My PC is Slow

[kuttykraze]

Hey all,

My Pc is very slow but not generally, while start up its slow (takes up to 4 mins till i can use my pc). I don't have any start up programs installed except gtalk. And every time i exit out of a game, its very slow for at least a minute. I have to refresh screen for a while until its usable again and also the loading time of all games is long. I compared my pc with a friend's pc who has much lower configuration than mine but his game loading times are much faster, pc is not slow after exiting a game and start up takes only about 2 mins max.

My configuration is
Intel DG41WV mobo
Core 2 quad q9550 @ 2.83 Ghz
Windows 7 ultimate 32 bit
2 gb RAM (i guess ddr 3)
Nvidia Geforce GTS 450 Graphic card
80 Gb HDD (its full with only around 5gb space left in c drive and another 5 in d drive)
CRT Monitor, local cabinet and psu. No coolers.

Now am gonna but a led monitor and long with it am planning to buy either a 1 tb hdd or 2gb or 4 gb ram? I did some research and found that upgrading hdd and ram might solve my problem.

Is it true or is the problem anywhere else?
Now i can afford to upgrade only one component at the moment or 2 if it will improve my pc performance greatly. So which one should i upgrade?

 

[luckiest charm]

You should get a good 1 TB HDD or 1 80 GB SSD to see massive performance gains.

I would suggest an SSD for now and when you have money later, an HDD. RAM is fine for now.
One more thing, I am very sure there are worms in your PC (Worms = A sort of PC virus which doubles itself pretty quickly and gets the system very slow) so re install the windows to see improvement.

 

[Immaculate]

+1 Luckiest Charm

Virus or a failing drive.
just get whatever sized drive you need for your MOBOs fastest rated speed.
HDD also lose a lot performance after being filled up so much.

 

[kuttykraze]

You should get a good 1 TB HDD or 1 80 GB SSD to see massive performance gains.

I would suggest an SSD for now and when you have money later, an HDD. RAM is fine for now.
One more thing, I am very sure there are worms in your PC (Worms = A sort of PC virus which doubles itself pretty quickly and gets the system very slow) so re install the windows to see improvement.

I don't want an ssd now, am going to buy this hdd now
http://www.flipkart.com/seagate-barracuda-1-tb-desktop-internal-hard-drive-st31000524as/p/itmd2ryndzhc8zeb?pid=IHDD2RYNYVWPXZVT
Is it good?

 

[kuttykraze]

+1 Luckiest Charm

Virus or a failing drive.
just get whatever sized drive you need for your MOBOs fastest rated speed.
HDD also lose a lot performance after being filled up so much.

My mobo is 3.0 gps but am gonna buy a 6.0 gbps hdd, i will be upgrading my mobo in a few months so am getting that hdd as future proof.
As "luckiest charm" said a fresh os install in my new hdd must clear out my problems.
is there anything else that might be causing my problems?

 

[Immaculate]

I know I read something on Tom's here that was talking about HDD storage performance. They were saying they lose a lot of performance after being filled past 70% I think it was.

I got the WD Blue 1tb . It seems fairly fast, it was DOA though. The barracudas are pretty good. I seen their going to stop making the "barracuda" and call it something else. I don't know if its a revision or not.

 

[luckiest charm]

Seagate Barracuda 1 TB @ 7200 RPM should do the job.
Lots of space and significant performance boost.

However I do not agree to 70% thing despite the fact that I have read it too. At one point my system had all 5 partitions over 90% and RED.
I cleaned things out only because it was not looking cool. No performance drops whatsoever.

There are chances of that happening with 80 GB HDD though.

An HDD upgrade along with 2 GB More RAM is advised.

 

[Immaculate]

Yea I try not to let that happen to my drives so I've never had the chance to have the chance to experience it. < No thats not a typo haha.

 

[kuttykraze]

Ok so am going to get both hdd and another 2 gb ram. Is there any special ram for gaming (i saw a vengeance series in corsair, it was a little higher in price than its normal one) or is it ok if i just get a normal, i will choose between transcend and corsair

 

[luckiest charm]

You have to get the same RAM modules which are of your older 2 GB.

Same speed otherwise the newer high speed RAM would not be able to perform well enough (Its speed would slow down to match the old RAM and your money would go waste).

 

[kuttykraze]

You have to get the same RAM modules which are of your older 2 GB.

Same speed otherwise the newer high speed RAM would not be able to perform well enough (Its speed would slow down to match the old RAM and your money would go waste).

Oh ok then let me get the same ram i have now, it should suffice right?

 

[luckiest charm]

Yes that would be more than enough coupled with a good HDD.

And since you would be discarding your old HDD, Windows would need to be re-installed automatically.

 

[kuttykraze]

Thanks everyone for your help, i will post my pc performance after i put in new hdd and ram.