Quick and easy ways to boost speed?

[Son Of Mav2 OCS]

So, does anyone know any little-known secret ways to boost a computer's speed, short of buying and installing more RAM? (Which I might just end up doing anyways...) The computer I'm currently stuck with is running Vista Home Basic (32-bit) with 1 measly gig of RAM. Vista itself should have 2 gig, and that's just for the OS, not counting all the other programs that you'd be running. All it's good for is internet browsing, basically (albeit, very, very, slow internet browsing). It can't even run BHD without major lag. I'm pretty sure that the rest of the hardware is good enough to run COD4.

[Goose OCS]

1G of RAM is not good, not good at all . I would really recommend adding more. Ways to add more speed though, you only have what you computer will offer, there simply is no way to make it faster itself with out adding more beef. My first question to you sir is how much of your HD is used up? if you have a lot on your HD and is nearing or almost full that will slow your computer down. You could also have a virus or something that could be slowing it down, might want to check for that just to be sure. With 1G of RAM you would also want to make sure that you only have running what you want to use, make sure there aren't any other programs running in the background.

[TheLastSparten OCS]

Also check to see if you have a page file enabled. I disable mine just becuase I have plenty of RAM to cover everything. Next thing is yes, check for viruses and I also suggest using CCleaner. It's an optimization tool that can help  you streamline your startup programs and get rid of some of the junk just lying around bogging things up.

OH! and another thing, norton and mcAfee like to hog system resources as well if those are the anti virus software programs you are using.

But with 1 gig of RAM you should be able to run Vista fairly well, from what I can tell by how your describing how slow your computer is going you may also have something else wrong. I do not think BHD should be lagging on a Vista machine even with 1 gig of RAM.

Also telling us your system specs would help a bunches