How do I get my computer to be more efficient?

Ive had this computer for a really long time but it was the best of its bunch at the time.
Problem these days is how slow it is, it takes a good 20minutes in the morning to allow me an internet connection. If I have too many boxes open at the bottom it just freezes all the time.
Dare I play music and try to do anything at the same time it wont budge.
I do a clean up every now and then to clear out the temporary internet files but that doesnt make any difference.
Anybody know what I can do to get more efficiency out of it?

Have you done a defrag lately as i find that often helps, also try scaning for spyware as that can slow PCs down.

You could look for a programe called ccleaner it helps clean up alot of errors and files that are not needed.

hi laura,
Sounds like you dont have enough memory to run the applications you want to. Are you using Windows XP? If so, that is very memory hungry and will use a lot of resources just to run, maybe worth turning off all the fancy 'eye candy' that XP comes with as default.

If you can, it would be worth getting a little more memory (RAM) and this day and age, it is quite cheap, even just an extra 256MB would make a good improvment on what you already have.

If that isnt an option, maybe worth trying spyware/virus scans, unless you already have? Thing with Internet Explorer is that when browsing the web, its like a block of swiss cheese as far as security is concerned, lol it'll let anything in! So that could be a bit of an issue to, if you are suffering with pop-ups etc then id say thats 1/2 the problem, goto www.download.com and search for 'adaware SE' download it, install it and scan your PC and see how you get on with that! Thats a spyware removal tool and is free, and does the job very well.

Another good free program is 'Spybot' available at the same site, again id recommend running both of these programs once a week if you do a lot of web browsing.

Hope this all makes sense and helps!

Erin x

It could be memory as patterlands said, what antivirus do you use as these can be memory hogs aswell norton is one who loves memory.

Here is also a direct link to adaware

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/...e_personal.php

Hmmm i think the time may of come to get a new pc Miss K , what about your new laptop which you got a christmas, are you going to get the internet for that?

You could try dropping it from the top floor window

Or maybe just add some extra RAM

Thanks so much Erin that was really helpful. Ive downloaded both and run them which showed up some infected files. Mind it took all day for them to download and run.
I do have Windows xp professional with a pop up blocker. I did a disk clean up & defragment, so I will let you know how it performs when Im next opening loads of boxes.
Wish me luck ............

even an old computer connects to the net as fast as a new one sure you dont have to change it if you are happy with it as others said a bit more ram will help it to run faster depending if you can still buy it ? and get rid of the programs which you do not use or even a fresh install of windows would help still cheaper than a new one and maybe better the pentium 3 was a good one and still works ok today you can upgrade a computer very reasonable today and keep all your files and programs you are used to have a read of this a good opinion and maybe give you the right idea
http://www.daileyint.com/hmdpc/pcs.htm:smt002

Good to see you again Fred. Thanks for that, the link didnt work?
Funnily enough when I did the spyware thing I got a box come up saying my virtual memory was low & windows was increasing it. Will spyware help with that?

Luz I had the same problem, mine was about 6yrs old and had NVRAM which is obsolete now, so I couldnt increase the memory! It was soooooo slow, and Norton wasnt helping as it uses a LOT of memory. I kept getting the low virtual memory thing too, windows increasing it etc... but it just so bad I bought a new base unit, and its zoomy fast!! Only £190 too.
Dawn,