Slow laptop

spunkymunky

hi guys

Im some trouble with my laptop. I bought a compaq presario p3000 last year. It has 256 MB Ram, 40 gig hard drive and an intel celeron processor. over the last while ive noticed the laptop getting slower and slower, now i do have a lot of music on it. Its geeting to the point where its taking about 30 seconds for internet explorer to open up and it tends to freeze a bit aswell, if i open more than one window, foget about it, just lots of noise and waiting.
Ive rang the helpline and they helped a bit bt doing the msconfig thing. turned out about 50 programs where running behind so got that sorted but it still not up to scratch.
just wondering if anyb ody has any ideas about what i can do
More RAM?
I there any computer workshops i can bring it to?
Any advice is appreciated.
Thanks
SM

Auvers

Do you have a spyware scanner? it sounds to me like an infestation

kippy

Okay,
Have you an up to date antivirus scanner on it?
Is it patched with the most recent patches for your Operating system?
Have you ran a spyware/adaware/virus check on it recently?

Most likely your PC is infested with spyware or viruses......
What operating system are you running?
Kippy

spunkymunky

I have Mcaffe on it but i think its expired and i havnt gotten around to upgrading. I have windows xp as far as i know and no i havnt ran a spware check recently. Where can i get a program to do this? you may be onto something there i keep getting pop ups aswell online
what do you means by patched

Endurance Man

Reformat and reinstall. Your machine is clogged up with crap that it has collected over the last year and a half, you need to reinstall windows AT LEAST once a year, i do mine every 6 months to keep the pc working at top speed.

kippy

No need to reinstall windows once a year if looked after correctly-although your laptop may, at this stage be beyond repair.
Before doing any of what I recommend I would advise backing up all important files.
If there are viruses/adaware on the machine then you may have trouble installing any of the software I will recommend.
For an antivirus I would recommend AVG Free.
I would recommend Adaware for removing adware, and possibly also Microsoft Antispyware. Make sure you update both AVG and Adaware with latest definitions before running scans.
Finally, ensure your operating system is up to date by going to www.windowsupdate.com
As I said it may be too late for your laptop but give it a bash. You may need to reformat and reinstall as suggested.

Endurance Man

kippy wrote:

No need to reinstall windows once a year if looked after correctly-although your laptop may, at this stage be beyond repair.
Before doing any of what I recommend I would advise backing up all important files.
If there are viruses/adaware on the machine then you may have trouble installing any of the software I will recommend.
For an antivirus I would recommend AVG Free.
I would recommend Adaware for removing adware, and possibly also Microsoft Antispyware. Make sure you update both AVG and Adaware with latest definitions before running scans.
Finally, ensure your operating system is up to date by going to www.windowsupdate.com
As I said it may be too late for your laptop but give it a bash. You may need to reformat and reinstall as suggested.

Reinstalling is really the easiest route though, if this guy has not been looking after the operating system and has been on the internet all this time he has A LOT of crap on there.

kippy

At this stage reinstalling probably is the easiest route but I'll leave it up to the OP to decide.

spunkymunky

Thanks for the advice guys, i think ill try the adaware stuff first before reinstalling.
I had mcaffee up until about a month ago so hopefully not to much stuff is on there.

when i do get this fixed what do you mean by look after, what sort of general maintanace can i do to keep it running ok?

kippy

"Look After" in my opinion would be to ensure that your antivirus programme is regularily updated as well as your antispyware solution. Most importantly make sure you keep your operating system updated-either by configuring auto update.
Have a read of here:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/update/msupdate_keep_current.mspx
for more information.......

You can also uninstall software you dont use, delete files you dont need and run a defrag of your hard drive now and again to improve hard drive performance.
Common sense also helps, not opening mail from unknown sources-visiting dodgy sites etc, all help-but if you ensure your AV, Windows and your spyware solution is up to date it will mitigate the impact of opening the wrong mail or visiting the wrong site.

commited

Reinstall isnt always the only option - I have installs that are well over a year old that are fine because ive taken care of them..

Anyway,
Update windows
www.ewido.net - download that and scan - it's excellent
Download spybot & adaware and scan - google for download places
Do an online scan here: http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner
Download AVG anti virus - google for link
Run disk cleanup
Defrag your hard drive
Download a trial run of Tune Up utilities 2006 - google for link

Doing all of these should help.

Then once you've cleared out all your crap, download firefox and use it as your main browser. Then think about investing in another 256mb or 512mb of ram from www.shop4memory.com

spunkymunky

thanks commited and th rest did the adaware and ewido bit and already im seeing improvements. Will upgrade my mcaffee and do the regular housekeeping stuff you mentioned.
Cheers
SM:)

commited

Get spybot,
Do an online scan here: http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner
Download AVG anti virus - ITS FREE
Download a trial run of Tune Up utilities 2006 - google for link - this gets rid of lots of crap and speeds up yer pc for you.

