Hi Lynn,

On Tue, 21 Mar 2000 16:14:09   Lynn wrote:
>Dear List Members,
>
>In just the past week I have noticed a major slowing of my computer. The
>only program that I have recently installed is Eudora 4.3 which I wish I'd
>never done and Ram Booster. Now the computer takes forever to move from one
>email message and the next one. But it is also slowing my Internet web page
>loading to darn near a  week to load one page. IMO this sucks. The thing is
>how do you know if the slowing is because I need more Ram or hard disk
>space.

I would unistall Ram Booster.  They have never been able to show that this
does much for a system, and a lot of the times, you end up having problems
like what you have now.

>I have purchased Microsoft Plus! but I didn't install DriveSpace3. I
>have no idea what would happen if I compressed the C drive. Can someone
>explain the pros and cons of this procedure. I've heard compressing the
>hard disk also slows the computer.

I personally am not a big fan of compressing drives. I've had problems in the
past trying to recover information from hard drives that have crashed on a
person.  There are some general maintenance things you can (and should
do on a regular basis) do to help the system along.

Be sure to empty your recycle bin before following these next steps.

Double-click on "My Computer" and then right-click the C: drive.  Choose
"Properties" from the pop-up menu.  The first tab (General) should show you
a pie chart.  Blue is what you have used on the system, Pink is the free
space you still have left on the drive. There should also be a tab called
Tools.  Select this.

The first one to run is the top one (Error-checking status, better know as
Scandisk). When you select it, it'll pop up another window.  Make sure
Standard is selected (Thorough is used for checking the physical hard
drive.  Run this one when you don't plan on using the computer for awhile,
it usually takes some time to run.), and put a checkmark in front of
Automatically fix errors and then select start.

The second one you should do is the Defragmentation.  When you select
it, it will come up and check your drive for you and let you know how much
file fragmentation there is.  Click on start and walk away.  Depending on
the percentage of fragmentaion, it may take awhile to run.

>At this time I don't have the funds to upgrade on Ram just now. I'm running
>a Gateway P5-100 with 16 MB Ram and one ole Pentium. Is it very difficult
>to install more memory yourself?

If you are comfortable with tinkering, then yes, you can do this pretty easily.
If not, then maybe you know someone who has done that before and can ask
them if they would do it for you.  Memory prices have dropped a lot lately, so
you should be able to get more memory for around $40, give or take.

Best of luck!
Lance


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