Dear CNET members,

Happy Friday! Just a friendly reminder to new subscribers of this newsletter: we have an archive of our past Community newsletters, which cover many technical topics. So check it out because I see a lot of questions e-mailed to me that have been already covered. Also, if you are in dire need of technical help, you can always find help in the CNET forums, where many wonderful members and moderators are always willing to give you great advice. So give the forums a try and post your questions there. Now let's get started addressing Bob's question about why his computer still runs slow even after a clean install of Windows XP.

Under most circumstances, you would think that by doing a clean install of your operating system, it should start you off with a brand-new system and increase your speed, but as Bob found out, even after a new start, his PC was still running slow! So what gives?

Well, according to our members' answers, it could be a number of issues ranging from hardware, like a failing hard drive or motherboard, to software problems like the BIOS (basic input/output system) or drivers in need of updates. It could also be a boot sector virus or rootkit. Anything is possible, which makes this a difficult issue to pinpoint. However, before you dig into all the great answers from our members, I'd like to bring your attention to a couple of great points made by members Compvis and DilbertE, who mention that when you first bought your computer with XP, it hadn't been updated with all the new updates and service packs. And the system hardware then was for XP with no updates. Now that XP has evolved and become more robust with new service packs, the OS will demand more hardware resources like memory and hard-drive space and speed. What was once sufficient then, may not be as efficient today, which can directly cause your system to run slower. So with that said, that is something to consider.

There are many great suggestions and advice in the discussion thread, so give it a good read and we hope it will give you some ideas on what to make of this issue you are encountering. And if any of you have additional advice, please join the discussion and tell us about it. Thank you everyone for your contributions and have an incredible weekend!

(FYI: There will be no Community newsletter next Friday, June 3. We will resume the newsletter the following Friday.)

Cheers!
- Lee

Got suggestions? Send me an e-mail: messageboards@cnet.com

Featured member solutions
for last week's question:

 "A Few Key Items for your Fresh Install of XP"
-- Submitted by: High Desert Charlie

 "A Wide Variety of Possible Causes"
-- Submitted by: tonyny77

 "XP Computer runs slow "
-- Submitted by: compvis

 "No, it will never run like when first bought "
-- Submitted by: DilbertE

 "Many May Have It Right "
-- Submitted by: Hforman

 "Could be either hardware or software problem..."
-- Submitted by: darrenforster99

 "Probably a Hardware Problem "
-- Submitted by: Flatworm

 Read all member contributions

 Thanks to all who contributed!