Help with computers

Home · Register · Search · Software · Hosting · Software · Join Upload & Sell

FM Forums \| Forum & Miscellaneous \| Join Upload & Sell
end

Help with computers

no_surrender
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #1 · Help with computers

Not very smart on computers, but wondering if there's anything I can do to speed up my system. Here's what I've got:

Dell XPS 8300
Windows 7 Home Premium
Intel Core i7-2600 CPU @ 3.4GHz
8.0 Gigs installed RAM
64 bit
AMD Radeon HD 6770 video card

521 GB free on the internal 1TB hard drive
266 GB free on a 2 TB free on an external WD hard drive (not sure why it's so full)
71 GB free on a 300 GB external Simple Tech hard drive

Nov 26, 2012 at 11:56 AM

EB-1
Offline
• • • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #2 · Help with computers

Add an SSD and use it as the boot drive for starters, and then add as much RAM as the mainboard will accept. Use the magnetic drives for bulk storage. Are your external drives USB 3.0?

EBH

Nov 26, 2012 at 12:41 PM

Wobble
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #3 · Help with computers

Clear cookies, cache, and history. Defragment your hard drives after doing disk cleanup. Check upload and download speeds. Check to see what all you have running in the background. The solid state boot drive will do wonders.

Nov 26, 2012 at 03:32 PM

no_surrender
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #4 · Help with computers

Thanks for the suggestions. I don't really know how to do any of that besides clearing cookies, cache, and history through Google Chrome.

So I should perform a disk cleanup on all drives? And defrag each drive?

I don't know how to check upload and download speeds or check what I'm running in the background.

What's the difference between magnetic drives and SSD? I looked into adding RAM and it seems easy and inexpensive.

The external 2 TB drive is USB 3.0 compatible, but my system doesn't have a USB 3.0 port that I know of.

Kevin

Nov 27, 2012 at 09:28 AM

no_surrender
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #5 · Help with computers

Update on the 2 TB external HD. Apparently when I set it up to be a back up drive it actually is backing up my main HD with no input from me which I like. The bad part (good really) is that I just realized it was backing up everything to include large files that I was downloading, but like 5 copies. If I downloading a 1 GB file to my main drive, it was being backed up to the 2 TB, but there would be 5 of the same 1 GB files there. I deleted about 800 GB's and then emptied the recycle bin.

Now my 2 TB drive has 1 TB free instead of 266 GB.

Nov 27, 2012 at 01:37 PM

Wobble
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #6 · Help with computers

Do disk cleanup and defrag on all drives.

Use Speedtest to check speeds on upload and download.

Speedtest

The magnetic drive has moving parts, the solid state does not.

You can look at Task Manager to see the programs that are using memory. Also, check to see what is in the tray at bottom right of Start Bar and eliminate the ones not used frequently.

Nov 27, 2012 at 02:10 PM

BenV
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #7 · Help with computers

no_surrender wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions. I don't really know how to do any of that besides clearing cookies, cache, and history through Google Chrome.

So I should perform a disk cleanup on all drives? And defrag each drive?

I don't know how to check upload and download speeds or check what I'm running in the background.

What's the difference between magnetic drives and SSD? I looked into adding RAM and it seems easy and inexpensive.

The external 2 TB drive is USB 3.0 compatible, but my system doesn't have a USB 3.0 port that I know of.

Kevin

Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Disk Defragmenter

this is for magentic drives only, never use it on an SSD.

The difference between SSD and your typical magnetic hard drive is there are no moving parts in the SSD. Which allows MUCH faster read/write and seek times. The difference is literally night and day. If you do decide to buy one, spend atleast $150 on it. The cheaper drives have many short comings and can leave you frustrated. You have a nice PC already, first thing I'd do is upgrade the harddrive to an SSD, then the ram to 16gb since its dirt cheap now, and possibly the video card next.

Nov 27, 2012 at 05:06 PM

no_surrender
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #8 · Help with computers

Wobble wrote:
Do disk cleanup and defrag on all drives.

Use Speedtest to check speeds on upload and download.

Speedtest

The magnetic drive has moving parts, the solid state does not.

You can look at Task Manager to see the programs that are using memory. Also, check to see what is in the tray at bottom right of Start Bar and eliminate the ones not used frequently.

I did the speed test and got 9.67 Mbps dl speed and 3.25 ul speed.

I met a guy at work today that is a computer aficionado and is willing to help me out so I'm hoping this weekend I'll learn a few things and maybe get more out of my system.

Looking into an SSD drive now to run my OS.

Thanks for the input. - Kevin

Nov 28, 2012 at 02:38 PM

BenV
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: On

p.1 #9 · Help with computers

no_surrender wrote:
Wobble wrote:
Do disk cleanup and defrag on all drives.

Use Speedtest to check speeds on upload and download.

Speedtest

The magnetic drive has moving parts, the solid state does not.

You can look at Task Manager to see the programs that are using memory. Also, check to see what is in the tray at bottom right of Start Bar and eliminate the ones not used frequently.

I did the speed test and got 9.67 Mbps dl speed and 3.25 ul speed.

I met a guy at work today that is a computer aficionado and is willing to help me out so I'm hoping this weekend I'll learn a few things and maybe get more out of my system.

Looking into an SSD drive now to run my OS.

Thanks for the input. - Kevin

For what its worth, newegg has the new Samsung 840 150gb SSD on sale for $149. I just ordered 2 of them myself

RAID 0 = awesome

Nov 28, 2012 at 03:09 PM

end
FM Forums \| Forum & Miscellaneous \| Join Upload & Sell end