PC defrag

xterra48

My clunky old dell has been worse than usual latly, i am thinking of de-fraging it. I have never done so before, and i heard that some Win computers will actually be slower after a defrag. Does any one know if this will speed up or slow down my dell?

karl kuehn

I can't think of even a theoretical situation where defraging would slow down a computer (except with MacOS X's hot zone... but that is a whole different kettle of fish). That being said, defraging doesn't usually speed up a computer much, unless the fragmentation has gotten really out of hand. That tends not to happen unless you are running out of space, or running a mail server.



Windows people tend to go nuts about defraging because it is a simple pill they can take, and feel good about doing something to make their computer better. It is mostly a placebo effect.



More probably your computer has spyware, and that is slowing things down. Welcome to the wonderful world of Windows.

cake

Have you downloaded, updated and run Ad-Aware and Spybot: Search & Destroy ?

Have a good free anti-virus app like AVG ?



Run those, then defrag if you want. I've never seen a slow down from defraging.

xterra48

thanks for the advice, yes i am aware (somewhat) of win problems, thats why i mostly use my 12in PB. I use ad-aware and firefox, so my computer has little to no adware. ill try the defrag then, it couldnt hurt.

ichiban_jay

having a ram freer also helps:



FreeRAM XP Pro

ibook911

I bet you feel a difference after the defrag. I'd also suggest you clean the registry. That always speeds my PCs up.