How do i increase my computer's speed?? and improve its performance? and battery life?

To fix the battery life, you'll need to buy a new battery. Laptop batteries only last about 3 years, especially if you don't go out of your way to look after them really well. Batteries come to about £150 from laptop manufacturer. You can buy from third parties, but beware of batteries made using cheap cells, which may under-perform. I recommend laptopsandspares.com, who I recently bought a Dell battery from. Here are the batteries they offer for a Sony Vaio VGN N38E: http://www.laptopsandspares.com/acatalog/Sony_Vaio_VGN-N38E_Laptop_Battery.html The 4400mAh battery is a normal one, which should provide normal run times. The 6600mAh is a high-capacity one which will give extra long run times but will stick out of the laptop a little bit. The low speed and low performance is a software problem. You can increase the performance of a computer by upgrading hardware, but when the problem is in software, upgrading the hardware is wasteful both of money and of the hardware's capabilities. The hardware hasn't worn out and got slower. It's just that the software that's running on it has got a bit mixed up. You just need to sort out the software. Sometimes, due to bulky software upgrades and extra software you may have installed, your software will sort of "outgrow" your hardware and you may need to upgrade the hardware to fit. But, unless your laptop was low-spec to begin with, or you've taken up video editing, 3D gaming or creating graphics, this is unlikely to be necessary. Try reading guides about speeding up Windows. This should help you to speed up your software without having to upgrade hardware. For example: http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10165_7-5554402-1.html https://www.microsoft.com/atwork/maintenance/speed.aspx Defragmenting the hard drive and reducing the number of startup programs and services running are quite effective. Alternatively, if you're feeling adventurous, you can make a copy of your files onto another device, for safe keeping, gather together all your software installation discs and files, restore the laptop to factory settings (which will delete literally everything) and then copy your files back again, re-install everything and set it all up how you like it, from scratch. This should give you something that runs really nicely if you've got a couple of days to spare.

NO you most likely dont have a virus laptops have a very short lifespan esp if in constant use and the battery tends to die very quickly if you use the pc while its charging.. you need to clean out your pc it has got 3 years of internet clutter and programs being installed and uninstalled. either clean it out or reset and you may consider replacing the battery http://www.5starsupport.com/computer-tutorials.htm for some pc maintenance basics

Try backing up your files onto a disc, only your important files, when you have your important files on disc and ONLY important ones system restore your computer to factory setting install everything saved onto your disc onto the computer it should be progressively faster. goodluck :)

To sort out a slow PC :- Windows runs in RAM and uses some of that for it's core systems (plus other bloatware, but that's another story). If RAM get's low, it swaps bits of itself to the disc / filing cabinet So to get a fast machine you need to maximise RAM and only use it for core programs - what they are depends on you plus windows essential services. But if your taskbar looks like a xmas tree, all those programs are using valuable RAM and will significantly slow down your pc. This is because the less RAM the more swapping windows does and hard disc are MUCH slower than RAM. If you're machine ever seems to pause, that's what it's doing. I'm assuming you have administrator rights :- The trouble is that many programs assume that they are important. So by default they load themselves at start up. To see which programs are doing this, press windows key and R at the same time and type msconfig.and press enter. Then select startup tab. Here you can uncheck programs you don't want to start with windows. As an example, why does adobe reader need to be there, - unless you read a lot of pdfs ? But it takes a lot f normal memory etc BTW I use Mike Lin's startup manager utility which is brilliant (in my view) free and small to stop programs automatically starting unless you explicitly allow it Next services. Go to control panel, administrative tools Find and run services (I moved mine, so I can remember which folder its in by default) Click on the startup type so that all of the automatic and delayed automatic services are listed. You can now change the services you don't need to manual start (they still start when you need them) and stop them now. Note that if you're not sure, don't mess with it. But for instance, if you don't use windows media player, why have the service running taking processor and valuable RAM resources. If you find you need more disc space, then by all means buy another drive. But you could clear out the junk first Download and run crap cleaner (freeware) Run disk cleaner (I think it's under system tools on the menu), then choose more options tab and unless your pc is faulty, select clean up under system restore and shadow copies. Then select the disk cleanup tab and click okay. All versions of windows have utilities to cleanup update backup files. Vista can save your 5+gb !! I'm not going through all of the options, just DON'T delete yourself USE THE UTILITIES. For Vista SP2 use compcln.exe (from the command window with administration rights) Run defrag windows explorer right click on drive C, properties defragment choose drive c full defragmentation (can take hours) Downloads are run at the speed of the bandwidth you're using. The best method is to download when you're not using the bandwidth for anything else (ie AV updates, windows update, browsing etc). You MAY be able to speed up your bandwidth by adjusting the channel that your router uses. You can check your internet speed at www.speedtest.net if it's not nearly at the speed you pay your ISP for, then you should see which channel is better. You can access your router by typing 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.1.0 (most routers) in your browser - you will need the password, but the default ones can be found in a google search (ie linksys default password) etc. The channel can be edited under the wifi menu. You just have to see which is best for you Batteries only have a limited number of CHARGES typically around 2000 If you like most people leave the battery in the machine after it's charged then it will continue to try and charge Generally with average use with the battery installed, the battery life will get progressively worse and after circa 2 years refuse to hold a charge. This is regardless of what Windows reports (normally 100% and then battery dies under load). Once a battery is dead, it;'s dead and needs replacing The best method for prolonging the battery life is to only charge when empty (some batteries have a "memory" which reduces capacity) and then remove unless you actually want to power the laptop etc from the battery The vast majority of people do not know about this and the computer manufacturers are hardly likely to advertise it ! So you need a new battery I hope that that helps - yif you do all this you should notice a vast speed improvement. But most of all is the RAM and programs loading at startup issue. BTW most of this is all routine maintenance that most users don't do and wonder why their pcs get slower !