repair or replace

[the-demi-god]

Hi,
My PC is 3/4 yrs old. It is Intel R Pent 4 dual core cpu 3.06GHZ & 2GB ram 200GB HD (only 20gb used) OS XP home. It has been defragged Cache emptied reg. Kaspersky runs constantly full scan wkly no probs.
For 4+ wks it has run slower & slower & 1/2 wks either takes 5+ mins to load internet or not at all. When it does run it will let me load some sites but not others so might get Amazon but not ebay or av forums I cannot Google or research on it & pages will take 4/5 mins to load. The Router is 6 mnths old modem seems fine two other PC/laptops run fine so it seems to be just the main PC with a prob. My son has done everything he can think of & does not know what to try next in fact I am using his laptop today because it is just not going to load at all.
How do I know if the MB or cpu is knacked In these financial times I grudge replacing it if a repair would be just as effective but our local repair place would charge £40-£60 to check it out & if it needs replaced then it is dosh I could add that to what I could afford for a new one.
As you will have gathered I am not really a PC geek so any help or opinions would be appreciated

 

[Member 79251]

Maybe its time to rebuild the OS and add some more Ram. You could also move to Windows 7. I noticed a big difference when I moved.

 

[the-demi-god]

Maybe its time to rebuild the OS and add some more Ram. You could also move to Windows 7. I noticed a big difference when I moved.[/QUOTE

Thank you,

The OS as I said is XP home will changing it make as much difference as that? Can it really cause this kind of problem. I did not even seriously consider it might be it, it's so bad I assumed it had to be something serious, terrible and expensive, not that they are mutually exclusive. If I change it is Windows 7.1 the best option Looking arround 4gb ram seems okish so another 2gb might do it and J might be able to add it for me. I would rather not have to do this again in another yr or so. This is promising and definately worth considering fingers x

 

[EndlessWaves]

No, if this happened suddenly then it's a specific problem not the machine getting obsolete. Find the problem, fix it and then upgrade if you're not happy with the performance of a working machine. If you upgrade now and the problem is in one of the things you didn't upgrade then you've potentially just wasted money.

The first thing to do is try and track down the problem. If you open task manager does it show high CPU use, full memory use or one process doing lots of I/O use (you'll have to set the I/O columns to show, you can also check whether the hard drive light is still hammering away after it's been sat for ~30mins).

It'd be helpful to know what your son has tried so we don't waste time repeating it.

My first guess would be that a program is hammering the system, either a virus or one of your background programs that have hit a bug.

 

[the-demi-god]

No, if this happened suddenly then it's a specific problem not the machine getting obsolete. Find the problem, fix it and then upgrade if you're not happy with the performance of a working machine. If you upgrade now and the problem is in one of the things you didn't upgrade then you've potentially just wasted money.

The first thing to do is try and track down the problem. If you open task manager does it show high CPU use, full memory use or one process doing lots of I/O use (you'll have to set the I/O columns to show, you can also check whether the hard drive light is still hammering away after it's been sat for ~30mins).

It'd be helpful to know what your son has tried so we don't waste time repeating it.

My first guess would be that a program is hammering the system, either a virus or one of your background programs that have hit a bug.

Hi sorry for not replying but J was working and he is very helpful but my pc is not at the top of his list when he gets off. This is what he had done
Cleared out unnecessary hard drive space – capacity189Gb, free space 169Gb. Defragmented the hard drive. Used the error-checking tool to check for/ repair damaged sectors. Used the disc clean-up facility to clear out cookies, temp internet files, etc. Removed unused programmes.
Thinking about what you had said he has since removed and reinstalled some programmes, not sure what they were, I know the printer was one, for some weird reason it keeps asking me to put in a disc which I do not have, tried downloading the data but it did not help, that apart something worked because I am using my pc to write this. Not sure yet if it is completely sorted but it feels so much better.
So thank you for your help I will think about changing the OS to 7.1 but I am not in a hurry to do so since that is not what was dramatically affecting the level of performance. We regularly empty the cache and as I said kaspersky runs constantly, but if you have any other suggestions as to what I can do to stop this happening again I would be pleased to have them.