How To Make This PC Run to it's Best Ability?

[Terpman]

So my friend has a pretty bad PC and I want to help him squeeze out as much performance on this thing as possible. Do you guys have any tips on how to help this thing perform any faster?
These are his system specs:
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7100 / nForce 630i
Processor: Intel Pentium Dual CPU E2220 @ 2.4 GHz (2 CPUs)
2940MB RAM
Directx 11
Unfortunately, he's running on Windows Vista.
I'm going to run the Microsoft Cleanup Utility and the Microsoft Defrag program tonight, see if that helps.

Please let me know if you guys can help, and thanks in advance!

 

[NBSN]

Well you already named two things that will help. You can also make sure the antivirus and anti-malware programs are up to date and run those to possibly catch something that might be causing issues. Also ensure the case is clean of dust by using a vacuum and/or can of air to clean it out. The components will be able to run cooler and more efficient helping it last longer and run better.

Ensure the system fans are spinning correctly and not damaged. And install a temperature checking program if it does not have one such as CPU-Z. Also I would suggest uninstalling any unneeded programs and deleting any old files or pictures that your friend created but does not use such as old Microsoft word documents. Moving a lot of the files and shortcuts from the desktop will also help a bit.

There are other things that you can do such as changing what programs run auto updates, the startup programs, and other programs that run in the background that are unneeded.

 

[Terpman]

Well you already named two things that will help. You can also make sure the antivirus and anti-malware programs are up to date and run those to possibly catch something that might be causing issues. Also ensure the case is clean of dust by using a vacuum and/or can of air to clean it out. The components will be able to run cooler and more efficient helping it last longer and run better.

Ensure the system fans are spinning correctly and not damaged. And install a temperature checking program if it does not have one such as CPU-Z. Also I would suggest uninstalling any unneeded programs and deleting any old files or pictures that your friend created but does not use such as old Microsoft word documents. Moving a lot of the files and shortcuts from the desktop will also help a bit.

There are other things that you can do such as changing what programs run auto updates, the startup programs, and other programs that run in the background that are unneeded.

Thanks for the answer! The Defrag software is running right now, and I'm installing Throttlestop to check temps and to improve the performance a little bit. I'll have to check if he has any air canisters to blow out any dust that might be in the computer. I have one last question; what kind of games would he be able to play on this machine? Any recent ones? Just some names of the games would help Thanks again.

 

[NBSN]

Whew, honestly that is very very outdated and I could not say what games would work or even work well...especially considering the operating system. It would be best for you to make a new posting with that as the topic to get a wider range of answers from people that hopefully could help you more in that.