Computer Gurus I need help!!

GregCavi

GregCavi

Pinnacle Detailing Owner
Hello everyone

I have been having a problem on my pc for a couple weeks now. When i click on any program it takes many minutes to open up. I have 768mbs ram. I am running windows xp and have a compaq presario 6000. The hard drive is no were near full. It seems that i have to restart the computer alot to get my programs working. I have ran Updated Norton and found no viruses as well as spybot and that gets rid of things too. I have not had the computer freeze on me. It does lock up for a couple seconds when im opening items but then it comes back to normal again. I would appreciate any advice.

Thanks

GREG
 
Sounds like you might have some spyware using up your resources.
Spybot is ok but i use 3 different programs to check for spyware/malware.
and anti virus program are not going to pick up that stuff as well as these.

i like adaware, spysweeper and giant antispyware.
I also use a registry cleaner as well. then i finish up with a defrag program called diskeeper. it sounds like a lot but my computer runs like a charm all day. i do my cleans like once a week.
 
Also if you have spyware you might want to change your browser to firefox as well. great browser :) stops all that from coming in.
 
You probably have too many processes running. Check your startup list and see what unneccessary crap you have starting up when you boot the computer. You shoudl probably check the registry and see if there are any errors there too. And defrag the hard drive. You might just want to take it to a computer shop and have them check it out for you. If you have already tried all of that and it is still running slow then we can't help you. You need to get it checked out by someone who can get in there and tinker with it.
 
Yeah your start up programs can be a big problem as well. you should go to your start menu then click on run and type in msconfig from there click on the tab startup. from there you will see everything that is running on start up killing off your ram.

lots of stuff does not need to run at start up. check it out.
 
Xtreme said:
Yeah your start up programs can be a big problem as well. you should go to your start menu then click on run and type in msconfig from there click on the tab startup. from there you will see everything that is running on start up killing off your ram.

lots of stuff does not need to run at start up. check it out.
Click to expand...

Thanks for all the advice ill try some of this out and see if it works.

thanks

Greg
 
I found a nice little site that talks about spring cleaning a PC--getting rid of the junk and getting it to work faster. Here is the link to Jason's Toolbox Good Luck. By the way I believe the Fuzz is correct. You probably have too many programs loading up at start up.
 
I agree with previous posts, I'd suspect spybots or adware that are consuming resources, fragmentation, low powered processor, or your could have too many programs loading at startup. I use Ad-Aware & SpyBot Search & Destroy, they're both free & can be downloaded from www.majorgeeks.com.

Find out if your Compaq has a Pentium4 processor (desireable) or if it has a Celeron processor (acceptable for email but not for gaming).

Nothing magical about defragging a harddrive. Bigger = takes longer, if heavily fragmented = takes much longer. Fragmented = disorganized, think of trying to find a phone number if the phone book wasn't organized.

Left click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter. Highlight (click) the volume you want to defrag & click "analyze", it'll tell you if defragging is recommended. Anything over 5 - 7%, follow the same steps but click "Defragment" & let it run overnight 'cause it'll take hours.

You should also check to see if any clean up is necessary. Clean up = get rid of junk.

Left click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup. Choose the drive your want to clean-up, and put a checkmark next to "Temporary Internet Files" and "Temporary Files". Click "Okay" then click "Yes".

Right click the Task Bar at the bottom of the screen and left click Task Manager. Left click the "Processes" tab, then left click "mem Usage" to sort the processes by memory used ... you might be able to identify a resource hog but it's tough 'cause many of the processes (like IExplorer.exe which takes about 30MB) have to be running.

You could also left click "Performance" and look at the "Physical Memory" box which represents RAM. Your "total" amount should be some where around 768000 'cause the number is in Kbytes so pay attention to the "Available" number. If you utilize all your RAM you'll get into page swapping ( also called hard disk thrashing) & that'll definitely slow you down.

Unless you know what you're doing I'd advise against changing anything in msconfig or in the registery. It's OK to look but always leave these pages by clicking "cancel" so you don't accidently apply a change that you didn't intend to make.

Remember: A little knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge at all.

Why?? 'cause it falsely gives you the confidence to plow ahead & most likely make the situation a whole lot worse (maybe inoperable) before a techie can straighten it out. The Geek Squad at BestBuy does a pretty good job & they stand behind their work.

Good luck
 
I have recently installed Norton Anti Virus 2005 (Piece of junk) And everything slowed down to the point that I disabled the Office Plug-ins and the Internet worm protection. Norton is aware of this issue and has no solution.
Just a thought!
 
Yea Norton is pretty resource hogging, I'm currently using kaspersky AV and it's equally hateful :nono ...looking for an alternative AV
 
I'd take the route NYV6Coupe laid out for you first. :bigups Defragment your hard drive. You may want to run Scandisk as well.
 
