Would A Bigger Hdd Sort This Out?

[mrdee 1]

Hi, I have a Fujitsu-Siemens P5S2D PC, which I have had for some time.The spec is:Intel Pentium 2.80 GHz processor2 Gb of RAM233 Gb Seagate HDD with a measly 36 Gb of space left.I run Windows 7 Ultimate Edition.The thing is (as I said, I have had the machine for a while) that it is crawling along sluggishly, some applications take ages to load, streaming videos stutter and shake all over the place, and booting up, rebooting and shutting down take ages.I was wondering, since my HDD is very low on free space, if it would help the PC's speed if I upgraded to a ! Terrabyte or bigger HDD, I assume the PC would have less problems using a bigger swapfile space then.Of course, I am thinking of doubling my RAM to 4 Gb too, but I have done this to several machines in the past, and to be quite honest, I never noticed a significant difference. So, am I right in thinking of getting a bigger HDD first or would that be a waste of money?Please advise me further before, in frustration, I put my foot through the tower.Thank you in advance.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

Hi,

I have a Fujitsu-Siemens P5S2D PC, which I have had for some time.

 

The spec is:

Intel Pentium 2.80 GHz processor

2 Gb of RAM

233 Gb Seagate HDD with a measly 36 Gb of space left.

I run Windows 7 Ultimate Edition.

 

The thing is (as I said, I have had the machine for a while) that it is crawling along sluggishly, some applications take ages to load, streaming videos stutter and shake all over the place, and booting up, rebooting and shutting down take ages.

 

I was wondering, since my HDD is very low on free space, if it would help the PC's speed if I upgraded to a ! Terrabyte or bigger HDD, I assume the PC would have less problems using a bigger swapfile space then.

 

Of course, I am thinking of doubling my RAM to 4 Gb too, but I have done this to several machines in the past, and to be quite honest, I never noticed a significant difference.

 

So, am I right in thinking of getting a bigger HDD first or would that be a waste of money?

 

Please advise me further before, in frustration, I put my foot through the tower.

 

Thank you in advance.

 

Really, this can go either way. Any of these items can be the cause of a bottleneck:

Video card (onboard or separate)

HDD

CPU

RAM

Your HDD might be an issue in that there's probably a lot of "fragmentation" on the system (which means files are split up all over the HDD... think of it like having a deck of cards spread all over the floor of your house. It'd take you a lot longer to pick them up like that than if they were in a single stack already. The PC has the same issue).

 

RAM speeds up systems if you're already using a lot of it (which is caused by the number and hunger-level of the programs you run at once).

 

For video stuttering, I would actually relate it more to video memory (or lack thereof, in which it would use the CPU/RAM if I remember right).

 

Have you had problems in the past with this stuff, or are they new problems?

[mrdee 1]

The problems are fairly new.The HD is defragmented regularly, so that will probably not be an issue.I also attach a spec of my video card.Not so long ago my machine ran quite a bit faster, I used to use it as my main music recording studio machine.Thanks for your input so far.Sorry, you'll have to do without the spec of my AMD Radeon video card, I keep getting an error when trying to upload.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

The problems are fairly new.

The HD is defragmented regularly, so that will probably not be an issue.

 

I also attach a spec of my video card.

 

Not so long ago my machine ran quite a bit faster, I used to use it as my main music recording studio machine.

 

Thanks for your input so far.

 

Sorry, you'll have to do without the spec of my AMD Radeon video card, I keep getting an error when trying to upload.

 

Based on this, and being that it's a computer you never know for a fact what the problem is (as parts can also go "bad" over time, more or less becoming weaker), I think you're right about it being your HDD. Adding more space should help with some problems, but defragmenting should also benefit you greatly. I'm not sure what good defragmenters are cheap (I've always been against the built-in ones because they go ridiculously slow and still aren't as efficient), so someone else might have good information on that part. I personally use Diskeeper, but I think that may be a bit overkill since you don't appear to be a hardcore developer.

 

I'd actually go for the defragging first and see if that solves your issues. Also, if you have old unused programs and such you don't use, clearing them off will help with space.

[k_nitin_r 8]

I have a Fujitsu-Siemens P5S2D PC, which I have had for some time.
The spec is:
Intel Pentium 2.80 GHz processor
2 Gb of RAM
233 Gb Seagate HDD with a measly 36 Gb of space left.
I run Windows 7 Ultimate Edition.

Hi!

When I first read your post, I thought the mention of "Intel Pentium" may have been a mistake and I thought you probably meant that you have an Intel-branded processor in your computer, which would most likely be a Core first generation processor, however I did a bit of searching on the model number that you have specified. It turns out that P5S2D is the model number of the motherboard on which your computer is based and the processors supported by that motherboard are the Intel Pentium D processpr, the Intel Pentium 4 processor, and the Intel Pentium Celeron processor, and so I think I have to re-think through the process of recommending a change having realised what motherboard and processor you really have.

It is hard to tell you this, but your computer is getting old. The processor you are running may not be able to keep up with the new websites that are more processor intensive in their rendering and scrolling. Earlier, videos were played using a Windows Media Player or QuickTime plugin and later they moved to Adobe Flash, and now they are switching to HTML5 tags with a decoder included within the browser. Normally, this should make things easier for web browser to render, but web designers and developers are also including tons of Javascript for special effects and cascading style sheets for formatting of content is also getting more complex. If all of this was not enough, Windows 7 is a step up from Windows XP in terms of processing needs for the user interface.

