Slow Computer

Computers suck!

Mine is a little over 6 months old, & is close to the same speed of the old one already .......

I can't win with these damn piles!

I basically know what I have to do, clean out all the junk as discussed here earlier, just haven't had time to spend with it. This one is so much faster, it's not used nearly as much. With the Belkin Flip I use the same keyboard, monitor, speakers, and mouse for both PCs. I just have a lot less patience then I used to.

I hear ya -- everything I need to do to this will take me all day. I've got too much to do to waste an entire day inside screwing with this thing that I don't really understand to begin with .

That's for sure,you can't tap it with a ball-peen & get back on the road(although the thought has been there) I got to the point a couple months ago to take this thing to a friend & told him to lose everything--he did so,he totally uninstalled windows XP & started from scratch,amidtst Momma's screams about her face book & what ever other crap she had on here--we had 512 RAM & he kicked it up to 700 & something---of course we do no banking or any complex stuff---so it wasn't that serious a decision to wipe the slate clean---this computer is 15 yrs old but is now acting like a young colt--I wonder if I could get MY RAM upped a bit---now that I've said that my (more smileies window won't pop up) oh well sh!!t happens there she goes

Finally got around to my wife's slow Dell Inspirion Desktop. I don't know which was slower, me getting to fix it or the computer. Anyway, my solution was to attack the system tray and get rid of some possible offenders like skype, etc. McAfee seemed to be the offender along with Windows Defender. McAfee lost its virtual life within its own securitycenter by disabling (unchecking) its desire to scan every (+) thing to come by it, and Windows Defender, well I just stabbed it to death (via Control Panel).

Case closed, no she's happy - I'm happy!!

Snuffy

Stupid PC is slow again. This time it seems to be Firefox hogging all the CPU time, Task Manager is showing Firefox is doing something almost all the time. I clear the history, etc. but it happens again. I'm sure the PC will easily fit through the little windows up here on the second floor.
Edit: I went to my maintenance program and cleared out more junk, now Firefox has calmed down. What a PIA.

Go to filehippo.com and download & install ccleaner and auslogics disk defrag. Run ccleaner to clean out your trash, and while in ccleaner click the icon on the left 'registry' and scan for issues and fix them. Take a backup if you are nervous, but I've never had a problem. Keep scanning for issues & fixing till it finds no more issues. Then run the defrag select the option 'defrag & optimize' and let that run to completion. If it is still slow, consider looking at 'add & remove programs' and remove stuff that you don't use that sit in your system tray; they all take up performance. Beyond that, you probably have malware or virus infections. To aggressively clean a machine, I'll attach the infected drive to a known clean computer and scan it with multiple tools. If you don't have that option, you can download an AVG rescue CD which is linux based and boot the computer from the CD to scan and clean the computer. Still want more speed, then put as much memory into the computer that the motherboard can take that the OS can address. If you are using 32 bit windows, anything above 4gb is a waste. As a maintenance item, I run ccleaner & defrag one a week.

Thank you, I'm going to do that.
My problem is a time issue, I get aggravated when the PC runs slow but I never can find the free time to work on it (gives me something to complain about!).
Exactly what is Linux?

Wood'nCoal wrote:Exactly what is Linux?

http://www.linux.org/ Other guys here will explain Linux much better than I can...

I built both my PC's but I'm very behind on most new stuff. I have problems with my cd burner and other cd drive, sent for a reasonably priced Sony only to find it is SATA and needs a new kind of cable. Now I have to find the adapter cable. Same with the video card, PCI is obsolete, had to get PCIE, which meant had to get new MB.
I installed Norton utilities, which I heard is a resource hog. It will clean the registry and other things, but it has made my boot up time ridiculously long. It catches bad websites from time to time. Also have AVG free installed, that will scan the whole pc, but takes quite a long time.

Linux is a pc friendly version of Unix (an operating system like DOS and WinXP) which was originally developed by Linus Torvalds (a Finn). You can get several versions of it for free and you can get a few with support that you pay for.

The great thing about Unix and it's derivatives is it is a true multitasking operating system. It's very stable and one or two programs crashing won't drag the whole OS down like WinXP. The MAC OS is derived from the old NEXT OS which is also a Unix varient.

Dann757 wrote:

Wood'nCoal wrote:Exactly what is Linux?

http://www.linux.org/ Other guys here will explain Linux much better than I can...

