System slow

Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic

   Great, thank you for the extra info 
You have not stated whether your system has slowed down a lot or if you simply want an upgrade plan to get more out of it so I will do my best to cover both.

For a start with 3 sticks of RAM installed you are not running in dual channel mode, here is a quote from your motherboard's manual:

 1. For dual channel coniguration, you always need to install identical (the same
brand, speed, size and chip-type) DDR3 DIMM pairs.
2. It is unable to activate Dual Channel Memory Technology with only one or three
memory module installed.

This should not make the system painfully slow however but having 4 identical sticks of RAM will enable dual channel and provide somewhat of a performance increase.

I also see no mention of an SSD in your specs, if you want to see a performance increase, at least with regards to boot times and loading speeds you will be amazed by what an SSD will do for your system. Even 128gb as a purely OS and important programs drive will be sufficient. Given the small difference in price between 32/64gb SSDs vs 128gb drives I would not recommend anything smaller than 128gb.

If gaming performance is an issue for you then getting a new graphics card would certainly make a huge difference to your system. The rest of your system is good (minus the 3 sticks of ram issue) and easily able to feed even the highest end GPUs on the market today. Given that you have a GT 630 I assume budget is a concern in which case you could go for something like a GTX 750 or a Radeon R7 260 or r7 360. These GPUs will all provide huge gaming improvements if that is what you are after.

Now for system slowdown:

My own system performance when I was using windows 7 degraded badly over time, in fact windows 7 for me proved to have the worst degradation of any OS I have used, the only way I found to address this was to periodically perform backups and do fresh installations. I won't say that it is windows 7's fault or that it is a bad OS but for me, given the amount of software I install and remove from my system the degradation was pretty severe. I could go on here with dozens of things that will supposedly help improve windows performance but really, in the end the best and safest way is to perform a backup of important files and do a fresh installation. 

As time goes on the OS collects clutter, partially uninstalled programs leave entries in the registry, temporary files clog up your hard disk and windows update can tend to install a lot of things you neither asked for or wanted. Then on top of this there is mallware, viruses, addware and rootkits that can all negatively impact performance.

So if you are unwilling to perform a fresh windows installation then I suggest you download and install: 

Mallware bytes, free edition
Spybot search and destroy 2, free edition
and your choice of antivirus

These are the tools I personally use but there may be better options out there. Install and run these on your system and clean out all the unwanted viruses, spyware etc and you should see some performance return to your system. 

Another app I find useful is Piriform CCleaner, it will help to clean out redundant registry entries as well as clean out temp folders and other unwanted cached files. Be very careful with programs that claim to speed up your PC, many of them are simply shells for mallware or worse. CCleaner is a good one and I have never had a problem with it but some others are a scam, promising massive improvements if you just buy their product etc only to have it change your default search page and cause general havok with your system.

I hope these little tips are of some use to you. If you have any more specific questions please feel free to ask 