Freewheelin

You do not need to consider a re-install. A lot of people suffer from the same problem of slow machines.

The advice of msconfig, adaware and avg free is good.

You should also look at Search and Destroy and lastly try HiJack This [try Toms Geeks for download.

This will show up the worms that are clogging your system.

spunkymunky

I did the kaspersky thing and a few virus's popped up, it was taking ages so i left it over night but of course my little brother restarted the laptop before i wiped them clean, some people cant read!!!!
i renewed Mcaffee.
When i ran noadware it found a load crap but when i was deleting it it told me to make a backup file, is this normal, no mcafee is finding his file, should i delete it again?

commited

The kaspersky online scan is excellent.

Backing up the files is normal

greendaysean15

get lavasoft ad-aware, avg free and then get tune-up utilities 2006

thetourist

much of the advice in this thread is very good - unfortunatly there's a lot there - and you really have to do it ALL to be honest if you want your machine to run correctly - or else reinstall

i tried to consolidate it a bit and add some of my own comments too here

ps the link in my signature expains most of the steps here more clearly

1 i know ther's been a bit of a debate about reinstalling and i am normally against this but to be honest if you have the time and confidence to back up all your stuff and reinstall everything - you will get a better result if you reinstall because the machine has clearly had a bit of crap on there and in my experience spyware can leave the machine in a bad state when it's removed

2 i dont know if it was mentioned but 256 memory really should be plenty - that's not to say that you wouldnt benefit from having double or more - but just that it shouldnt be your problem

( before you do anything turn off system restore - you can turn it on after you've debugged the pc - info.rainrain.com )

3 your problem is probably adware/spyware and not necessarily viruses - ( i'm sure you prob have some and need to get rid of them but i would concentrate on the rest first because any of the good av programs when up to date will get rid of viruses - so just get it up to date and run a scan ) - ad/spyware on the other hand is not detected by any one program so i suggest running most or all the following ( all free i think ) adaware, spybot, microsoft antispyware, cwshredder, Asquared(antitrojan), spywareblaster( this doesnt get rid of spyware - just prevents it getting on ) - also if you dont mind paying for a program then i suggest pest patrol ( this one is so good it does almost all of what the others do ) - if your pc is short on resources then i dont recomend leaving them all on there - just 2 or 3 - remove the rest - leave on whichever you find easiest to use --- forgot so say - you should run as many of these scans ( and av scans ) in safe mode (they run faster and better ) - and you should open a window too and hit tools ->folder options -> view and select show hidden files and folders

edit - you can have several antispyware/antiadware programs but only one antivirus - so just pick one - you can do online scans with another one though eg you can have macaffe installed and do a kaspersky online scan but you cant install kaspersky unless you uninstall macaffee - this is important

4 you say you have a lot of music on there - make sure you dont store this or anything else in a folder on the desktop ( a shortcut is fine ) - megabites on the desktop slow things down imo - in fact i dont even use mydocuments for media just in case

5 make sure you do defrag and a full error check on your drive at least yearly - info.rainrain.com

6 you can use the free triall of "advanced uninstaller" to defrag your registry - anything over 7% fragmented can slow pc down considerably - use the program to make a registry backup first just in case

7 fix the system files - do this hit start->run ... type sfc.exe/scannow ... (for win 98 just type ..sfc.exe ) ... and run the system file checker - you may need your operating sytem disk eg windows xp or windows 98 - it looks for it if files are missing or damaged etc

8 get rid of any unwanted programs using the add remove programs tool and then run a registry cleaner - there is one in advanced uninstaller - you should do this before step 6 above

9 if youre on xp then you can turn off indexing --- right click on your main {c} drive - hit properties and take the tick out of the box that says "allow indexing ..... " click apply and wait for it to finish --- indexing slows the computer down something fierce

10 also if you're on xp you can get rid of some of the fancy stuff and speed your pc up - right click my computer and click properties - if you have no my computer on the desktop then you can get system properties in start ->control panels ...... click on advanced and then on performance settings - click adjust for best performance - or you can switch on and off whatever you want but make sure to turn off the drop shaddows because they are useless and slow the computer a lot - "use visual styles" is prob the only one that changes the look a lot

11 get all the updates for your system - internet explorer - tools - windows update ( or the link below )

12 get a good av which you find easy to use and keep it always up to date and do the occasional scan

13 no harm in doing any of the scans a second time if you're not entirely sure all the stuff's gone

NB - if you are using "hijack this" - be very careful unless you know exactly what you are doing - this goes for advanced uninstaller and to be honest any of these programs - but especially hijack this - in fact i would advise against it in most cases

you should be able to find all the programs if you do a google search but you will find most of them at www.download.com

dont run unrecomended programs unless you know what to look out for


edit : tried out tune up utilites mentioned in this thread - very good program - does the same things as advanced uninstaller tune up is probably is a better program - more thorough - a.u. is a bit quicker as not as many tweaks - you tend to end up playing with t.u.u.