Clearing out my PC

[devonutopia]

My PC is quite old, but yet also quite reliable and quite fast when it gets going.

Are there typical apps out there that can perhaps get rid of files which are known to be useless / clogging up space. Also, same with programs maybe as there could be some I don't use.

Any tips to make it better. It is de'frag'd quite often so that's not possible.

PS: I am a fairly techie numpty, so go steady

[BigW]

Have you tried C Cleaner, http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

its good at just cleaning general debris out, but has quite a good programme remover and registry fixer included in it too.

[swordstoke]

My PC is quite old, but yet also quite reliable and quite fast when it gets going.

Are there typical apps out there that can perhaps get rid of files which are known to be useless / clogging up space. Also, same with programs maybe as there could be some I don't use.

Any tips to make it better. It is de'frag'd quite often so that's not possible.

PS: I am a fairly techie numpty, so go steady

Always found CCleaner to be quite good !

http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

...and on the same site http://www.piriform.com/defraggler seems to to a better job of defraging than windows own!

Have you checked 'add remove progs' to see if there any redundant progs etc?

There are a few other things one can do which invlove using 'msconfig' command and checking how system resources are being used etc

Good luck!

[vectra1]

ccleaner and add remove are only part of the battle. To be honest if it is a few years old and getting a good bit of use the registry will be getting bogged down which in turn will slow the pc down

Best bet is to back up your important data and re-format it and re-install windows ( or whatever operating system you use )

[Neo_VR]

delete your pr0n folder.....

HTH

[DavidY]

If you have Windows XP or older then you might consider "Page Defrag".

It's tucked away on the SysInternals bit of the Microsoft web site here.

This defragmenter will defrag your "page file" that most defragmenters can't get at. It also defrags the Hibernation file - my laptop hibernation/ dehibernation is much quicker after using it.

But I don't think it works with Vista or Windows 7.

[Aspman]

Another vote for CC cleaner.

Defraggler can defrag a bit better than Windows own, still takes a while.

Run "MSconfig" and have a look in the startup section, if there is a lot of crap in there you can stop some of the more obvious programs from running when you boot.

Be careful not to stop your AV.

And sometimes a reformat and reinstall can work wonders, but it is a lot of work.

Edited 3 August, 2010 by Aspman

[Octavia_VRS]

Best and easiest option is just reload windows, i always find once you go down the registry root and this space optimiser applications it can just make it worst. It dont sound like yove reloaded XP in years so give it a go if the above fails or makes it worst.

Ryan

[GentleGiant]

CC Cleaner and Defraggler get my vote. Question! How much RAM do you have?? Unless you do video editing or something similarly intensive memory-wise, and you have 2Gb or more of RAM, try turning OFF the page file.

Even if you dont need it, Win will still keep trying to use it, and it slows the system quite a lot. If you have less than 2Gb, keep an eye on how much page file you use and then manually set the Min/Max size to give you 10% more than that. Win set the page file size "dynamically", which means a lot of fragmentation of files on the HDD. Giving it a fixed size stops this from happening.

[swedishskoda]

You can disable a lot of stuff that loads at startup, see:

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

or, if you also want to reduce the amount of hdd space that windows occupies, you can install a slimmed version, see:

http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html

[richardsfavorit]

Worth clearing down the temporary file folders - the temporary folder under the root of your hard drive, and those under documents and settings\_profile name\local settings\temp .

If you want to keep it running and don't mind spending a little bit of money on a memory upgrade, then check out the crucial memory website. There is an online scanner there to determine how much memory your pc has and how much you can upgrade it for. Note that you will have to pull the side off your pc and change the memory if you choose to purchase it! Not too difficult if you need to do it, its just I felt I should mention it as I spoke to someone about going on there to buy memory and they thought it upgraded automatically!!

If you so purchase some memory and aren't 100% sure about how to install, drop us a PM and I will talk you through it

[devonutopia]

PC is a relatively old AMD 64 X2 2.21ghz and has 1.75gb of ram. Not slow I think, but maybe is nowadays.

Shall see what I can do.

[richardsfavorit]

That is a reasonable spec pc still - certainly should cope with most day to day stuff. If your using it for gaming it might benefit with more memory.

[devonutopia]

Well well.... Got Ccleaner working last night and it got rid of 4Gb of stuff! 4 GIG! God knows what that was, but my PC is flying now in comparison to before. I am having to re-sign in to all forums so guess it got rid of my cookies, but there we go. Small price to pay.

Might try defrag tonight now.

[ChrisRs]

Bit late on the thread, but I use this free app..Its fantastic:

http://www.iobit.com/

[devonutopia]

Well - It was a bit TOO thorough this cleaning out lark.

For some reason I now get an "Access denied" error when accessing the insight aspect of my youtube account (tells me who is watching what vids etc) Not sure what it is about?

Copy

Webpage error details

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)

Timestamp: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:22:23 UTC

Message: Access is denied.

Line: 2435

Char: 37

Code: 0

I have reloaded flash player latest, and updated Java. I can't think what this relates to?

[Aspman]

Try uninstalling FF then reinstalling. Or try Opera / IE to make sure the problem is definitely at your end