I do all my burning while i sleep.
1. The only CD/DVD burning I do is "in my dreams...". Someday I'll replace the vintage 1998 system and "crossover" into the 21st century. (Or just continue to live in a parallel universe.)
2. Along with memory, the next biggest performance gain is to
reduce your "disk" access times. By buying the largest modern hard drive you can afford, you increase the likely hood your programs and data are stored in the outer disk cylinders where access is quicker. (Less head movement between cylinders, more data per cylinder.)
The newer hard drive may also have a faster rotational rate and/or larger hardware buffer.
"Defrag" your file systems on a regular basis. File fragmentation can increase both the number and time of the disk accesses required to retrieve the data. (Verify the "integrity" of your file system before defragging it.)
3.
Upgrades - Editorial Comment. Instead of upgrading the "processor" for that motherboard, you might add up the cost of your previous "upgrades" plus the anticipated cost of new "upgrades" and then decide whether it wouldn't be better to apply the cost towards a new computer system.
Having said that, even simple operations sometimes seem to take forever.
I know my processor isn't the fastest on the block, but 1.25ghz isn't that bad compared with others.
4. Are the "
simple operations" only slow while burning a CD/DVD?
5.
Process Explorer. You should become more familiar with what's going on with your system. Download and unzip latest version of
Process Explorer from SysInternals (now owned by Microsoft). Run the executable to see what is running on your system and how many resources (CPU, memory) each is consuming.
6.
Startup Programs. Almost every application you install thinks it's the most important piece of software you'll ever own, and schedules itself to automatically load at system startup/boot to better serve you. Most of these should only be loaded when you need to use them (
some security software excepted).
Temporarily disable their startup to see if you can recover the "zip" your computer used to have.
If this helps, many of those programs have a configuration page that will permit you to disable their automatic startup. Or there is third party software available to control system startups.
Shhh... The following was "stolen" errh... borrowed from Broni:
Go Start>Run (Start Search in Vista), type in:
msconfig
Click OK (hit Enter in Vista).
Click on Startup tab.
Click Disable all
Click Services tab.
Put checkmark in Hide all Microsoft services
Click Disable all.
Click OK.
Restart computer in Normal Mode.
NOTE. If you use different firewall, than Windows firewall, turn Windows firewall on, just for this test, since your regular firewall won't be running.
If you use Windows firewall, you're fine.
