Slow Laptop

poptart007

hello,
My laptop is pretty slow and I just bought it in November last year - there are a lot of apps on it that i don't use on a daily basis but do need. I also have a loada photos and music on it.
I was thinking of getting an external hard drive for these kinda things - is this the best option or would I be better getting some more RAM for it?
All help greatfully accepted

Ruu_Old

Low disk space would be part of the speed issue but would be more to do with how much RAM you have or programs you are running. Also do you check for spyware/malware and viruses regularly?

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Can I take a stab in the dark and guess that McAfee or Norton is running on it?

You should uninstall these and replace them with:
AVG as a virus scanner (http://free.grisoft.com)
Zone Alarm as a firewall (http://www.zonealarm.com/)
Spybot as anti-spyware (http://www.safer-networking.org/)

What else is running on the laptop in the system tray? (the bottom right hand corner of the screen)

poptart007

OK go easy on me I'm not the most technical person in the world
I do use AVG at the moment instead of norton or mcafee.
as for spyware i'm not sure - what would be good for this?

As for RAM - I only have 256MB DDRII 553 RAM - not sure what that means

Ruu_Old

Spybot Search and Destroy is a good start for anti spyware scanning, also another 256MB wouldn't hurt the situation. What is the make/model of the laptop? I assume you are using Windows XP?

Thomas_S_Hunterson

poptart007 wrote:

As for RAM - I only have 256MB DDRII 553 RAM - not sure what that means

256 Megs is not a whole lot although it should run comfortaly enough. Getting more RAM should help

ActorSeeksJob

Try this, can help tell us if malware is causing your slow down and show us a lot more helpful info

Please download the self-extracting version of HijackThis from here:

HijackThis_sfx download

Save HijackThis_sfx to your desktop.

Double-click the file then click the Unzip button. