faster computer, how to Options

[Celicaca]

anyone have any ideas on how to make my computer any faster. I have a Dell Dimension 4400. its pretty old. i dont want anything to big, but stuff that will give it that extra oomph.

1.8Ghz
512 MB DDR SDRAM
Nvidia GeForce3 Ti 200
80 GB 7200 RPM Ultra ATA Hard Drive
Microsoft Windows XP Home

Thankey

[mr_dude]

5) buy a mac :-D
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6) And pay way too much money for proprietary hardware and software. And don't expect to play any video games when you get to school.

Here are some things to try:

go to start>run and type in msconfig. then go to the startup tab and uncheck all the things you dont want windows to start when it boots up... but be careful there are a few things that windows needs to boot up. 

also like someone else mentioned, use the defrag tool under start>programs>accessories>system tools> defrag.

use spybot search and destroy, and adaware. you can download those for free at www.downloads.com.

and alot of people dont realize this but sometimes dust can build up inside your computer and lag it alot, so open up the case, take it outside and blow all that crap out. you might want to disconnect some wires and take out your ram/videocard etc. last time i did this i could really notice the difference.
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msconfig has all the things I mentioned and less.

Defragmentation makes your file accesses faster, a little bit faster. If you're browsing you don't access many files on your hard drive. Your computer uses virtual memory (temporary hard drive space) when it runs out of physical memory (ram). It doesn't use more than a few gigs of virtual memory so as long as you have a contiguous block of free space you're fine.

Spybot and Adaware are fine programs. The problem is they like to run in the background, hogging clock cycles. Also, there's a reason you have to download both. They don't get all your malware. Running Norton, Spybot, and Adaware will be agony on any Windows box (1.4 GHz - 3GHz).

Dusting your computer to make it go faster is an example of a placebo. Yes, a lot of dust builds up over time. Yes, too much could cause your CPU to overheat at which point your system will shut down. Up until this point it doesn't matter. The clock speed on your computer is fixed to whatever you set in BIOS.