![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
m31andyI'm a bad fiancée. After spending a few months talking about doing something to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cuvalwen's incredibly old computer (and not doing anything about it), I finally got round to transferring a lot of files off it (no room on the 20Gb hard drive) and defragging it. This should've made the thing a little faster at least, except there was no virus software on the computer beforehand and so I loaded up Avast.
Suffice to say the computer is now running *slower* and I'm definitely not flavour of the month.
[Yes, I did know this was an issue with Avast beforehand - and AVG, for that matter, but it was that or let the two trojans we found carry on, unabated...]
So, my wonderful *techie* friendslist, please to be helping. I'm in dire need of decent (preferably free, but not necessarily) virus software which doesn't make the machine run like molasses on a cold day. Is there such a thing?
Also - any tips or encouragement to get the damn thing running a little faster / better would be incredibly wonderful as well.
(To let you know what I'm dealing with, the vital statistics are: AMD processor, 600MHz, 386Mb RAM, 20Gb hard drive, Windows XP Home, Service Pack 3. Slower than a turtle on dope.)
You are all utterly wonderful!
cuvalwen's incredibly old computer (and not doing anything about it), I finally got round to transferring a lot of files off it (no room on the 20Gb hard drive) and defragging it. This should've made the thing a little faster at least, except there was no virus software on the computer beforehand and so I loaded up Avast.Suffice to say the computer is now running *slower* and I'm definitely not flavour of the month.
[Yes, I did know this was an issue with Avast beforehand - and AVG, for that matter, but it was that or let the two trojans we found carry on, unabated...]
So, my wonderful *techie* friendslist, please to be helping. I'm in dire need of decent (preferably free, but not necessarily) virus software which doesn't make the machine run like molasses on a cold day. Is there such a thing?
Also - any tips or encouragement to get the damn thing running a little faster / better would be incredibly wonderful as well.
(To let you know what I'm dealing with, the vital statistics are: AMD processor, 600MHz, 386Mb RAM, 20Gb hard drive, Windows XP Home, Service Pack 3. Slower than a turtle on dope.)
You are all utterly wonderful!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-08 08:14 am (UTC)Most motherboards of that age will take up to 768MB of RAM no problems - 3 x 256MB SDRAM PC133. You can pick up 256MB of RAM dirt cheap in the computer fairs in London; again, we're not talking a truly long-term solution; but you can get a few more months or a year or so out of an ancient system, which can make a difference if you're not flush enough to afford a new PC.
If you're going the new PC route, I would keep an eye on Dell - every now and then they have a habit of putting up short-term offers of a basic PC box for £99; it's usually not a great machine performancewise, but it should scream in comparison to a Duron 600.
Of course, I might happen to have a motherboard and processor and RAM and a graphics card going spare very shortly, as it's upgrade time here - it's not exactly new (Athlon 64 3700+, 2GB RAM, Asus nForce m/b, Nvidia 7800 GTX - about 4 years old) - but it's free and does work!