My PC is so slow that it takes 8 minutes to boot up! (upgrade RAM or new PC?)

norton wont help you.

Maybe virusses?

Replying to #22

Nope no viruses. I scanned my PC w/ AVAST!
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darkphireMY 1st laptop is the slowest laptop on the planet....It takes about 10 min for me to log in and about another 20 for me to actually be able to do anything it has so many viruses and spyware its ridicoulous. So glad i got a new one and im not going to do all the stupid stuff i i did with my first one and actually use norton and cccleaner unlike i did with my 1st laptop it had no protection. Its like a target for trojans..but i still love it in a way because literally all of my emulation stuff is on here(thank you romulation) and ive played my first emulator on that computer good times =]

Note: CCleaner is not the best. In fact, Advanced SystemCare is an all-in-one program that sped up my PC by like a lot!

a PC with that spec shouldn't be taking that long to boot up. You should try cleaning your registry or use Disk Cleanup

go to crucial.com and put in your computers manufacturer + model.
then buy the max it out ram, that way if your comp. goes up to lets say 1GB and you have 256 mb memory it will most likely give you 2x512 mb chips to put in your comp. then your computer will operate fasteralso if you limit the amount of start-up programs it will stop the start up time of your comp.

XeNo - A.K.A Steelez · #24a PC with that spec shouldn't be taking that long to boot up. You should try cleaning your registry or use Disk Cleanup

It actually takes that long! Well, not really anymore after tweaking it some more using Regestry editor (and yes IU know what I am doing!) Its now more of 5 minutes but still, it's still very slow overall!
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Replying to #25

I litterally stripped down my PCs start-up.
By the way, what is ctfmon.exe?
Start-up:
AVAST! Anti-Virus 4.8, I know Version 5 is out!
SmartRAM (tells me and cleans up my RAM, therefore I can actually use my PC!)
ctfmon.exe (whatever that is...)The max. RAM:
3.2GBs (for 32-bit of XP)
I got 3 DDR slots, 1 x 256MB.
I used to have 768MB of ram but the 512MB RAM (DDR) stick broke down for some reason. I turned off my PC for 1 hour and soon enough, I lost 512MB of RAM!

ctfmon is a windows service, I wouldnt stop it.

I'd say that you should get a new computer, I mean 1.57Ghz? What exactly is that going to run? And 512mb? That's ok for it's time but not good for now!I think that it would cost more money updating certain aspects of your computer than it would to replace the entire thing!

Sabri23You need 512MB of ram for XP to run it smooth

my old computer only has 256 mb RAM and it only takes a few seconds

I still recommend a new computer

I think I can help you out since we both have close to the same specs (except that my processor is 1.7GHZ, and I have an ATI Radeon 9700 Video card)I just did a little cleaning up (useless items, startup programs), and the major thing was that I added ram to my PC (added 256MB to bring it up to 512MB). Now the PC starts in about 2-3 minutes from the time I press the power button, to when it's completely loaded

Upgrade or you've got a virus

Go onto your areas equivalent of Freecycle, should be able to get some ram for free. In the past I've picked up several computers, all of higher specification than the one you are currently using for free (then scavanged parts from them, before giving them to others).

Use Norton Ghost to backup your hard drive to DVDs. Then wipe it all out and reinstall windows fresh. Sounds like you got some unwanted background processes in there slowing things up.

or you could try this:
Right click my computer--->click Properties--->click Advanced--->click Performance settings--->under Visual effects click Adjust for best performance (if you want to keep your theme, go to the very bottom and click use visual styles)--->click Apply--->click the Advanced tab--->go down to Virtual settings and click Change--->Click which HDD you want to use--->click Custom Size---> set both the minimum and maximum size to at least 2000MB--->click Set, then Apply, then OK
you may be asked to reboot your PC afterwards for the changes to take effect
I did this for all 3 HDD in my PCI did this in XP, not sure if Vista and 7 are the same since I don't have those OS's

you only need one paging file, and it should be on a drive that your OS isn't on. the size also depends on how much ram you have.

Replying to #36

256MB of RAM
618MB Page File
2GB Virtual
How do I get rid of Virtual Memory (or atleast lower it?) I can save 2GB or so of HHD space!
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CrackerJacks · #32Upgrade or you've got a virus

Nope, no virus. Scanned it with AVAST!
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KevInChester · #33Go onto your areas equivalent of Freecycle, should be able to get some ram for free. In the past I've picked up several computers, all of higher specification than the one you are currently using for free (then scavanged parts from them, before giving them to others).

I watched a show on Discovery Channel about Freecycling! I think it was Junk Raiders. They made a loft into a nice place!

virtual memory and pagefile are different names for the same thing.

Replying to #38

How can I lower the virtual memory?

system properties -> advanced -> performance ->advanced then click the 'change' button.