How to make it run faster

Many things slow down a computer over time. A little housecleaning will help. There are many Freeware programs to assist. 1, CCLEANER at : http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/ This freeware program will remove the junk from your machine, In the TOOLS section, STARTUP section, Disable ALL unnessary startup programs, in UNINSTALL section remove unnessary programs, Toolbars, etc. 2, MALWAREBYTES at : http://www.filehippo.com/download_malwarebytes_anti_malware/ In the install, UNCHECK the TRIAL PRO version, you want the freeware version. Run a FULL Scan, Delete ALL results, Reboot. Here are some basic tips for Win Vista speed up: http://www.pcworld.com/article/143538/windows_vista.html You could always do a Full System Recovery, but that a bit of a pain.

If your computer has less than 1Gb RAM then install more RAM will help.

If you have a virus program installed, it is most likely is running a scan on your hard disk. It can slow down your computer especially if you have a large hard drive.
To make your computer (hard disk) lean and mean, uninstall any programs you do not use.
Also you need to maintain your hard disk by running Disk Cleanup this will remove old temp files and old compressed files etc.
This will reduce the number of files the virus scanner has to scan. Plus running Defrag. this makes your files contiguous so the system can access files off the hard drive quicker because it does not work as hard.. Disk Cleanup and Defrag should be carried out at least once a month.
If you have 512Mb of RAM installed then installing more RAM will speed up your computer. After installing your graphics card, you may need to disable the built-in graphics card in the BIOS for the new graphics card to work properly.