Personal Computers Questions

How come the used PC that I bought is super slow when it comes to the Internet?

by on May 16, 2011

Q: I recently bought a 2nd hand PC. Its a ‘Time’ model of some kind….When I bought it I couldn’t really test it for what I wanted as I couldn’t connect to the internet (PC had an old style built in modem which I have now replaced with an Ethernet card). The comp seems to work fine except its rather slow online, even looking through online photo albums can be tedious! What can I do to speed it up? I used my previous PC to watch catch-up tv and films etc which I can’t do now as its soooo sllooooowwwwwww PLEASE HELP!!!!!!

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6 Responses to “How come the used PC that I bought is super slow when it comes to the Internet?”
  1.  

    The first thing I’d suggest checking would be the speed of your internet connection. You can do this with http://www.speedtest.net/

    Run the test on both of your computers, and post the results below.

     

    Mark (Uber Geek) says: on May 16, 2011 at 8:42 am

  2.  

    http://www.speedtest.net/result/1298540884.png

    That’s the test for the Time machine (lol) I’m guesing you wanted the results for the other test to make a comparison? Can’t do it as I no longer have the other one :-/

     

    uncharged_wings (Newbie) says: on May 16, 2011 at 11:32 am

  3.  

    Thats fine, just post the test results of the current computer.

    Also please post some system specs of the current computer. Knowing the Processor, how much RAM and Windows Version would be helpful.

     

    Mark (Uber Geek) says: on May 16, 2011 at 1:58 pm

  4.  

    This any good?

    OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
    Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 1 Build 2600
    OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
    System Manufacturer Time Computers
    System Model MS-6378
    System Type X86-based PC
    Processor x86 Family 6 Model 6 Stepping 2 AuthenticAMD ~1466 Mhz
    BIOS Version/Date Award Software International, Inc. 6.00 PG, 10/04/2002
    SMBIOS Version 2.2
    Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
    System Directory C:\WINDOWS\System32
    Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
    Locale United Kingdom
    Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = “5.1.2600.1106 (xpsp1.020828-1920)”
    Time Zone GMT Daylight Time
    Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB
    Available Physical Memory 53.09 MB
    Total Virtual Memory 1.69 GB
    Available Virtual Memory 910.59 MB
    Page File Space 1.20 GB
    Page File C:\pagefile.sys

    …wasn’t sure which bits wre relevant so copied it all haha. The link for the speed test is in previous comment.

     

    uncharged_wings (Newbie) says: on May 16, 2011 at 3:22 pm

  5.  
    Picked as best answer

    You’ve got a nice fast Internet connection, unfortunately this is a very pretty dated computer, almost 9 years old! It’s going to have a hard time running a modern web browser. I hope you got it for the price of a pint!

    You have two options.

    1. Get rid of the computer. It’s seriously out-dated and putting any more money into it would be a waste.

    2. Upgrade the RAM. It should help speed things up a little bit, but anything you buy won’t be transferable to a modern computer. You’d need to buy two sticks of 512MB PC133 RAM, open the computer and replace the old RAM with the new stuff.

     

    Mark (Uber Geek) says: on May 16, 2011 at 8:38 pm

  6.  

    £40!!!!! OK thanks, guess I’ll just put up with it until I can afford to buy a new one! thks for your help xxx

     

    uncharged_wings (Newbie) says: on May 17, 2011 at 8:54 am