Anyone here Computer Experts?

My personal PC at home is running really slooooowwww!:ugh2:
When I turn it on it takes forever to come online. And when I click to go to the internet it takes 30 sec to a min to load the home page. But once its loaded going from site to site is no problem. I do have DSL but there is delays between loading pages.
I have run Spyboat and then looked at my harddrive capacity...its about 90% full.

Im just wondering if there is a virus or something that is slowing it down. It used to be fast with no problems.

I hate to buy a new one when its probaly a simple fix!:(

you could try using trendmicros homecall service, it's a free adware, spyware, and virus scanner.

Too much porn!

How about just reinstall windows and start over? There is probably just too many applications running or like you said, a virus.

Do this for starters:

go to start and click run

Type in: msconfig

Then go to startup and uncheck programs that always run that you dont want to run on startup and continually. Personally I only have my graphics program and antivirus program running all the time on my computer.

Also try defragmenting the PC. Go to accessories and click system tools then do system defrag. This basically moves and compacts file/folders around in the computer freeing up space to allow faster program starts and in some cases a general speed increase.

Something also that might work is if you find the system folder labeled "cookies" and delete every file in there except for the index file.

Some say that too much dust in a computer tower can slow activity down, Im not sure if this statement is true, but I did all the above to my friend's parents computer (even air dusted the inside) and it ran so much better.

Also if you dont feel like buying a new PC yet, check into memory upgrades(RAM) , that always helps. How much memory does your system have right now? (Not Harddrive space ex. 120 gigs. lol)

Also if your Hardrive is 90% full that could lead to some slowness. Try buying a cheap external HD for files you never use, music, video, etc. They will also run off the external HD at the same speed.

As far as Internet anti-virus/spyware, I have Zonealarm internet security suite for XP and to this day never had problems or major viruses screw anything up. There are always some undetectable viruses that a anti-virus program wont find, but if you do end up with one, save your recent files on a CD or flashdrive, and recover the PC to an older date using system restore. The virus will be non-existent

Seems you have alot of spyware or trojans running in the background or possiblly you have some registery errors as well. These would slow down the computer significantly! You can download pc tools "spyware doctor with antivirus" and run a full scan to see what you have.Its the best that i have seen so far.

Also run windows update as much as possible....My grandmas old computer crashed due to a system coding error caused by a virus or a program from the internet. There are always new updates to fix these problems and make sure they never happen again

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by COWL327

Too much porn!

---

Porn is def. the #1 cause of nasty computer viruses and/or risk of personal valuable information (SSN, Card #s, Bank account #s) being stolen or copied. If you have to watch it, dont watch it on the computer! LMAO

if you had windoctor that would work too. we have that at work and it usually helps out as well as what aggie said. Just cleans everything up

Go to Malwarebytes.org and download the free antivirus program. I use Symantec Corporate Edition, AVG, and Avast Pro versions and some viruses, malware and brower hijacks slip through. This one caught and fixed them all and its free. Run this, uninstall all the programs you no longer use and do a defrag of your C:\ things should work great after reboot.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by duckysbht

if you had windoctor that would work too. we have that at work and it usually helps out as well as what aggie said. Just cleans everything up

---

Yes do run that as well! Basically just a system cleanup and removal of unnecessary files and a repair of corrupted files.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wildman

Go to Malwarebytes.org and download the free antivirus program. I use Symantec Corporate Edition, AVG, and Avast Pro versions and some viruses, malware and brower hijacks slip through. This one caught and fixed them all and its free. Run this, uninstall all the programs you no longer use and do a defrag of your C:\ things should work great after reboot.

---

This can also work too! Ive never used the above program but just be careful on programs you download from the internet. Especially some anti-virus programs. Some are designed to infect your system with viruses and keep asking you to download more and more things which screw you over in the end (Trust me, my idiotic roommate did it :spit:lol! ). Youll basically just pack more spyware/adware/viruses into your system.

Windows key + Pause break will let us know what kind of processor and ram setup you have. You know having less than 10% of free space on your hdd can also slow down your access times due to the hdd needle using bigger "swipes/passes" to access data. Ive used |MG| HijackThis 1.99.1 provided by trendmicro which scans your background running processes and allows you to delete their registry string in order to permanently remove it. Use ctrl+delete key and tell us how many running process are in the background. :)

malwarebytes is a good free program...but if you dont have a virus it wont help u, i would try killing most of your startup programs by doing the msconfig as mentioned on page1 of this thread before you go and download anything else

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Maui4x4

Windows key + Pause break will let us know what kind of processor and ram setup you have. You know having less than 10% of free space on your hdd can also slow down your access times due to the hdd needle using bigger "swipes/passes" to access data. Ive used |MG| HijackThis 1.99.1 provided by trendmicro which scans your background running processes and allows you to delete their registry string in order to permanently remove it. Use ctrl+delete key and tell us how many running process are in the background. :)

---

Hell I think from personal experience the CPU slows down gradually anything 50% of capacity. lol 90% is def. a lot and I would highly consider more storage or an external HD.

Nice find about the trendmicro program, Im gonna download that actually when I get off work. I tried a similar program that geeksquad gave me a while back and it never wanted to work lol

Thanks guys that alot of info. I'll c what I can do this evening.

