INTERNET EXPLORER 8 AND INTERNET SPEED

[rapport25]

Hi guys anyone updated to IE8 yet?

Also best tips to improve computer speed?

Thanks Rappy

[swiss]

The tips, in no particular order:

• Install Firefox 3
  Install a good anti-virus (eg. AVG if you want a freebie) and mal-ware scanner (eg. Ad-Aware) and a registry cleaner (eg. Eusing)
  Buy more memory
  Clean out all unnecessary rubbish from your hard drives (particularly your system drive), ie. delete your old unwanted files and run disk cleanup
  Check your registry for unnecessary start-up apps, delete as required
  Consider over-clocking, if your BIOS supports it
  De-frag your drives (again, particularly the system drive)
  Sync your page file
  Clean up your desktop
  Go through your installed programs list and uninstall anything you don't really want or need
  Take your box apart and give the guts a good clean, especially the heat sinks and fans
  Ensure the box has clear access to fresh air on the intake and that the exhaust is free to dissipate (having the box wedged under a desk and against the wall stops heat being removed effectively, and heat is your enemy)

The only one on that list which will cost you any money is a RAM expansion, though in a tower it's pretty cheap. Laptop gear remains more pricey. Don't go for bargain basement stuff though, choose a named brand (eg. Kingston or Crucial) and try very hard to match the clock speeds of any new chips with your current ones. If you do decide to give your box a clean (and fans/sinks get amazingly clogged with dust) you might wanna buy a can of compressed air, available from most stationers or pooter shops. A small paintbrush is also useful, though obviously don't use one with bristles that'll cause static. Don't forget to earth yerself before touching anything expensive in there

Matt the Teamster is a professional geek (no offence Teamy), sure he'll give you a suggestion or two.

[mjb]

De-frag your drives (again, particularly the system drive)

The windows defragger only really helps in extreme cases. I do however swear by PerfectDisk (http://www.perfectdisk.com/)

Don't defrag if you're using an SSD though...

[totaleclipse]

as well as the usual clean up this, delete that, cancel the last access stamp etc, using SSD and RAID will help a lot, be prepaired to dig deep tho

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs

[swiss]

The windows defragger only really helps in extreme cases. I do however swear by PerfectDisk (http://www.perfectdisk.com/)

Well yes, Winders tools are set to 'shite' by default. I don't know Perfect Disk but I've been using Partition Magic for yonks, it rox0rs my box0rs

[teamster1975]

Well I've installed IE8 and it's actually pretty good Rappy!
Download a copy of Crapcleaner, it's a good freebie for clearing temporary files and residual OS shyte. Also AVG or Avast for antivirus. I find avast is lighter on RAM but the new v8.5 of AVG is much improved as well
If you've got 512Mb of RAM double that up to 1Gb!

[steve_earwig]

At last, something I know about I've always used AVG (well, since the free one at work wasn't anymore ) but I tried Avast! a while back, it found viruses all over the place that AVG somehow had overlooked, it even said loads of my audiobook archives were virus bombs of some sort (open and fill HD with garbage). Basically, it decided thousands of seemingly innocuous files that I'd never had issues with were actually viruses. Oh, I'd better get deleting Then it said one of my mail archives was a virus, threw a wobbly about it and the next time I opened Outlook it opened that archive while my current one was toast. Start, programs, Avast!, uninstall, sayonara.

[Welly]

At last, something I know about

I was just thinking the opposite for me

Why can't we just have an Icon on the screen that says "sort this computer out" or, "get rid of all teh porn"

[steve_earwig]

All the rest of it went over my head, whats an SSD? Small Smelly Dick? Slightly Soiled Diaper? Satan's Sulpher Delight?

What I want to know is would any of this help stop Maxthon grinding to a halt whenever I look at Ebray?

[highlander]

SSD = Solid State Device

Basically, you have your normal hard drive - which is a stack of magnetically-read discs constantly spinning at more than 7,000 RPM with a bunch of very small read heads (like gramophone needles, but without any actual contact) clicking away over the surfaces. There's a lot of mechanics and moving parts involved.

With an SSD, it's basically a very high capacity Flash card (like you use in your digital camera). It has no moving parts, consumes less power, and has much lower seek times (and potentially much higher data transfer speeds) than a traditional hard drive.

[steve_earwig]

Errr, ok

I just ran the crap cleaner, it found much that it didn't like (over a gig's worth ) including loads of dead stuff in the registry (which I backed up 4 times...) Which reminds me, it's about time I backed up this here laptop again, apparently I haven't since December

While we're talking about Windows crap, what am I meant to do with this lot?

[highlander]

The $NTServicePackUninstall$ folders are there to allow you to go into Add/Remove Programs (in the Control Panel) and uninstall service packs and security updates.

You can delete these folders; just do it carefully (in case you accidentally delete something else too)

Best bet - move them into another folder somewhere else on your hard drive, then reboot your PC. If your PC won't boot up without giving you errors, then put them back again.

[steve_earwig]

I thought they were something like that but I didn't want to just delete them in case I sodded something up (again ). I also thought about sticking them in a folder to see if Windows objected but I thought maybe there was a standard procedure, you know, delete everything more than a month old or similar. It's not often I look in the Windows dir so I'm not that bothered, it just looks so damned untidy

[rapport25]

Thanks guys for all your help. Have to say my system runs a bit better on internet explorer 8.

Rappy

[swiss]

Install Firefox 3

Also,

Why can't we just have an Icon on the screen that says "get rid of all teh porn"