My Computer Running slow-funda

Im currently using a windows compaq presario 51000, and i noticed that my computer is running really slow. I've tried a few things. My computer tells me that i'm using slightly less than 1/3 on memory. I have a 2.0 cpu, 80 Gb hard drive, and 512 mb ram. I'd really appreciate any help/suggestions as to why my computer might be running slow.

have you done a virus scan, checked for spyware, defraged?
I already did. nothing was detected.
f you're really sure of that, maybe your drive C: just can't breathe properly. Try to check if your drive C: still has enough space. If it doesn't have, I recommend you to buy CD-Rs/DVD-Rs and burn some files from your C:
By doing so, you could give your C: enough space for it to run smooth. It depends on your specs so don't expect too much. Anyways, it's 1:17 AM here and I'm going to bed in a minute. I hope it helped.
You could run HijackThis and post the log file here, it might show up with something the scans missed.
These are all good suggestions you have gotten, but the next place I would suggest you look is how mauch hard drive space you have. If you only have a couple of gigs of free space you are going to see a major decrease inb your performance, no matter how well the drive is defragged. After that I would do like dots suggests and check for highjackers.
compaq, usually take a hundred years to boot up...i use to have one and i would go use the bathroom or eat while it was booting up. i thought i was the only one with that problem but nopes, i guess alot of other people had the same problem....so i went and bought a different computer
have a compaq Evo N610c and it seems to be running fine.

if ur computer is slow press ctrl+alt+delete if u are using windows XP and press performance and check to see the CPU usage and PF usage are high is they are then try closing a few programs if is not try doing a scan on the HDD it could be that the HDD has bad sectors.
Is your computer also noisy? it could be that the hard drive is just getting old and it's time to replace it, I just got a 320gb drive for like $120 canadian and it made my system work a lot better.
if you're using an Intel Pentium processor with Hyperthreading Technology, you may wanna check out this forum post and read my suggestion:
http://fora.demonoid.com/index.php?topic=168302.0

if not, my other suggestion would be to partition your hard disk. it's 80GB, partitioning may help in reducing the "seek time" of the hard disk when using programs and opening files. regular defragmentation will also help.
I had this same problem with my computer, but then I purchased a External Harddrive and moved about 80 gigs of music onto that, and any pictures, videos, etc onto that. After defragging and a little cleanup my computer was running like it was brand new!
hi, i think i know the comp you have, this may help, as mentioned earlier go to task manager, click on performance, then look at the 2nd box left hand side ( pf usage ), if this is near or above your ram, you need more ram, i think the 5100 is upgradeable to 768mb, so you still have room for improvement if need be, hope this helps, good luck.
Por water on that pos and build a new computer. Dont buy HP Dell sony any branded pc ever again! Build your own or have a tech/friend build it for you!!!
That's a little drastic don't you think?I agree that bundled cpu's aren't great but they're still somewhat useful. That being said I will be building my next PC myself and look forward to it a lot. Grin in the meantime I'm going to upgrade the ram in my Dell and try a streamlined version of XP I made with Nlite to get it going a little faster
Just to be sure you don't have a virus/spyware run system analyzer by webroot. When its done it will load a page with results.

Also you can try DFT(drive fitness test), to test hard drive functionality. Download image burn to disc and run it.

System Analyzer
http://www.webroot.com/download/trial/1121/sysaudit1121.exe


http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/downloads/dft32_v408_b00.iso