Computer running slow, not a whole lot of free space left on it, should external hard drive speed it up?

First thing i would do is run your disk defragmenter. Right click your C: drive and click properties > tools > defragment now. This will put all your data in an order that will make it easier and faster for your computer to access.

Moving your pictures onto an external hard drive would not speed up your computer, but it would give you more space to store data. You may need to do this before you run the disk defrag because windows needs about 5gb of free space to run it. it will give you a message if you need to do that.

You may also have a bunch of programs running in the background. A good indicator of this is if you see a bunch of little icons next to the clock on the taskbar.

To stop these programs from starting you will need to use a handy tool called msconfig. You can launch it by typing msconfig into the Run box which can be accessed from the start menu, if you use Vista then you can just type it into start search.

To disable programs starting at start up, click the Startup tab, then uncheck all the programs you dont want to load and click OK. if you are running an antivirus program you wont want to turn it off.

When you next restart your computer a dialog box will appear, check the box saying Don’t open this again and click OK. Your computer should now load much much faster and you haven’t needed to download any software to do it.

Spyware, Adware and viruses will also slow down your computer. make sure you are scanning your computer frequently and keeping it up to date. if you dont have one you can download free antivirus programs from filehippo.com or cnet.com. i like AVG personally.

another thing that will keep your comp running smooth is to keep your registry clean and junk free. i personally like CCleaner by periform you can download it here: http://www.ccleaner.com/download . it is free and easy to use. you can also stop programs from starting and uninstall programs with it. It is a great tool to use instead of using multiple tools and programs to do all your maintanance.

******REPLY******

Hmmm... the only thing that i can think of that would make your comp run slow because the hard drive is getting full is if your comp is relying on the page file / virtual memory to help run things. If that is the case you may just need to get more RAM. I would say to try increasing the size of your virtual memory, but if your hdd is almost full then it wont work.

An indicator of this would be if your HDD light on the front of your computer is constantly / excessively flickering. Another indicator would be if you do free up a bunch of space by putting everything on an external hdd and your comp starts running faster again.

Here is a wonderful website that does all the leg work of figuring out your RAM specs and what you need for you: http://www.crucial.com/ You can choose to buy it from them or just write down what you need and buy it anywhere else. They are fairly priced though.

No a computer doesnt slowdown with time. No matter how old a computer is, it will always run as fast as it's components will allow it to. The things that seem to slow it down with time are the things we have already discussed and the development of programs that require more resources to run. Your pc is still running as fast as it always did, but it is just taking longer to produce what you want because of all the factors working against it.

Though there are many factors result in a slow computer like infected by viruses, or too many installed program, you can still try the steps below to speed up your computer according to my own experience:

1) Uninstall the programs that you don't need.

2) Delete the files you don’t need

3) Use the disk clean-up option in Windows to regularly clean up the system junk files.

4) Turn off System Restore feature.

5) Use a reliable registry cleaner to clear the windows registry.

6) Regularly scan the computer for viruses and spyware.

7) Remember to disable some unneeded startup items.

Once you have done the above point, follow the steps below:

1)defragment your hard drive- A GOOD solution to speeding up your computer by effectively managing the files on the hard disk.

2) Turn on the real-time safe-guard feature of your anti-virus program to protect you computer at any time.

These are what I have done when trying to speed up my computer, and wish it helps you, too!

Excessive desktop icons can reduce computer performance as well. Every time when Windows startup and display desktop, it has to find and load desktop shortcuts one by one. The more shortcuts are there, the more time are needed. Meanwhile, some anti-virus software has the function to scan system which also wastes much time.

As a matter of fact, if you have opened real-time monitor function of certain software, it seems redundant to scan system when booting. You can shut down this scanning function but should be on condition that you have opened real-time monitor. And, it is suggested that you can put the seldom used icons to a specific folder or delete them.

And, defraagment your hard disk.

oh, I am sorry to say that you've made a big mistake. you put too many files on C: driver. Please do not put things on C:,because C driver is system driver which stores operating system information.

my methods to speed up cpmputer are:

1.run a antivirus software to scan your computer fully.

virus usually impacts the speed of computer.

If there is no virus, see the possible reasons that make computers slow down and solutions.

2.Put programs on other drivers ,not C driver, because commonly C is for operating system. And defrag hard disks every 2 months.

3. do not run too many programs at one time

4.Registry is the centre database of your computer operating system which contains information and settings for hardware, operating system software, most non-operating system software, and per-user settings. You must load the registry whenever you launch any programs on your computer. If the registry is too fat or with some errors, computer's performance will seriously be impacted. So, you need to clean up registry and fix its errors.

If you are not familiar with registry, don't remove files away from it and clean up it easily for you may delete important things that will make your computer in trouble. You'd better choose to use a professional registry cleaner,personally,I like wondershare registry optimizer,it's safe to operating system.

5.There must be too many programs start up automatically when you start your computer.Run a registry optimizer or cleaner to stop those unnecessary start-up programs.

6.Have you ever clean up your computer since you bought it? If the answer is never, I am sure that there are lots of junk files on it. Junk files is also one of reasons that will cause computer slowing down. You'd better delete them regularly.

4,5,6 can be realized by a registry optimizer.

7.If a registry optimizer doesn't work, add RAM or do a fresh reinstall of windows. Before you do a reinstall, please remember to back up.However, you should know that frequent reinstall is harm to hard disk.

just have a try:)

You can definitely transfer stuff onto an external drive and delete stuff to make room. But just for yor info, Diskeeper2010 defrags with as less as 1% free space and also prevents upto 85% fragmentation from occuring. Its an excellent program if you wish to keep the drives defragged automatically as well.

The Windows Registry is the master control center for your operating system and applications it runs. Corruption or overload registry issues can cause all sorts of pc performance problems, including poor application startup times, slow Windows start-up, extremely slow shut down, slow internet surfing,inability to resume from computer sleep and more.Cleaning,compacting, and optimizing your Windows registry can go a long way to dramatically speeding up your computer’s performance, start-up and shutdown speed.

Recommended: Run a Registry Scan http://make-a-computer-run-better.com/ Now to Detect Errors and Improve your PC’s speed instantly!

If your PC is running slow, I recommend you to check your pc heath online, then you can hnow why it is slow

and fix easily.

Recommended website:

<--http://registry-checking.com/Slow_PC