A few questions about upgrading my PC.

From one Joe to another

Just a note to say if you do go through the clean install route, Your system should have a recovery partition as Gman mentioned. and you should I think be able to use it by going to something like Acer management in your programs list, and finding recovery options . Or another way is that you can normaly tapping ALT+F10 buttons when booting the Desktop. If you go this route you will loose any programs that you have installed previously so they will need reinstalling, the factory installed programs will be fine. Also ensure that you back up any documents, pictures, music etc to a USB drive so you can transfer them back after computer back to origional installation.

Whatever you do, upgrade that RAM to 2 or 3GB

Originally Posted by JoeR

First thing I wanna say is I love this forum :P I've learned so much in the last hour or so just from reading old threads!!!

See Joe told you you'd love this place
These guys on here know what they are talking about and will save you loads a dosh!!!!
Never purchase anything until you have looked on here. Any Anti virus malware progs ( or infact almost anything for your pc) search on here 1st as there are links to various progs that you do not need to fork out for!
I have learnt to "search TK" before i buy anything whether it be programmes music films games etc

Youll have your pc running faster and smoother in no time

Another good programme for fixing registry errors is registry mechanic. I use the pro version but you can get a trial version here,

>> Registry Mechanic - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Downloads

As Noel suggested, Registry Mechanic is one of the better registry cleaners, but be careful of such tools!, some of the offerings out there are way too aggressive and can actually cause more problems then they solve

Originally Posted by Gman496

While all the advice you've been given so far is sound, you don't mention how old the machine is & to what level it has been degraded by installing and uninstalling software?

You mention 25 minute shutdown at times? That would suggest serious fragmentation & or invalid registry entries?

One of the best performance boosting upgrades you can achieve on your PC is to add extra RAM (memory) along with a cleanup program such as Ccleaner but depending on how degraded your operating system is, it may be that you need a clean install. Did you system come with recovery discs? or a recovery partition on the hard drive?

One final thing you should consider is your security software. The likes of Norton, McAfee and most of the other bloated efforts including the recent issues of AVG are all responsible for hogging system resources and causing incredible lag in both page and program loading times. If you use any of the afore mentioned security programs (or indeed any of the commercial pay for offerings) you should seriously consider removing them (using their relevant removal tool) and installing one of the equally good if not better free programs such as Microsoft's Security essentials.

Hi Gman, thank you for the post
I think we got the PC around 2007 but had no internet access 'till 2008 when we began using it more often.
I have ran the Disk Defragmenter a few times so far and have it set to run every Sunday, the System actually did come with a Blank recovery CD and I only re-installed windows about 3-4 weeks ago in the hopes that all this laggy performance would just stop, no joy.

I have AVG and it does take a while to load up on start-up, as does the little Acer toolbar on the top of my desktop page and I'll take your advice and remove it and get Security Essentials
Thank you!!
Joe

---------- Post added at 09:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:49 PM ----------

Thanks Jodav I have done a clean install but I think maybe when I get my RAM I'll run another one so it's like new and just install programs I know I'll use.
@Linny, thank you I certainly do!!! And I'm already coming on here to look for things, it's awesome
Thanks Noely and Gman
Joe

Make sure to use the correct removal tool to uninstall AVG. (Remember to run the AVG Identity Protection Remover tool also, if you have that option installed)

Do not use the add\remove programs to do it

Make sure also that you only download MSE from Microsoft's site HERE: Some rouge site are offering fraudulent lookalikes

Here's another registry cleaner
Auslogics Registry Cleaner - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Downloads

Better than the one found in Ccleaner and also Registry Mechanic offers to remove more after you buy it...BOOOOOOO

Originally Posted by axxxo

also Registry Mechanic offers to remove more after you buy it

Ah the pro version is grand

regular defrags.a good registry cleaner.and a good disk cleaner.maintainance is everything.

ccleaner is an all round cleaner etc... try it