Cleaning out the closet (windows XP)

[TamiyaCowboy]

hi guys.

my lady friend (ex misses) has a problem with xp freezing and also dropping her connection. we have run antispy and viral scans all come up clean. also cleaned up the computer with the control panel options. no defrag yet. she is computer iliterate like me so i wondered what else we could do too help stop these freeze ups and give her computer back that little extra oomph. her main problem is xp frezing on her and dropping connections any ideas where we can start too work out where the underlaying problem is. i have talked her through most of the prosseses of general tydyness for xp but could do with your knowledge of all things computer/XP wise guys :D

thank you

[cobalt6700]

how long has it been doing it?

if a new bit of hardware has been put in you could be having some driver problems.

you could format the drive and do a clean install. if you can backup all her perosnal files and then do that, it will get rid of any crap that could be slowing it down.

[TamiyaCowboy]

intermitantly for about a month. i will admit the machine has never been defragged since brought in 2003 :o) would this become a problem causer. she moans because its takes so long too

[ỒĊBłůē]

If the disk the XP installation is on is formatted as NTFS (most likely) rather than FAT32, there's should be no real need to defrag.

[fivecheebs]

Intermitantly for a month.... Its been hot intermittently for a month too.

I'd start with some litteral cleaning first TC :thumb: unless you know all is well inside.