Crap score with computer

[RandomGuy 123]

My system is as follows

AMD Athlon 64 3200+
Geforce 7900 GT
2 GB Kingston DDR SDRam
Asus A8V-E SE motherboard
Seagate Barracuda 320 GB
Maxtor Diamond Max 250 GB

Windows Vista 32 bit with AERO turned on. This is running on the Seagate disk as that is the fastest

As you can see my computer is not completely state of the art, but it's average.
I got a score of 127, way below systems with a somewhat similar setup. I have run Advanced System Optimizer to clean registry and defrag registry, and I have also defragmented my disks. There are some services running in the background, Kaspersky Internet Security Suite and some minor programs.
My startup is also kind of slow, but that is mostly because of Kaspersky I think.
Why do i get this crap score? What can I do to improve it?

[David (PassMark)]

First read this post about Common reasons for a PC running slowly.
Then examine the individual benchmark scores and work out which results are particularly low compared to similar machines. This will tell you where to ficus you attention.

There is a lot of deliberate marketing misinformation about concept of registry cleaning and defragging. For the most part it makes bugger all difference. Why? Because,
1) The amount "cleaned" compared to the overall size of the registry is small
2) Some of the registry are held in RAM so defragging is meaningless.
3) For the parts of the registry held on disk, they are accessed in a more or less random fashion. So defragging doesn't have much impact. Defragging only has a significant impact if files are read or written sequentially.

So for the most part registry cleaning and defragging is a waste of time and money. (Back on the resource constrained Windows 95 it was more important however, but on NT/XP/ Vista it isn't).

[RandomGuy 123]

But what would you do to prevent your computer from getting sluggy then? In my experience it is inevitable to prevent your computer getting slower from a fresh reformat.

I already read your post about the general problems, though they were nice tips I couldn't point my finger on anything particular helpful. Below is a picture of my computer versus some slightly better computers. (couldn't find my setup)

I'm quite surprised about the low scores in graphics since all setups have the same video card

[David (PassMark)]

But what would you do to prevent your computer from getting sluggy then?

Don't install any software. Especailly software that runs at startup.

Yes, you should have a look at your video device drivers and if you really need to run Aero.

There might also be some background tasks running pulling down the CPU and memory results.