Thanks for the replies. I did have XP Pro put on it instead of Vista. The guy who set it up for me also put on Avast anti-virus. Overclocking is over my head, but I may keep it in mind for PCs I buy in the future. I also have a netgear router, (for two PCs on 1 internet connection), which I think has a built-in firewall.
I use older versions of many programs since some upgrades don't work as efficiently as previous versions and are generally much larger I prefer the free AntiVir PE Classic: http://www.free-av.com/ and like many others will never use Norton etc again not mentioned is a 'mailcheck' program to pre-screen emails tho some av programs have it built-in, I use an older free version of: http://www.mailwasher.net/ many free utilities available here: http://www.majorgeeks.com/
While I agree that you should keep your trading computer just for trading, I think tinkering with your hardware really doesn't make any sense. A modest configuration, with enough memory should be OK for trading, no need to go crazy. The bottleneck is in most cases your internet connection or your real time data provider.
Some advice on keeping your system clean of malware can be found at: http://www.hingefirescreen.com/spyware_advice.htm - Greg
.. A rare example of wise counsel on Elitetrader. Overclocking a CPU has zero real-world benefit, and in any case, are you a trader or a hardware hax0r? If you're still heck-bent on mucking with your hardware (say, because you've been egged on by the self-appointed l33ters in this thread) then hire a high-school student to do it for you, and spend your own time finding and sharpening a trading edge.
I think one of the best things you can do to keep spy/adware from accumulating on your PC is to switch to Firefox and refrain from using IE whenever you can. It's not perfect, but it will help. There are also several add-ons for Firefox, such as NoScript and Adblock, which will help further. Also putting a router between your PC and cable/dsl model is a good idea. And do not put all your faith in XP's firewall. The free version of Zone Alarm is a solid addition. After AVG went non-free I have been using Avast!'s free anti-virus program and am pretty satisfied. I'd say another large source of problems stem from emails. So a browser based email service, like gmail, would definitely help. These work solidly for me. yk
Some good advice from the thread. My 2 cents... - If the guy is asking how to keep a computer clean he shouldn't be trying to overclock his system. Even if he did, why bother? Anything new these days is fast enough to run your trading programs unless you have 200 charts up. - Run disk defrag every month or two. - Download Lavasoft Ad-Aware, update and run once a week. - Download AVG Free (Yes it's still free, you just have to search the site a little better) AVG should update itself everyday automatically. - Think about backing up your entire drive once a week with an external hard drive. Also think about hard drive failure. Right now I'm setting up dual SATA drives in RAID1 configuration. The two hard drives will write your files exactly the same on each of the disks, they mirror each other. So if one drive decides to die, you still have all your data on the other one.
I've been using Greenborder for about a year now. Google bought them out so it should be free when available. http://www.greenborder.com/ http://mashable.com/2007/05/29/google-greenborder/ Basically a shell. Everytime you close your browser it erases everything you did, saw, were infected with. Nothing touches your primary. Works good.
Ok, he wanted to know how the get the most performance out of his computer. Overclocking his CPU is a realistic suggestion since the CPU he has is the same exact architecture has higher model intel CPUs that cost several hundred dollars more and come with the exact same heatsink. Does overclocking give additional benefit given basic trading software? Yes up to over 50% increased clock speed while maintaining 100% stability. Sure he's not going to gain an edge because of it and isn't processing data constantly, but he's still getting the most out of his box while some IDIOT pays $200 extra dollars to get the same processor with the higher clock speed preset. As far as I'm concerned that's an edge. You have to mess around with your hardware to improve performance and help any strategy. There are ways to drop latency with your datafeed drastically using router settings, but I promise you 90% don't know how. But I guess that will not stop a lot of people here from talking about something they have complete ignorance in.