I currently have a PC at home, about 4-5 years old, which I feel needs clearing in order to maximise its efficiency.

I have no idea of its memory or speed off the top of my head but suffice to say it is not terribly old and decrepid, the problem is that is infuriatingly slow, has problems running more than one program at a time, and especially accessing larger websites.

It was preiviously used in an office where it had numerous systems, programmes and countless files on it, I think it was attached to a network system using 'novell', which has to be bypassed on every start-up. It has been suggested that I wipe the whole thing and re-install windows and some programmes after.

All I really want to use this PC for is browsing the web and other minor operations, and just want to optimise the speed in which I can do this.

Is it possible? Would it make a difference? If so how should I go about doing it?

Any help/advice would be appreciated

Four or five years old, is old for a computer, especially if it has been used a lot. Hard drives do where out, as well as other things that make the computer run.

You could see about getting more memory for it and maybe even a new motherboard. You could also format the hard drive and put in a new operating system as long as there is enough space for the now operating system on the hard drive. A new modem can increase the speed that you have on the Internet.

What is the operating system that it presently uses? Windows 9x, Me, XP, etc. Or, is it a Mac?

I am sure that others will come along and offer their sound advice as well.

If you add 512Mb to your machine it can help out a lot. It would help if you have a processor faster than 1GhZ.

Go ahead re-install, it'll give you a fresh start.

I currently have a pc at home, about 4-5 years old, which i feel needs clearing in order to maximise its efficiency.

I have no idea of its memory or speed off the top of my head but suffice to say it is not terribly old and decrepid, the problem is that is infuriatingly slow, has problems running more than one program at a time, and especially accessing larger websites.

It was preiviously used in an office where it had numerous systems, programmes and countless files on it, i think it was attached to a network system using 'novell', which has to be bypassed on every start-up. It has been suggested that i wipe the whole thing and re-install windows and some programmes after.

All i really want to use this pc for is browsing the web and other minor operations, and just want to optimise the speed in which i can do this.

Is it possible? would it make a difference? If so how should i go about doing it?

Any help/advice would be appreciated
Take it fishing and tie it to the rope and use it for an anchor they are uselss and problematic for reformatting by a dell they are cheap and ansty and you are keeping asians in malaysia employed and putting out of work 5 american men or women who could be sent off to fight in Iraq to earn the college degree courtesy of Uncle Sam

If you're really wanting to keep this machine I would advise you to reinstall the operating system. If the system is 4-5 years old I would hesitate before putting on XP though. Yes the computer would probably handle it assuming you have sufficient RAM but the hardware may not be sufficient enough to run "nicely". In other words it would probably be slow. I would consider using 2000.

However, if you don't want to do this I recommend you do the following.
First, defragment your Hard Drive. Over time the information becomes spread out on your hard drive, fragmented, and for your hard drive to find the information it has to search in many different places. So in essence by defragmenting your hard drive you are basically just putting the information back in order.
If you are using windows you can
Click Start
Go to all Programs
Go to Accessories
Go to System Tools
Click Disk Defragmenter
This will bring up a program all you have to do is click Defragment
Don't be alarmed if this takes a long time. I've had an older machine take a day or two before just because its so fragmented.

Another thing you should do, if you haven't already, is to download some Anti-virus and Spy-ware Removers. I personally like "AVG Anti-virus" "Spybot Search and Destroy" and "Ad-aware 2007" you can find all of these at Free Software Downloads and Software Reviews - Download.com (http://www.download.com) and best of all they're all free.