Providing onsite computer care for metro-west "495" area of Massachusetts

Are you looking for someone you can trust to come into your home or business?
A mature individual trusted by police departments to handle their servers and data?
A former Army captain with a top-secret clearance who worked for the NSA?
Please consider the services of PC Doctor Ed Sterling

My PC is running so slowly !! What's happening ?

One of the major problems I have encountered recently is the impact of "Internet security suite" software (especially from Symantec/Norton and McAfee) on computers. You know how frustrating it is to fly these days with our new "9/11" security regulations; it's not fun anymore. Well the same thing is happening to antivirus and antispyware programs on your computer. You could argue that these programs are "overdoing" the security function to a point where they do more harm than good.

Among the worst offenders is Norton Internet Security 2006! When I remove this program from a PC, it is like a great burden has been lifted! Customers feel as if they just purchased a new powerful PC! There are numerous replacements for Norton Internet Security that provide as much protection with much less "overhead" (i.e. the energy it takes to run the protection program).

Another significant problem is computer memory, both the "real" memory installed inside the computer, and the "virtual" memory that Windows uses to manage its operations. Windows 98 needs 128MB (MB = megabytes) of installed memory, Windows 2000 needs at least 256MB of installed memory, and Windows XP needs at least 256MB of installed memory, but 512MB would be preferable. Windows Vista appears to run adequately with 512MB of installed memory, but 1024MB (1 gigabyte) is preferable.

Virtual memory is a setting made in Windows advanced setup. Usually virtual memory is automatically handled by Windows; however, you can sometimes get a little better performance by manually changing the virtual memory setting. If you have plenty of hard disk space, it is a good idea to set the minimum virtual memory to twice the installed memory, and set the maximum virtual memory to 4 times the installed memory.

One other performance problem can be too little free hard disk space. If you free (unused) hard disk space is down below 1 gigabyte, Windows will have a difficult time finding enough "working space" for its own operations. 3 gigabytes of free space is usually the minimum you ought to have. If you have less than that, it is time to think about a major clean up, or, just replace the hard drive with a newer model that will probably be at least twice the size at half the price of the original disk!

Call Ed Sterling at 978-779-6058 from 9 a.m. until 10 p.m. 
Or Email: ed@EdSterling.com
(There is no charge for a brief assessment of your computer problem)

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