Half of the harddrive is downloaded TV show seasons and movies.:tvhaha:

And for the porn comment....."Dang Ole Click click click click"

^^^thats some King of the Hill for ya'll

90% hard drive full will make one slow. It depends on the OS you're using but deleting cookies and temporary internet files and then defragmenting C: will help a lot......sometimes the defrag needs to be done several times in a row (such as W98 or W2K) if maintenance has not been done in a long time. Completely shutting it down after 2-3 defrags and restarting it can help too. Make sure you know any saved passwords for websites, etc. before deleting temporary internet files and cookies. Your main issue is the hard drive full unless you have a virus.

That and running programs from what it sounds like. Yeah if you have TV shows and movies that def. slows it down! Invest in a external HD, You can find some for 50$! or maybe cheaper!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wildman

Go to Malwarebytes.org and download the free antivirus program.

---

thats a decent program for free.

if like said above you go to msconfig and remove all the startup items see if its faster. it sounds like you have a trojan though.

Clceaner is a good free program too. Keeps everything cleaned up really good.

Here is some info about my Pc

Windows XP SP 3

1.47 GHz/512MB RAM

51 processes are running

JUst installed Malware, its been an 1hr already and still going.
Gonna c what happens after that.

Deleated Temp files and cookies

What kind of maintence should I do to keep my PC in order?

What is a cleaner?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kros383SS

What is a cleaner?

---

It is CCleaner; from the website. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space.

Yea you should def. look into buying more RAM if your only running 512. Id at least upgrade to a gig its not that expensive these days. If you have 2 256 sticks in your computer take one out and put the gig in. Youll have over a gig to operate with! If you get a 2 gig stick it gets pricey. Depends on how much you want to throw in. Honestly I wouldnt worry about more than a gig cause of your processor speed.

Have you done msconfig yet?

also in case you haven't noticed we are all computer experts :spit:

oh ya my pc has 4 gigs of ram, an my screen is 21 inchs

Well whooptie freakin doo Ricky. We all could care less. :D

Ehem your problem I think lies within the 51 processes running along with only 512mb of ram... your basically running out of ram and windows is probably using the hdd as extended ram. Run spybot search and destroy along with malwarebytes and you should be moving towards the right track. :)

*I have only 26 processes running with a windows page file usage of 342mb. This is a "good/clean" setup I think to aim for.

Also everyone should consider looking into this

TweakHound's Super XP Tweaking Guide - Tweak & Optimize XP

I usually reformat about once a year, and the first thing i do is go through this guide and tweak xp. XP is not as big of a RAM hog as VISTA is but you can still squeeze out alot of RAM and speed by doing this guide.

Putting in 2 gb will give you a huge increase in performance...so I would invest in ram first it is cheap. As others have said 90% is pretty full..if you get the chance after running all the cleaners and anti-virus programs - do a defrag on your hard drive. Until you can get more memory your going to page out to your hard drive so the less it has to search all over it the better you will be. Adding a second hard drive for your data will help too.

My XP laptop has 68 processes running so 51 is not a huge amount.


For antivirus -

AVG (do a google search on AVG Free) - this is THE best anti virus free or pay (and it is free - they have a pay version that adds firewall etc.. you don't need all that).

CCleaner -awesome

Spydoctor - awesome

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 567234ta

also in case you haven't noticed we are all computer experts :spit:

---

Hahahaha I'm no expert at all but know a little about what has helped me.:ugh2:

[QUOTE=Aggie;201752]Yea you should def. look into buying more RAM if your only running 512. Id at least upgrade to a gig its not that expensive these days. If you have 2 256 sticks in your computer take one out and put the gig in. Youll have over a gig to operate with! If you get a 2 gig stick it gets pricey. Depends on how much you want to throw in. Honestly I wouldnt worry about more than a gig cause of your processor speed.

Have you done msconfig yet?[/QUOTE]

Yes I sure did...unckecked all of it!

I removed all the downloads and it free'd up 50% of my harddrive. Did the msconfig. Ran spybot and malware.

Also a defrag and a couple restarts...runs alot faster but still is hesitant on loading web pages.

I'll look into getting more RAM

So after I get more RAM in it, what r some ways I can keep my system tuned up I guess you can say.?? Suprised noone said Delete Torque Management!:spit:

Just run spy bot every once in a while. Defrag once in a while delete your temp files. Clean up some things off the HDD once in while, you should be good to go.

Once you get the ram it will speed up lots of processes cause the computer will have more available thought to work with. I upgraded my laptop a while back from 512 to 1Gig+256 (I guess thats like 1280ish ram?) and my internet loaded a lot faster

2 gigs of ram is XP's sweet spot, 3-4 is Vistas.

I also use TuneXP - Free software downloads and reviews - CNET Download.com which speeds up boot/shutdown times and access times a little bit. :)

I'm curious , how old is your computer ? When I upgraded my older emachine to 512 it said it was maxed out . You may be only to put a gig in max if it's older or it could already be maxed out although it probably isn't . If you've never done regular maintenance like running disc cleanup once or twice a month then it could take hours to clean it up and when you defrag it make sure to not have anything else running and leave it alone all night so it can finish . I cleaned a friends of mine computer once and his kids had all of these games they'd downloaded for free. I had to go into the program files and manually delete them all . That freed up a lot of memory . I dumped spybot and just started using AVG free . Just google that and you'll find their website - it's grisoft .com I think . Or like someone else said you could wipe the hard drive and start anew but make sure you have all of the discs you need for the monitor , printer etc. first . If that doesn't hellp I'd call the dsl provider and have them check for bandwidth leakage . I had to do this with my cable company and it made a big difference.