Hi Everyone, This computer is raising my blood pressure. I have a dell 6 month old dial up computer. With nothing listed in the startup menu, it takes more time to boot up compared to my old comp at 1 gig. When I jump on the net, it usually connects at either 45k or 49k, at this speed, usually, I could brew coffee waiting for the website to download. I defraged it and don't know what to do next to speed it up. I see software advertised on the net to speed on computers, I don't know if they are any good, as I am at a loss to figure why this so-called 1.8 gig machine could be so slow. I am hoping to get some suggestions as to how I can get this computer to fuction at the speed that's advertised. It is a celeron not a pentium, 512k of memory, thanking you in advance for any ideas you may have, frank

It is a pain but the best thing to do to make a real difference is format the hard drive and reinstall windows. This clears all the crap you may have accumulated over the past half year. It is a bit of a pain but it does have a noticeable effect. If you do decide to do this, make sure you partition your HD so that you can install all your software on C: (for example) and then save all your data on D:. If you ever have to format again, you do not have to back up all your data. I have tried many a time to use software to solve slowdown problems but they never have an amazing effect.

Click on start... run... type "msconfig". Click on Start-up tab. uncheck any programs that you don't need. Also try adware/spyware removal tools. free downloads: www.lavasoft.de http://spybot.eon.net.au/index.php?lang=en&page=download Hope this helps SullyD

Your connection speed is pretty well governed by the condition of the phone lines. 45 - 49 Kbps is considered a good connection. If I were you I'd forget about any of the so-called accelerator programs, they're not worth it IMHO. Go to www.blkviper.com and follow his advice for disabling the services that aren't needed, and follow SullyD's advice. You could also d/l and install the Mozilla Firebird browser,which loads much faster than IE. Once you install Mozilla you will have a choice between the browsers: IE or Mozilla. They won't interfere with one another.

Thank you simonscholey, SullyD and JohnO for your help. I have a 40 gig hd which I have partitioned in half. I do run adaware and the antivirus pgm AVG. This computer came with Mcafee and I left the program on the machine. It has never been as fast as the 1 gig computer I have, the chips are ddr, where my 1 gig has sdram. I was told it is the celeron chip that is the problem, the other comp has the amd athlon. I will try all the points you have suggested, again, thank you for your help, frank

Have you added any large programs or files to your desktop? As for your web issue are you keeping temp files and history cleaned out?