Nothing can be running, some people believe if you close a program, then it is not running, wrong, it is not active, but it is running, exit out of everything next to time except display and volume.
Clearing temp internet files, top of IE, tools, internet tools, delete files, delete offline content, and clear history every time you test.
Every wonder why a fresh install runs faster, well if you did not totally mess it up it is because a fresh install has a registry that is not fragmented, your Windows defragmentor only defrags hard drive, not registry, so after deleting things and tweaking your registry becomes fragmented, which cuts down on performance and speed. Save your pennies and buy something that will defrag registry.
Registry cleaner does not defrag but cleans out registry.
Always reboot before speed teting so you have all your RAM available, take test at http://www.pcpitstop.com and at end of test click on Windows-resourses tells you, you need the highest to 100 as you can get.
Auto-update-turn off
system restore--turn off, These are nice if you have alot of RAM, but if you only have alittle, turn off.
Remember exit out of AIM, ICQ all of it, hope this helps alittle.