I built both my PC's but I'm very behind on most new stuff. I have problems with my cd burner and other cd drive, sent for a reasonably priced Sony only to find it is SATA and needs a new kind of cable. Now I have to find the adapter cable. Same with the video card, PCI is obsolete, had to get PCIE, which meant had to get new MB.
I installed Norton utilities, which I heard is a resource hog. It will clean the registry and other things, but it has made my boot up time ridiculously long. It catches bad websites from time to time. Also have AVG free installed, that will scan the whole pc, but takes quite a long time.

When you have more than one anti-virus, anti-hacking program around they tend to chase their own tails and eat up a lot of CPU time. This might be what is slowing down your boot up. Yeah, Norton is a hog, but if you are like me you spent all that time learning how to configure it and it's the beast you know. AVG is ok but I like AVAST! because they have a 64 bit version.

AGP is the one that's really obsolete. You can still find some low end PCI video cards that are not PCIE but you were probably due for a new MOBO anyway. Molex to SATA power adapters used to come free with SATA devices but that's probabluy gone the way of the free USB cable with a new printer. Try Radio Shack or even a Staples store. Staples used to be a decent place for hardware and may still have some adapters.

Wood'nCoal wrote:Thank you, I'm going to do that.
My problem is a time issue, I get aggravated when the PC runs slow but I never can find the free time to work on it (gives me something to complain about!).
Exactly what is Linux?

The others have explained what Linux is. If you are infected to the point that the infection has hidden itself via a root kit, you can't remove it when you boot from your infected OS. By putting your drive into a clean computer or booting it from another OS (linux) and cleaning it that way, you have a better chance of finding the infection and removing it. As an added precaution, I'll take an image of the infected drive before I start in case things go really wrong. Good point about not installing multiple AV products. This weekend I cleaned a SLOW Vista Home Premium system that had Norton, McAfee & Trend Miro installed and it was infected as well. I removed them all and installed MS Security Essentials.

Firefox seems to have some issues occasionally, it's not the CPU but the ever increasing amount of RAM it will suck up. I've seen it up around 600MB. Seems to be associated with flash and/or javascript. If you visit the firefox forum you'll find lots of complaints, back up your favorites and nuke it. Reinstall. This helped a little the last time I did it but the RAM issue persists.

As far as linux goes you can download something like Knoppix to give it try, it boots from CD. Download it and burn to disc, restart your computer with the disc in the drive. If it doesn't boot and windows loads you need to change the order of what drives boot in your BIOS. Actually quite handy to have around if Windows has a melt down as an emergency OS. I know Yanche uses it for security purposes because it doesn't save anything to the HDD unless you specifically save it. It's like having fresh install of OS on every boot too.

The first thing I look for if I have immediate slow down or problem with computer was what I installed last. I just got a new DVD burner a few weeks ago and I installed the Nero software that came with it against my better judgment and I should have went with my instinct. My account worked fine and limited accounts work fine but any subsequent accounts set up as administrator were unusable.

Richard S. wrote:Firefox seems to have some issues occasionally, it's not the CPU but the ever increasing amount of RAM it will suck up. I've seen it up around 600MB. Seems to be associated with flash and/or javascript. If you visit the firefox forum you'll find lots of complaints, back up your favorites and nuke it. Reinstall. This helped a little the last time I did it but the RAM issue persists.

As far as linux goes you can download something like Knoppix to give it try, it boots from CD. Download it and burn to disc, restart your computer with the disc in the drive. If it doesn't boot and windows loads you need to change the order of what drives boot in your BIOS. Actually quite handy to have around if Windows has a melt down as an emergency OS. I know Yanche uses it for security purposes because it doesn't save anything to the HDD unless you specifically save it. It's like having fresh install of OS on every boot too.

The first thing I look for if I have immediate slow down or problem with computer was what I installed last. I just got a new DVD burner a few weeks ago and I installed the Nero software that came with it against my better judgment and I should have went with my instinct. My account worked fine and limited accounts work fine but any subsequent accounts set up as administrator were unusable.

Sounds like Firefox is not releasing the memory the add-ins grab when they stop or the add-ins are running constantly.

I've been using Nero for years and never had a problem. I also don't install all of the features that come with it. Maybe one of those features is a real hog. I generally don't install the back up feature or the virtual drives.

Firefox seems to have some issues occasionally, it's not the CPU but the ever increasing amount of RAM it will suck up. I've seen it up around 600MB. Seems to be associated with flash and/or javascript.

Exactly. Whenever I have a page open with flash or Java this happens, even Fox News. Clearing the history doesn't help, have to open my maintenance program and clear it out there. Doesn't happen running Firefox on this PC (my other one). Looks like a reinstall of Firefox might help.