or barely use and see if it helps

[DBru]

Not to sound like an idiot, but... how do I find how much space I have? lol

 

(You can tell I'm not very computer smart... )

 

IS it under System & Hardware in Control Panel?

[Chris Benvenuto]

you go into your icon titled My Computer and click on the icon titled Hard Drive. That's it.

 

Are you running Vista?

[DBru]

I tried My Computer, but there is not an icon that says hard dive

[Chris Benvenuto]

If you're running Vista, I can't help. I'm running XP and switch to XP if you can. Vista is teh suck.

[DBru]

^Nope, Windows XP...

[DBru]

Okay, found the hard drive space, here is what it says:

 

-Used Space= 14.3 GB

-Free Space= 30.6 GB

 

-Capacity= 44.9 GB

 

 

Hey, what happened to my 100 GB of hard drive space?!?!?

 

Anyway, is this bad?

[bgeguy]

Okay, found the hard drive space, here is what it says:

 

-Used Space= 14.3 GB

-Free Space= 30.6 GB

 

-Capacity= 44.9 GB

 

 

Hey, what happened to my 100 GB of hard drive space?!?!?

 

Anyway, is this bad?

What happened was Windows took up that space.

[DeliriumTrigger]

^Windows doesn't take that much space. Certainly not XP...(Nor vista, though it does take more).

 

Even if it did, it would show up as used space...it wouldn't just disappear.

 

Now my question is what your partition setup looks like...Do you know how to take screenshots? If so...

 

• right click "My Computer"
  
• Click "Manage"
  
• Click Disk Management. (It's under the "Storage" header, if you don't see it. Just click the + next to storage.)

 

Take a screenshot of that window, it should look like the one I've attached.

 

If you don't know how to take a screenshot...go through the steps to open that management window, then do this:

 

• Press the print screen button.
  
• open MS Paint. (Start >> all programs >> accessories)
  
• Hold down ctrl and press V
  
• Save the file
  
• Post it here

[DBru]

Here you go...

Lots of confusing stuff I don't understand... lol

[DeliriumTrigger]

Ok, that explains where your 100gigs went.

 

Basically, a 100 gig hard drive doesn't actually equal 100 gigs. It's usually a little less, due to the file system and other things that you never see or think about.

 

Generally, that size gets larger based on how big the hard drive is. For example, I have a 500 gig hard drive, but after formatting it (so data can be written and read), there's only 487 free.

 

But that's not the reason you're only seeing 44.9 gigs. The reason for that is...basically, the computer has that drive split up into what's called two "logical" drives, which means it makes the computer think one drive is actually two. That's why in that image (and presumably in My Computer), you'll see a "C:" drive, and a "D:" drive. Your big hard drive is split down the middle into two (imaginary) smaller ones.

 

Based on your screenshot, I'm going to go ahead and say the hard drive space is not causing your problems - the C drive is still 68% free.

 

Your system specs look good. I don't know what your graphics card is capable of, so I can't really say how the games should be performing, but you shouldn't be having any issues whatsoever with browsing the internet.

 

These problems only started showing up after installing those three programs, yes? Nothing else changed, and it was working fine and fast before?

[Wes]

Why are you wasting your time fixing your computer? The world is ending in four years!!!!

[DBru]

^A lot can be done on the computer in 4 years, Wes! Just think, without one, you couldn't post 50 jerk(ish) remarks a day to every other person on this site

 

^^And yes, it was just after I installed the 3 programs...

[Wes]

Man I was going to give you help too, but not now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Defragment your hard drive)

[DeliriumTrigger]

Very odd...those three programs shouldn't be interfering at all, unless they installed some background apps along the way (and the only one that sounds like it may have done that is Office, although I can't think of any that would have put in.

 

Ok...seems like another screenshot will be helpful.

 

• Press CTRL+shift+escape
  
• Click the "Processes" tab
  
• Expand it until you can see all the processes (Or take two screenshots if you have to scroll/can't fit it)
  
• Click "Mem Usage" until the number underneath it is the biggest one you have listed.
  
• Take the screenshot(s)

 

It should look like the attached screenshot.

[ParkTrips]

Why are you wasting your time fixing your computer? The world is ending in four years!!!!

at least if he speeds up his computer, he will be able to surf the web quicker, and thus create more awesome threads discussing apocalypse theories and sleeping habits

[DBru]

^You forgot sledding experiences...

 

^^Here they are:

[DeliriumTrigger]

Interesting. I'd say defrag like Wes suggested as a start...Everything else looks fine, to me anyway. Hopefully someone else will see whatever I'm not seeing.

 

Just doesn't make sense to me that one or all of those three apps would change it this much. Especially since nothing is running out of the ordinary in the background.

[Carnage]

One thing I noticed was that your drives are formatting via FAT32, instead of NTFS.

 

Of course that's not going to mean much to you. But that would slow things down a bit. Though probably not all of a sudden like you've experienced.

 

Nothing really you can do about that though, short of doing a complete reformat. Which really isn't worth it.

[ebl]

Wes, you made my day!

 

Eric

[DBru]

^Mine too, because defragmenting actually worked!

 

Thanks Wes...

[ebl]

^ As a guideline, I defrag my computer once a week after doing a Disk Cleanup on each of our accounts. Of course, I use AdAware and Spybot Search and Destroy once a week, too, along with a complete scan with my anti-virus program.

 

All of this takes some time, but it keeps things clean and fast. XP Pro is the way to go if you're using Windows.

 

Eric

[DBru]

^Yeah, I have Ad-Aware and AVG Anti-virus that scan my computer every night. I couldn't even imagine how bad my computer would be if I didn't have those...