Well reinstalling my operating system improve system performance?

It is hard to answer your question without more information.  In general, reinstalling the OS will improve performance, but the question is, "by how much?" 

How was your system running compared to when you first got it?  If it is much slower now, reinstalling the OS might help.  If it is the same, reinstalling the OS is not likely to help that much.

Commonly, people run out of memory and that is a big reason for loss of performance.  You have addressed that.  You can see if you need more memory by opening task manager (control-alt-delete) and checking the commit charge at the bottom of the window.  If it is near to 512M or higher, more memory is definitely needed or you need to run fewer applications at one time.

If the new memory doesn't help and you still feel like performance is below what it was originally, reinstalling the OS could be warranted.

Peter

Apologies to Peter; I just took too long to think about my reply.

By what standard are you measuring the speed of your computer?  Most Dimension 2400s are not exactly speed demons; the fastest front side bus for a D2400 is only 533 MHz and most users have either Celeron or P4 processors having an internal clock less than 2.8 GHz.  If you are comparing the present performance of your computer with the way you feel the performance was when you first turned it on, the most likely source of your difficulty is the number of processes you have in start-up.  You almost certainly have an auto-protect anti-virus program, probably a firewall program, and perhaps half a dozen additional programs shown in the system tray at the lower right of your screen.  Getting these loaded when the computer starts delays completion of the boot-up, and having them run in the background while you do your work can slow that down as well.

Reinstalling your operating system may help by allowing you to decide which of your current start-up programs are essential (I hope you include your anti-virus and firewall in that list) and avoid installing those programs that are not so necessary to load at start-up time.  It also installs a clean registry which can help a little.  Don't get too hopeful, however, that your computer will gain a lot of speed by doing this.

Adding memory will also help a little; I must mention, however, that adding memory beyond 512 MB doesn't give quite the speed increase that going from 256 MB to 512 MB does.

Hi there,

New to the forum! Hope you don't mind me piggy-backing on this thread, but I am planning to back up to an external hard drive (yet to arrive) and re-install XP on my Dimension 5150.

My PC has, at times, slowed to a crawl - regular defrags and clean-ups offer but temporary relief. I clean the registry with RegCure and de-spam/spyware at lleast once   a week, so re-installing seems the next logical step. Main use is web surfing and general home use, but not gaming.

I have all the Dell CD's that came with the system, but am very apprehensive as I am NOT an expert in any way and have never attempted anything like this before.

Any advice regarding backing up (how do I know that everything IS backed up, for example?!) and the re-insall process gratefully received.

Many thanks.

Me again! Further to advice in previous replies, I am also worried about managing the startup menu in case I delete something important! How do I know what to keep and what to delete?

Cheers

Huw

I know my computer is not a speed demon (I have a 2.8G Pentium processor). It is just a lot slower than it used to be. As far as programs I have installed, I have only let Norton stay in the system tray. After start up, I have 24 background processes running. I worked it down from over 40. Also, when I went from 256 mb to 512 mb, I didn't notice any improvement in speed.

It sounds like reinstalling won't help much. Any other ideas? (Besides getting a new computer-that will have to wait about a year).

I had one thought. I have heard that Norton is a resource hog. For awhile at work I was using a free program called AVG that worked fine. Would switching help at all?

Thanks, Krista

vaeyle,

It could be the Norton. This is a link to the uninstall site at Norton.

If you have a version of Norton AntiVirus older than the 2009 version, yes, it is possible that Norton is slowing you down.  Symantec has supposedly been listening to its customers and the 2009 version is supposed to be better.  It is also true, however, that there are a few anti-virus programs that do just about as good a job with less impact to performance.

I noticed a huge improvement by installing an additional 512 MB of memory, starting as I did with 128 MB.  Most of the improvement was in the speed of boot-up, but I noticed it elsewhere as well.  If you have enough memory to let Windows do all its work in RAM instead of paging to the hard drive, performance is generally enhanced.

If you have already reduced the number of programs loaded in start-up, the primary advantage to a re-installation is the clean-up of the registry.  After Windows has been used for a while, the periodic installation and de-installation of programs can leave the registry with a bunch of dead-end paths.  Registry cleaners can get rid of some of these, but my own opinion is that the cleaners that are good enough to do the job right also present the risk of removing something you need.

The bottom line on this is that I really don't think you will see a lot of difference.  When I perform a reinstallation, my D2400 gets a bit quicker, but it doesn't take a really long time for things to settle back into the old grove.  Don't forget also that Microsoft has made a lot of changes to Windows XP since the D2400 was new.  Some of the stuff that had to be changed has an impact to performance, also.

Welshmally

Best to enter your service tag into the drivers and download page (6-7 digit code on the side or back of your machine):

I recommend you back up My Documents, My Pictures, My Music onto an external harddrive I usually do regular back ups with the folder being called (yyyy-mm-dd)

Thus it is ordered from earliest to latest back up. As for your programs, you will need to see what programs you have on your computer and have on CD and what you have downloaded.

If you have your XP CD check what Service Pack it is at. For example it may say Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2. If it does not have Service Pack 2 and 3 I would recommend downloading the following onto your external harddrive.

XP Service Pack 2 Standalone

XP Service Pack 3 Standalone

From the Dell Drivers and Downloads Page (Remember and insert your service tag into this page for system specifity). You may use your Drivers CD (if you have one for this but the ones on the website will be at a later revision and may have some improvements).

Dell Desktop Under System Utilities 

Chipset Under Chipset

Video Drivers (Service Tag entered here to get the correct ones or download all and install in trial and error the Sonic Solutions Patch for Cineplayer won't work unless you have that program installed you may have it on a cd)

Communication Drivers

Network Drivers

Input Device Drivers (May not apply to your system)

Audio Sigmatel or creative labs driver (I would not bother installing the application)

Stay clear of BIOs or CD/DVD firmware (may update the BIOs if you wish but do so with care). I would not bother with Applications unless you have the Sonic Solutions Discs. You can update the DIagnostics if you wish.

Download all the above onto your external harddrive. For example Make A Folder and call it Dimension 5150 XP Install and make sure you know what is what.

Install Instructions

For best performance do a clean install at the Dell BIOs Screen:

Insert xp disc power down and then press and hold F12 at the dell BIOs Screen:

Select Boot from CD/DVD and follow the prompts and follow the instructions till you get to this screen

Need to select partition C: install, leave the rest all alone then do a full format. 

Then just follow the set-up it will ask you afew questions such as regional settings, keyboard settings and your name. That should be XP installed. To use your computer you should install the Service Packs and then the drivers in the order stated above.

You will need to install adobe reader to read pdf files (Version 9.10 or 7.1 if you think its too slow). PDF Creator is useful for printing to pdf.

You will need to install Microsoft Office (You should have this on a cd of you had it installed) and its service packs (the service packs should be offered via windows update).

You can alternatively install open office a free office suite (however I prefer Microsoft Office).

You will need to install an antivirus security program. You will need to look for the drivers for printers/scanners etc that you may have, you can find most of these on their manufacturers website (usually a later revision then if you have a CD).

You will need to run windows update, however you should refer to the microsoft website if you want Internet Explorer 7 (Windows Update May only offer Internet Explorer 8) and Windows Media Player 11. 

Hopefully that should help you, if you have any other questions just ask.

Also the install for the Dimension 2400 will be similar.

Note I do not recommend using REGCURE as I have found it to be problematic, others here may disagree. I am also against NORTON but am told the 2009 version is good so may give it a try again in the future.

Also if you are worried about what software/programs you will lose on your start menu, tell us what you use and also what CDs you have.