(Do you have those annoying late-night commercials where you live?)
My computer suddenly (last Friday at 2 PM) went from being a relatively quick machine, slowing down only when the SD was being cranky, to being slow as mole asses—on websites (opening a new thread on the SD now takes approximately forever, all the time), on e-mail and even offline, just using WORD—minimizing, switching windows, even typing a document, everything takes literally ten times as long as it used to until Friday at 2 PM, telling me SOMETHING concrete has happened but I don’t know what. I’ve seen that goddamned hourglass about 90% of the time I’ve looked at my monitor this week.
I took it in to the geniuses in IT on Monday, and they defragged it, and handed it back, saying, “There! Good as new” but of course nothing had happened. The only thing I might have done is to install the newest IE version, but would that wreck the entire computer? I don’t think so.
If it matters, I first noticed this when I was playing a DVD—which I made myself, so I don’t see how that could be the source of the problem.
I’m bringing this machine back to the IT geniuses first thing Monday, but is there something I can suggest to them other than their usual “defrag and pray” technique?
Open Task Manager and see what is taking up the most CPU cycles and hogging the most memory.
Take a look and see what programs start up when the machine is booted - usually a load of totally unnecessary stuff.
As a first measure I would run CCleaner (get it from Filehippo.com)
Then the following antimalware packages:
Avast!
Superantispyware
Spybot Search & Destroy - use the advanced mode, kill any browser helpers and Activx components that are not on the approved list. Install their hosts file and run the Immunize function.
Use either CCleaner or Spybot S&D tools to kill any unwanted startup programs and clean the registry.
Tell them to take a look at your startup entries and delete anything that is not essential. Or post your startup entry list here and I’ll tell you what you don’t need.
Also, if you want to take a stab at cleaning up yourself, follow the steps in the GQ sticky.
Nah, I’m not real good at messing with my own laptop–that’s why I’m so reliant on the IT guys, and why it’s so frustrating for me when they can’t handle what seems to be a straight-forward and obvious problem.
For example, xash, I’d love to post my startup entry list, but have no idea what that is, exactly, or how I’d find it and copy it here. Can you give me a few clues?
Assuming you have AVG anti-virus or equivalent and SuperAntiSpyware and they are up to date and have been run download the free Glary Utilities and run it.
Install and run it.
Search for updates and update it with the latest definitions.
Run “Check for Problems” and fix whatever it finds.
Once that’s done, go to Mode in the menu on top of the window, and switch to advanced mode.
Click on Tools.
Click on System Startup.
Click on Export and save the info as a .txt file.
Email me the .txt file.
Yes, we do. I have nothing substantive to add for you, but I felt the the need to say how much I love the (unintentional, I’m sure) idiocy of those commercials. Of the three (I think) computers that they show, one is a Dell – but the other two are Macs. And the service is only for Windows machines. Ooops.
To me, that says quite a bit about the service (although I have absolutely no idea if it’s actually good, bad, or otherwise).
What I would do first is run it in safe mode. Just turn your computer off. Then turn it on and hit F8 repeatedly (keep pressing it) and it will boot into safe mood. Then run the computer with a few things. See if it still runs slow. If it’s running slow then you know you got some issues to fix. If it runs fine in safe mode then you know a program is slowing you down.
Assuming it’s a program, then close your computer down out of safe mode and boot it normally.
Then go to your task manager. Then make sure you do this go to processes. You will see tabs across the top like Applications - Processes etc…
You want to make sure when you click the process tab you go to the bottom left and click the “Show processes from all users” this is very important, 'cause spyware can hide.
Then go to the task manager and look at the Performance tab and click the “resource monitor” at the bottom. Then you can sort (click the heading to sort) from most to least and see what is taking up the most RAM.
Then you can see what is slowing the computer down or else you can Google and see what is on the computer.
As for start up, that would only effect (or should only) effect the first boot up. Even if you have too many start menu items once they start up the computer should be OK. Anyway you can fix this from Windows Defender.
Just hit the windows button (lower left) and where it says search type windows defender and bring it up. Then do a tools -> Software explorer to see what is starting up. Make sure you click the show all users button or you won’t get all the programs.
I have a Toshiba laptop that was bought in 2001, and for the last 7 years at least has never been connected to the Internet. It is every bit as fast now as when it was brand new. If it’s necessary to download a new program it is first downloaded to my Internet connected computer and then transferred.
Of course, there is no need of antivirus software, or spyware software, and so forth.
I downloaded IE8 the other week and it slowed my desktop PC to a crawl, as well as crashing continually (at which point dumprep.exe would hog 50%+ of my CPU for ages). Get rid of it, is my advice.
It’s also possible that it is a cooling problem. The CPU will slow down to try to save itself if the cooling system isn’t working right. Dust in the heat sinks is most common, but the fans sometimes die as well.