What you can do right now is set Windows 7 to use fewer resources by going into the system settings, going to the advanced system settings, and selecting the adjust for performance under the setting for performance, visual effects, processor scheduling, memory usage, and virtual memory. Also, switch to using a web browser that is easier on your computer, such as the Opera Web Browser. There's a light-weight web browser named Midori that I have been trying out recently but it is for Linux am I am not sure if they would have a version that can work on Windows too. You should also have your computer defragmented frequently - I have mine set to run every week and as the computer is always left running (it doubles up as a wireless access point, ever since my wireless router died) the scheduled defragmentation occurs faultlessly.

You do not need to be concerned about the amount of space that you have left because thirty six gigabytes of disk space is enough for just about any of the computer's processing needs. In fact, if you look at how much memory your computer has, the disk can swap up to eighteen times that amount to the hard disk drive if it does have a shortage of memory, theoretically speaking. While two gigabytes of memory is not much by today's standards, it should be sufficient as the recommended minimum to run Windows 7 for checking your email and browsing the Internet.

After you have done all of the above, I do not really think there is much that you can do with your computer considering the processor as the single thing in your computer that is struggling to keep up. A computer's processor has a set of pins to fit into a motherboard and your motherboard would not be have a socket into which a newer processor can fit so when you change your processor, you need a new motherboard too. Also, the memory modules that are present on your motherboard may be too old to be supported by newer motherboards so those have to be changed too. A processor, the memory modules, and a motherboard are, in essence, most of the computer system, leaving only the power supply unit (it converts alternating current to direct current and regulates voltage) and the case (a case is just a box or an enclosure - some people have used planks of wood or pizza boxes instead of a case, with some make-shift supports to keep the motherboard in place). I'm not even considering the screen, keyboard, and mouse right now since those are interchangeable parts and there is little change that would occur for those components.

In other words, you can try to get a little more out of the computer that you have but you should consider getting a new one that can keep up with the demands of today's computing needs. It would also have the benefit of running more efficiently so you would get a similar, if not lower, electricity bill and that makes it environment friendly too. If you were to use a tablet computer or a netbook computer, you would be using less electricity (tablets are usually powered by an ARM processor but some have Intel Atom processors; netbooks are usually powered by Intel Atom processors but may have an ARM processor if it does not run Windows). If you would like to get more serious computing done, there are laptop computers with seventeen inch wide-screen displays and even a numeric keypad if you are into a lot of number crunching and use your computer to do your taxes. Lenovo's Ideapads and Toshibas are pretty good and give you the bang for the buck compared to most other brands. I don't know if you have access to Dell's online ordering service or an outlet store which can get you a great deal on other laptops. There are all-in-one desktop computers that even come equipped with touch screens so they are more fun to use. You can even find some all-in-one computers with a stylus in addition to the touch interface so you can use it for more serious work rather than just a pinch and zoom thing that you would normally do on an iPhone from a couple of years ago. With Windows 8, you can put that touch interface to good use and the tile interface can also be used as an information display so you can leave your computer running all day and have the live tiles feature give you information at a quick glance instead of having to get to the browser and navigate to a website to have it show you information, or even refresh a page. Live tiles in addition to a touch screen are great for having on a wall-mounted PC or a large desktop that you have in an area of the house where you would just lounge about so it can give you updates without having to really do anything.

If you would like to know about my computing hardware, I have a laptop that I got last year, and another laptop that is about six years old. The six year old laptop is what I primarily use with the newer laptop relegated to desk duty so I do pretty much all of my stuff on the older computer. The old computer runs Linux Mint 14 whereas the newer computer runs Windows 7 Home Premium. Linux Mint was not really my first choice - I would have preferred Ubuntu Linux (from Canonical) but with the current release of Ubuntu Linux, the 3D graphics effects are a part of the core system without really having a 2D interface and my processor overheats as it is so I decided to leave out the excess overhead from having a 3D desktop so I switched to using Linux Mint when it was time to upgrade as I did not want to have an outdated operating system, despite having a long term release of the previous version of Ubuntu Linux that is supported for well into the future. I would recommend using Linux Mint on your computer when you get another one because you can try lots of open source software that is free to use too. The same open source software isn't well-maintained on the Windows platform so it tends to crash more often but it is probably because the developers who volunteer their time run Linux themselves and therefore the Windows editions of the software have not been tested much on Windows. I do sometimes have the temptation to run Linux on my newer laptop computer too but I resist that urge for those times when I need to run Windows. I retired all of my old hardware to a closet to serve educational needs - I have a laptop powered by an Intel Pentium 4 processor but it has a loose power connector and several keys on the keyboard that do not work. I have an old 386 laptop that runs Windows 3.1 without a working screen but I keep it around for show-and-tell. It is an AST-branded notebook so the folks from Samsung would probably love to have it on a display pedestal as a part of their computing history (I heard Samsung bought out AST). All my desktops have been given away because running them wasn't environment friendly; folks who used those computers only turned them on when needed and turned them off after they were done so they are not hurting the environment in any way while still in existence somewhere.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

You do not need to be concerned about the amount of space that you have left because thirty six gigabytes of disk space is enough for just about any of the computer's processing needs. In fact, if you look at how much memory your computer has, the disk can swap up to eighteen times that amount to the hard disk drive if it does have a shortage of memory, theoretically speaking. While two gigabytes of memory is not much by today's standards, it should be sufficient as the recommended minimum to run Windows 7 for checking your email and browsing the Internet.

I just want to clarify something for other readers that may misinterpret this. "Swap memory" in the HDD is extremely slow (as it's reading from a HDD and that's almost always a bottleneck). If you're using a lot of swap, you will want to upgrade RAM for the speed benefits. If you're not, then the swap is really irrelevant anyways.