Hello

I'm not exactly happy with my pc's performance lately, although it is running decently I'm sure it could run better. I'm wondering if anyone could have a look at whats installed and give me some small tips here and there as to what I could change/add, different drivers and/or any general advice.

PC Specs:
AMD 64bit 3200+ 939
1gb Kingston DDR400
Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939
Gigabyte X800XT PE 256MB
3 Hard Drives (2 SATA, 1 IDE)
420W PSU
Creative Sound Blaster Live! DE 5.1

OS:
windows xp pro sp2
(latest security fixes)

Anti Virus:
NOD32 beta

General Programs:
Alcohol 120%
Adobe Reader
Icon Packager
Mcafee Security Suite
MS Office XP (most programs installed)
Nero Burning rom
Winrar

Internet:
Bitcomet
Download Accelerator Plus
Firefox
Limewire
Miranda
Mirc
Netlimiter
Skype
StrongDC++

Media Programs:
Klite Media Codec
Winamp 5

Drivers:
Ati Tray Tools
Direct X 9.0c
Ati Omega Drivers 2625
Microsoft Intellipoint mouse and keyboard drivers


Motherboard Drivers:
NVIDIA Chipset Driver (driver_chipset_nvidia_k8ns_2kxp2)
NVIDIA Firewall Driver (driver_nforce_448wenet_wxp)
NVIDIA lan driver (driver_lan_nvidia_mcpx_xp)
SATA Raid Driver (driver_raid_silicon_3x12)
NOTE: I was looking around and came across NVIDIA's site, should I get the following file: NVIDIA nForce unified driver ?
- Also, what does nVIDIA nTune do?

Spyware/Adware programs:
Ad Aware
Crap Cleaner
Regsupreme
Spybot
Spyware Blaster
XP Antispy

Games:
Various directories of already installed games (Steam, Quake3 and others)

NOTE:

I format roughly every 4 weeks (which is frustrating, as I only wish to do it every 2 months AT THE LEAST. When I do, I install xp with sp2 integrated, followed by motherboard drivers, then video drivers and then other audio drivers and such. I defragment around every 3 weeks maybe longer and run spyware programs every 2 weeks or so.

I have attached a list of my msconfig and task manager

I greatly thank those that help me, in advance!

theAlternative

and task manager

your hardware specs seem pretty fine. But why format every couple of months? you really don't need to if you keep everything in good and working order.

I suggest downloading Registry Mechanic (google it) and set it to run on each startup. And you seriously don't need 90% of what you have starting up with Windows.
The ones that I don't/wouldn't have run at my startup would be:

cthelper
updreg
adgjdet
copyfstq
nerocheck
point32
type32
adobe gamma
and the blank boxes

All I have starting with my Windows are the following; Messenger, creative volume control (CTsysVOL), netlimiter, itouch and a couple of Y'z programs.

Other than that theres not much else you can do. I personally think McAfee is a terrible program, but everyones entitled to their own preferences:P
Unless you're a dumbass you don't need a virus scanner running in the background. Firewalls are handy to the 'extra' causious or dumbasses (like grandparents or kids) out there, but I run neither and I haven't come across any viruses or hacks in a long while.
If you're using Mcafee anti-popup stuff, then disable that and use ad muncher (google it), as it takes up next to no ram and blocks everything dodgy.

Since you have one of these:Creative Sound Blaster Live! DE 5.1, take a look at: www.kxproject.com (drivers without Creative's Bloaty mess).

And wholy crap, thats a lot of startup apps in your msconfig--also, whats with the format and spyware paranoia ? I use Internet Explorer and dont see any of this so called spyware at all

brilliant posts, thanks to the both of you!

Keep em coming people!!

I see the problem, your running windows

nVidia nTune is used to overclock.....I dont suggest using it. If you want to O/C, do it via the BIOS

Also, I suggest switching virus scanners. I never liked it when mcafee had 3 or 4 programs load up on startup which is why I switched. Also, I think their software is bloated.

Do you defrag?

Hey, your system is pretty powerful and should preform just fine. Some application that you might consider doing away with or replacing with others are Spyware Blaster
and Mcafee Security Suite. In my experence, these programs are excessivly demanding. The three golden programs for spyware are: Spybot, Adaware, and MS anti-spyware (aka Giant antispyware ). I tend to stay away from intergrated security suites as they seem to me to act sluggish and provide little customization. Really the default firewall in SP2 should be fine. For the anti-virus, stick with NOD32. Also depending on the size of your harddrives, consider defreagmenting the draves every so often. It doesn't do the job of a fresh format, but it squezes that much extra out of your system. Also the stuff ^above^ works fine too...

Did you even read his post? He said he uses NOD32 as an AV and that he defrags every 3 weeks in his FIRST post

As for what to do, do the cleaning up of the start up (msconfig) and disable un-needed services. Im pretty sure there is a sticky arround here that gives info on what ones to turn off