hello I am running windows Xp service pack 2 on a 20 gig Hard drive and i have problems freezing while playing music and on IM at same time and is generally slow when it comes to multiple tasks purchasing a bigger Hard drive or more ram is not an option for a while so is there a way along with keeping my music pic and docs while checking and using dick cleanup to make the system run faster i dont really have much programs on it so is there any free software that i can use to compress files??? or make it run faster

It's not gonna be a fast system no matter what you do to it but there are some things that *might* be slowing it down. - how much free space is left on the HDD? - have you checked the CPU temp to make sure it's not throttling? - do you practice good housekeeping...that is, regular spyware & virus scans? using MSCONFIG to prevent programs from loading at startup? regular cleaning of internet garbage files with a program such as CCleaner? occasional defrag of the HDD? - are your device drivers up to date? - is your BIOS configured for best performance? - has XP been tweaked for best performance?

Disable any unneeded services that might be using valuable resources. You can use Black Vipers Service Configuration Page as a guide to what you might not need. ***************************************************** *****Please let us know if you found someone's advice to be helpful.*****

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul... Computer Speed and Performance May Decrease When you open, then close programs, programs may not free up RAM memory. That is called "Memory Leak". Restarting computer will clear out its RAM memory. OR install more RAM memory. http://support.microsoft.com/defaul... Description of the Disk Cleanup Tool in Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/defaul... How to Defragment Your Disk Drive Volumes in Windows XP

Threaten it with Linux...