What is the best "soft" way to speed up my computer?

Are the files located on your computer’s hard drive or on a network drive?

EDIT: That is the files you are trying to load.

What processes are running, and where do they start from?

- Use Blackviper’s website to turn off unnecessary services.
– Uninstall all the programs you are sure you don’t need/use.
– Follow some of these tips .

Cleaning the ventilator-vents might also do good.
Vist Speedfan link,
“SpeedFan monitor temperatures from several sources. By properly configuring SpeedFan, you can let it change fan speeds based on system temperatures.”
I think this adjusting-thing can only be done with certain processors, but it could well be that you have just the one.

@se_ven & @pdworkin All of the applications I’m talking about are locally stored. For instance, I’ve been monitoring my CPU usage and it maxes out for extended periods (maybe 30 seconds) when I open Excel, or Acrobat, or Outlook. And no, not all at once. It’s just that my CPU seems to max out at 100% every single time I open a new application and it stays that way for a good while.

@NaturalMineralWater & @rebbel I’ll give these tips a shot.

Thanks guys.

Maybe you have insufficient virtual memory.

@pdworkin And how do I remedy that?

Windows usually sets the size, but check the help for swap file and see if you can still override it the way one used to be able to. Things change, so this might be very old fashioned advice.

@NoCatharsis the Windows Search Indexing (XP) function has caused me problems in the past. Link on how to turn off

To followup what @pdworkin was saying,

to increase virtual memory, right-click on “My Computer” and click Properties (Or go into Control Panel and click on System), go to the Advanced tab, and click Settings under Performance. Go to the Advanced tab of this new window, the last little section there is for Virtual memory. Click Change and choose a size.
It would be best if you could have the virtual memory on a secondary harddrive (so that it isn’t interrupting activity on your primary, with your OS and such), but not necessary.

I think somewhere it’s said that you’re supposed to set your virtual memory to 1.5x what your actual RAM is. But my virtual memory is double my RAM.

Double-posting, I’m a real rebel.
If you turn off/down some visual effects, you’ll squeeze a bit more performance out of your machine. As I said above, right-click “My Computer”, click Properties, go to Advanced and under Performance, click Settings.
Right now you’ll probably see “Let Windows choose what’s best for my computer” or “Adjust for best appearance”. I have all of those visual options disabled except for “Use common tasks in folders”, you may want to play around with the settings and see.

Also, hold down your Windows Key and hit R (to open a run prompt). Type in msconfig and go to the startup tab. Disable services you KNOW you don’t need automatically on. If you’re not certain, I’d suggest not messing with it. (when you’re done hit Apply, Close, and “exit without restart”)

I’d suggest defragging but you say you’ve got a good defrag app so I assume you use it (Use it more often, perhaps?).
You may want to clear some temp files. Open up your start menu, go to All Programs, then Accessories, System Tools and select disk cleanup. It’ll take a while to analyze when you first open it. Select some things you’d like to see removed, and remove them. The only option I wouldn’t outright suggest is “Compress old files”. It doesn’t actually remove anything like the other choices, but rather just, well, compresses files that you haven’t used in a long time. In my experience it doesn’t really help much. Your mileage may vary.

(You can manually compress files that you know you don’t plan on using soon. I did that with some big install files as well as movies. Just right-click the item in question, go to properties, near the bottom hit “Advanced” and then select “Compress contents to save disk space”)

Your performance is bottlenecked by your processor (perhaps ram speed). I don’t know what your workplace is like, or your motherboard, but it may be a good idea to go buy a better processor. You don’t have to spend a lot to get better than a P4.

@Sarcasm Thanks a lot for the tips. A few things:

- When I try to run msconfig, I get a message saying Windows cannot find it.
– Auslogics Disk Defrag was one of the free defragmenters suggested on Lifehacker and it works really well. I have it set to run every single night, so I can’t get much more often than that.
– CCleaner is another Lifehacker recommendation and it pretty much cleans all the temp files you’re talking about (it stands for CrapCleaner). It even dives into the registry to clean renegade lines out, not that that would be slowing me down much.
– I don’t have much I can compress here on my work computer. I don’t keep media or installations on here.
– I haven’t researched computer hardware much lately, but are P4s that outdated? I thought that would at least be decent enough to run Outlook, Excel, and 3 or 4 other apps I might have open simultaneously. I mean I’ve had computers in the past with lower processing power and they ran it all just fine.

Thanks again for the help.

I really don’t know how well P4s run these days. But I know that none of them are multi-core and only some of the more modern ones even support hyperthreading (Both of which would boost multitasking performance).

But you may have difficulties finding a new cpu that fits. Most modern Intel processors fit a socket called LGA 775 (It’s a literal, physical different shape from other sockets). So if your motherboard doesn’t have an LGA775 socket you may be out of luck. I’m really not sure how to check, someone else here certainly is wiser than I.

For some processors (Like mine, for example) were only manufactured as one socket type. However, Pentium 4s over the years were manufactured as 3 different sockets. So depending on how old your processor is, it may or may not be a 775.

Your PC seems powerful enough to me.
Perhaps you are suffering of a memory leak in one of your apps.
A memory leak is a process/program that uses memory, but afterwards doesn’t release it back to your computer.

You can try installing Process Explorer from Microsoft to get better insight in which process uses how much memory.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

In the past I located HP print support software, Firefox, SVhost and was able to configure or upgrade them in such a way that they were not leaking memory anymore anf by doing so speeded up my computer considerably.

Just let me know if you some help in reading the process explorer screens.

@YYAAPP Thank you for the info. I have downloaded the app and I’m giving it a try now. How exactly do I use it to its full potential though? I see all of my processes, but most are not using too much CPU power. How can I break it down and figure out which might have a memory leak?