Housekeeping an ageing Compaq Presario
MS reckons less than 10% fragmented isn't worth bothering with so that's probably a reasonable benchmark to use. Either use Defraggler to analyse the drive or at an elevated privilege command prompt:
defrag.exe c: -a
I'd almost forgotten about defragmenting drives - I just let Windows get on with it on Mme Pingoiun's laptops. Might get checked a few times a year if the laptop is on in the wee small hours. But then the drives are only half full. Entirely forgotten about on Linux, even with a very full drive. Used to play with it all the time with Win98 on FAT32
Curiously defrag.exe reported a Vista drive as 5% fragmented while Defraggler reports 18%. Something to do with what Defraggler calls "low occupancy" perhaps?
defrag.exe c: -a
I'd almost forgotten about defragmenting drives - I just let Windows get on with it on Mme Pingoiun's laptops. Might get checked a few times a year if the laptop is on in the wee small hours. But then the drives are only half full. Entirely forgotten about on Linux, even with a very full drive. Used to play with it all the time with Win98 on FAT32
Curiously defrag.exe reported a Vista drive as 5% fragmented while Defraggler reports 18%. Something to do with what Defraggler calls "low occupancy" perhaps?
Last edited by le Pingouin; 12th Dec 2014 at 15:27.
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So far as the defragging goes, I'm absolutely convinced that it's effective in the case of this installation. Well before midweek, each week, the laptop is going so slowly that it would drive me nuts. From button press to an open Chrome (she insists upon Chrome 
) takes more than five minutes but around one minute and 30 seconds after the cleanup. CrapCleaner for several years took between 5 and 15 GB of rubbish out of the HDD every week but over the past year it has gradually crept down to around 100 to 200 MB a week even though Madam's pattern of work remains similar so I think it's likely that, proportionally, CrapCleaner bears a lesser responsibility for the weekly improvement recently. This summer I was away for about 12 days and missed two consecutive weekly cleans and the machine essentially stopped. Apparently it had posted repeated warnings that the HDD had so little free space that the next desired application might just not work. When I got back the defrag took almost 24 hours and I had to run it twice consecutively to get the free space back from under 4 GB (unreliable but is as I seem to remember it) to 36 GB. Unfortunately, with all of my own catching up to do I didn't take a note of the number of files and fragments at the start of the process. Two years ago the start position was typically 20 GB free space out of 111 GB, 15,000 fragmented files with 80,000 fragments. For some reason now it usually starts with around the same amount of free space but the fragmented file count is usually around 2,000 and the number of fragments at about 7,000. I don't know what the reason is for the reduction because the time taken to do the clean up and the free space recovered each time remains about the same, so does the change in performance. Defraggler usually stops with fewer than four fragmented files and under ten fragments remaining and quite often achieves zero of each. The free space is only recovered towards the very end of the process so stopping it early (and I'm often tempted!) doesn't achieve that. Using the "Quick Defrag" fails to recover the free space at all and so it often stops with less than 10 GB free.
I'd love to be able to avoid it all but the machine essentially died when it was left undone for only the two Wednesdays in a row so I don't see that I have any choice. I emphasise again that the computer is very revived each week by doing it. It never reaches a gallop but does a fair imitation of a trot!
Respectfully, I don't think I have any option other than to find a defragmenter and a backup program equally efficient and simple to use but hopefully quicker.
) takes more than five minutes but around one minute and 30 seconds after the cleanup. CrapCleaner for several years took between 5 and 15 GB of rubbish out of the HDD every week but over the past year it has gradually crept down to around 100 to 200 MB a week even though Madam's pattern of work remains similar so I think it's likely that, proportionally, CrapCleaner bears a lesser responsibility for the weekly improvement recently. This summer I was away for about 12 days and missed two consecutive weekly cleans and the machine essentially stopped. Apparently it had posted repeated warnings that the HDD had so little free space that the next desired application might just not work. When I got back the defrag took almost 24 hours and I had to run it twice consecutively to get the free space back from under 4 GB (unreliable but is as I seem to remember it) to 36 GB. Unfortunately, with all of my own catching up to do I didn't take a note of the number of files and fragments at the start of the process. Two years ago the start position was typically 20 GB free space out of 111 GB, 15,000 fragmented files with 80,000 fragments. For some reason now it usually starts with around the same amount of free space but the fragmented file count is usually around 2,000 and the number of fragments at about 7,000. I don't know what the reason is for the reduction because the time taken to do the clean up and the free space recovered each time remains about the same, so does the change in performance. Defraggler usually stops with fewer than four fragmented files and under ten fragments remaining and quite often achieves zero of each. The free space is only recovered towards the very end of the process so stopping it early (and I'm often tempted!) doesn't achieve that. Using the "Quick Defrag" fails to recover the free space at all and so it often stops with less than 10 GB free.I'd love to be able to avoid it all but the machine essentially died when it was left undone for only the two Wednesdays in a row so I don't see that I have any choice. I emphasise again that the computer is very revived each week by doing it. It never reaches a gallop but does a fair imitation of a trot!
