Hello and thanks for your great help in advance:

Would appreciate whatever help some of you folks can give who possess greater tech/computer skills and experience than I.

I am using an HP desktop computer running Windows XP (home). It is an older model (purchased 2003 – I realize I need an upgrade and am shopping!), so the hard drive only has 80 Gig capacity. (very low by today’s standards, I realize).

Problem is, I’ve never used the HD to store all that much really, except in recent years I’ve taken lots of digital photos and scans and put them on the HD, but I just summed up all the file sizes, and they – in total – are less than ONE Gigabyte.

I used to run Windows Explorer Web browser, but over the years, it got worse and worse – slower, more "buggy," problems galore, etc. Now I use Firefox and have been much happier (far fewer problems/bugs/crashes), and just a couple years ago it – and the computer in general – ran fast; like a top. Since, I’m now on the 3rd generation Firefox, and the computer doesn’t run as efficiently. I’m always skeptical of "new and improved" versions of various software, etc. – they are usually a mess, one way or the other.

Anyway, my computer now runs much more slowly and I’m having screen freeze problems, etc. Never much happened before. Why?

Here’s what I’ve done to try and help myself: I ran the "Disk Clean-up" utility, and it was able to rid my hard drive of ca. 1 and one half Gigs of useless files, data, etc. Also, I ran my virus scan, and it searched through all ca. 1 million files, yet returned no virus detections. I thought these utilities might make a difference, yet they have not.

Here’s the rub, too. I used to check my hard drive capacities on "My Computer" just to see how much hard drive space was being taken up. I’ve always heard/read that the more hard disk space is taken up, the slower your computer runs. Heretofore, I’ ve always seemed to have ca. 10-11 Gigs used up and the computer ran fast. NOW, however, mysteriously it reads (even after the Disk Clean-up) ca. 18.3 Gigs used up, with 52.1 "free." I am wondering where in the world I acquired all this gunk taking up hard drive space? Also, I forgot to say, I searched through all "programs" and software titles to delete ones that are useless or that I don’t use and got rid of lots of junk to free up space.

I’m wondering if music files may be the culprit, though my iTunes library isn’t really that big (fewer than 80 songs). Hard to figure this out, actually.

But, other than that, I am mystified as to why the computer runs slower than a 7 year itch (worse than ever) and why it’s so "buggy" these days??!!

I have noticed that since I loaded the Magic Jack software on there (VOIP service; cheap), the computer runs slower. I’ve taken to unplugging the thing when I just read and write emails; surf, etc. Seems to run faster.

I’m wondering if junk I’ve accessed on sites like Hulu.com (internet TV) stays on your hard drive?? Or is it "streaming video," meaning (I hope) that the files do NOT stay on your hard drive? Or do they?? If they do – HOW can I find those useless files in order to delete them? And any other useless file? Often, when I type in the "search for files" thing for a file by name, it returns the message that "no file by that name found" – or whatever.

Any help you can provide would be much appreciated. Especially how to FIND useless file downloads and delete them. But then why does the computer run so bad, with apparently no viruses and AFTER the disk clean-up??

Thanks,

Dave


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