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avesta: Many things can degrade PC performance (and sorry, Umbriel, increasing hard disk space isn't really a performance fix, it's more of a storage upgrade). Fortunately you have tools (in WIndows) to help. There are third-party software options too, like Norton Utilities, PC Mechanic and others ... different folks have different opinions on the effectiveness and ease-of-use of each (added sidenote: Whatever you do, don't use the online Let-us-scan-and-fix-your-system offers, the vast majority are malicious software). But the ones that come with Windows are free (and work with some limitations ... but hey, it's free, right?). First and foremost is hard disk defragmentation: that is, over time as you edit, delete, add and all the typical day-in-out PC use things users do, little bits of file information gets displaced all over the hard drive, making "reassembling" the whole file take longer (fragmentation). Click Start > Control Panel > Performance Information and Tools (Windows 7/Vista) In the left-hand pane, select Advanced Tools and click Open Disk Defragmenter. It's pretty intuitive to use (don't let the Advanced Tools thing scare you). Also over time, all sorts of programs store temporary information on your PC (called caching) ... frankly ... well, never mind what I frankly think about sloppy programmers who can't handle their own garbage properly ... needless to say, all that junk from browsers, applications, and Windows itself clogs up your system. Like previously, click Start > Control Panel > Performance Information and Tools but this time click Open disk cleanup.  Again, it's pretty intuitive, just select the drive to clean from the drop down list (most likely just your main hard drive ... C:). And let the Windows tool do its thing. It's not perfect, but it's free and it's something. You can also clean cached Internet stuff from your system (IE, see: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/help). For other browsers, check their Support or Self-help pages on their site. Doing this will help some, but for optimal system performance, use a third-party package (I use Norton but there are others equally as good ... lol and some would claim "better"). But I've been using Norton Utilities since the old DOS days and old habits die hard, I guess.