Respectfully, I don't think I have any option other than to find a defragmenter and a backup program equally efficient and simple to use but hopefully quicker.
Last edited by Cameronian; 12th Dec 2014 at 17:01.
I have a Compaq C700 that has about the same specs as your computer. I got it,in 2008 and it had Vista on it. I put in a new hard drive and Win 8 a year ago and got the case cleaned out. Works fine. I never do any maintenance on it at all.
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My desktop was built from bits ~10 years ago. The video card popped a capacitor (later repaired) and was replaced with a better one. I upgraded the memory with used ebay purchases....max is supposed to be 3 Gb but it "sees" the 4 installed It's partitioned with XP( sole purpose to drive a R/C helicopter flight sim) and the default is Linux.
This ubuntu has not been updated for at least 6 years!....When my kids visit,i complain that U-tube and flash player no longer work. nor does the DVD burner.
They shrug their shoulders and tell me to bin "that old junk"
I plug in a camera....itis recognised and pics are downloaded......I plug in a printer....Laser, dot-matrix, Inkjet are all automatically recognised. It prints letters and pictures. it works and is prompt...anything over 5 seconds ,is a "cancel and try again" issue. .....In extremis, I turn it off at night and reboot it the
following morning....otherwise it's on 24/7/365.
get rid of your windoze..Ubuntu is free they'll even send you a disc if you can't be bothered to download and DIY..
I have never gone through ANY of that rigmarole you do weekly
You must really, really love your wife to put up with that..
It's partitioned with XP( sole purpose to drive a R/C helicopter flight sim) and the default is Linux.This ubuntu has not been updated for at least 6 years!....When my kids visit,i complain that U-tube and flash player no longer work. nor does the DVD burner.
They shrug their shoulders and tell me to bin "that old junk"
I plug in a camera....itis recognised and pics are downloaded......I plug in a printer....Laser, dot-matrix, Inkjet are all automatically recognised. It prints letters and pictures. it works and is prompt...anything over 5 seconds ,is a "cancel and try again" issue. .....In extremis, I turn it off at night and reboot it the
following morning....otherwise it's on 24/7/365.
get rid of your windoze..Ubuntu is free they'll even send you a disc if you can't be bothered to download and DIY..
I have never gone through ANY of that rigmarole you do weekly
You must really, really love your wife to put up with that..
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This ubuntu has not been updated for at least 6 years!
C'mon guys! Running an expired OS is dumb, no matter which brand it is. You do know you can install desktops other than the default? Or just use one of the *buntus with the desktop you like. Ubuntu 14.04LTS is supported until April 2019 so will likely outlive the hardware.
Have a look at MATE (forked from GNOME 2) or something like LXDE - they provide a "traditional" style GUI & are relatively light on RAM.
Have a look at MATE (forked from GNOME 2) or something like LXDE - they provide a "traditional" style GUI & are relatively light on RAM.
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Is the computer running, or ever run a Norton anti-virus product?
Download adw cleaner to get rid of adware.
I use Ccleaner, malwarebytes and advance system care. All are free. My anti-virus is AVG free.
I have a spare PC and a spare laptop that I use for "buggering about" with. I've tried allsorts and slowly learned from some mistakes. Ubuntu is the way ahead if you want a quick operating system on an old spec computer. The learning curve could outweigh the benefits though -depending on beardyness levels.
Download adw cleaner to get rid of adware.
I use Ccleaner, malwarebytes and advance system care. All are free. My anti-virus is AVG free.
I have a spare PC and a spare laptop that I use for "buggering about" with. I've tried allsorts and slowly learned from some mistakes. Ubuntu is the way ahead if you want a quick operating system on an old spec computer. The learning curve could outweigh the benefits though -depending on beardyness levels.