Defragmenting rarely improved the performance of my computer. It reached the point that I had to reformat the hard drive and reinstall all programs. Much better now, even with Norton Internet Security '05 running.
 
yea that msconfig thing to see whats starting up.....basicly everything was crap when i looked at mine when i found out about that lil thing a while back...sped up my computer at start up and i think even when normal everyday running.

is this just me or does everything on that list seem unnessisary...??? other then maybe msn IM and ur anti virus software i unchecked everything else.
 
TW85 said:
Defragmenting rarely improved the performance of my computer. It reached the point that I had to reformat the hard drive and reinstall all programs. Much better now, even with Norton Internet Security '05 running.
Click to expand...
I tend to agree with TW. Once you reach a point where there have been a lot of programs and spyware installed/removed it's usually easier to back-up all your files and do a clean OS install (reformat), than to search out all the hidden files that will need to be removed. It's worth a shot to defrag, but if that along with some additional spyware programs don't help just start over with a clean slate.

There is a site called PC Pitstop that will run a performance test on your system and make recommendations on problem areas and possible upgrades. Whenever I build a new PC for someone I always run the checks to make sure there isn’t something I’ve overlooked. If you get a decent performance rating and spyware removal/defragging don’t help it’s time to reformat and start over IMHO.

http://www.pcpitstop.com/
 
Eliot Ness said:
I tend to agree with TW. Once you reach a point where there have been a lot of programs and spyware installed/removed it's usually easier to back-up all your files and do a clean OS install (reformat), than to search out all the hidden files that will need to be removed. It's worth a shot to defrag, but if that along with some additional spyware programs don't help just start over with a clean slate.

There is a site called PC Pitstop that will run a performance test on your system and make recommendations on problem areas and possible upgrades. Whenever I build a new PC for someone I always run the checks to make sure there isn’t something I’ve overlooked. If you get a decent performance rating and spyware removal/defragging don’t help it’s time to reformat and start over IMHO.

http://www.pcpitstop.com/
Click to expand...

Wow you all had great ideas. now i need time to do them all. The defrag is going on tonight..

Thanks

Greg
 
My dad's compaq laptop started to exhibit symptoms like you stated, and I noticed that the harddrive was stuck in PIO mode (should be DMA if capable). Try this: type devmgmt.msc in the run command in the start menu. Now look for the category IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers and click it to expand. Now, click on Primary IDE, and a properties box will pop up. Under the advanced settings tab it will list the transfer modes for both the primary and master (0, 1) devices. Look inder current transfer mode for device 0 (harddrive) to see what it is set at. You may just want to backup all the important data, etc from the computer and do a full reformat. If this is the case, I would suggest going to autopatcher.com, and downloading the most recent full version (contains all the updates, few useful programs, tweaks - see site for more details). I also second xtreme's notion to use firefox. :)
 
if your hd is nowhere near full like you said, and if you've never filled it to a significant degree, then defragging might not improve your computer speed by that much.

I've seen several computers do this before and this almost always solves the problem:
go to my computer, right click C:, select properties. make sure that the last option, "allow indexing service..." is NOT checked. If it's checked, unclick it, and then click OK. It'll ask if you want to apply to all subdirectories, and then have it do so. After a few mins it'll most likely come up with some error message.. click on "ignore all" and it'll finish up. Repeat for any other hard drive you have. Restart and see if it works any better.
 
Read the original post guys...
His hdd is not full so defrag might help but not much. Also defrag causes data loss over time. Don't go crazy and defrag every time your PC gets a little pokey. Fragmentation occurs with multiple uninstall and install operations. If you don't do a lot of program removal this is unlikely to be the culprit. Also XP does NOT fragment as badly as the old operating systems. I agree with Ray. Good tip on index service. If you do a lot of searching on your PC I would consider leaving it on though.

Reformat and reinstall are not needed in Windows XP (and not even 98 if you are experienced) and should be left for folks who accidently fumbled into a system folder or something and deleted a critical file.

MSCONFIG is a GREAT place to start. If you are a home user and not a workstation on a network using remote drives to boot up, go ahead and feel free to unclick programs under the <START UP> tab. You won't ruin anything and god forbid you did, you can always boot in safe mode and check the box... ONLY uncheck one program at a time if you are a newbie and check your results with each reboot. Tedious but you are likely to find the resource hog, plus if you stop working right you know what to recheck. You will lose some functionality from unloaded processes but I have yet to come across one that is so wonderful I miss it... However occasionally some graphics cards will malfunction when loading games so watch for files that sound like a card process, I.E. NV**** or ATI***. Remember to test!!!


IMHO steer way wide of Scandisk. Microsoft's bigger blunder! It does not have the capability to consider your PC's setup and software and more oft than not seemed to create problems. I have not used it since Win95 so perhaps things are better now, but I doubt it.

NEVER NEVER NEVER forget to update the BIOS and drivers! This is often the best fix for your PC!

Lastly, awesome link:

http://www.tweak3d.net/tweak/xpresources/

By the way, antibiotics don't kill viruses (PCcillin) :lmfao :lmfao
Sorry I couldn't resist!
 
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