[shortstop20]

Lately my Vista machine(with IE7) has been painfully slow when surfing the internet lately. I commonly have between 4 and 7 IE tabs open at the same time and my Vista machine is slow whenever I have more than three tabs open. I have no problems surfing quickly doing the same things on my laptop machine that is running XP SP3 and IE7. The laptop's specs are much less too, 1.8 Ghz P4, 1GB RAM.

I have scanned my Vista machine with Avast Anti-virus and Trend-Micro Anti-Virus(online scanner), Spybot S&D, Ad-Aware SE Personal and Spyware Terminator for spyware used CCleaner and a registry cleaner to remove any clutter. My computer is definitely clean but something is holding me back.

Specs of my Vista machine are in my signature. Usually my physical memory usage is between 1.2 and 1.5 GB. I bought another GB of RAM for it but my motherboard is messed up and it won't recognize more than 2 GB of RAM so I wanted to check with you guys before I go buying a new motherboard in order to run 3GB of RAM.

[Baez]

Use this guide and post your log in the Virus/Spyware section.

[Mak213]

Sorry to say but you can run 32GB of RAM isnt going to help IE run any faster.

IE7 in Vista has a more protected mode which is why it runs slower. Each site is scanned for vicious material. Check the internet for articles about IE7+. They are about IE7 in Vista.

If you want something faster. Get Firefox, Opera, Chrome. There is no way even with more RAM that you will speed up how IE7+ works in protected mode.

[shortstop20]

Thanks for the tip Mak123. I assume protected mode in IE7 only works on a Vista machine and not an XP machine? I guess I will switch to either Firefox or Chrome. I downloaded Chrome a couple days ago but haven't messed around with it too much. I do like Firefox though.

[Baez]

Try out Opera. Mine and Mak's favourite of them.

[Mak213]

Originally Posted by shortstop20

Thanks for the tip Mak123. I assume protected mode in IE7 only works on a Vista machine and not an XP machine? I guess I will switch to either Firefox or Chrome. I downloaded Chrome a couple days ago but haven't messed around with it too much. I do like Firefox though.

Yes the Protected Mode is only Vista. That is why it is faster in XP than Vista when using IE7. Which doesnt help its speed any at all. It makes it slower than the XP counterpart. I see the difference myself with running 3GB of RAM on my system. IE7 in Vista is much slower cause of this extra protection.

I would suggest any of the 3 i stated. Opera, Firefox or Chrome. I prefer Opera above all but you will see better speed with any browser over IE.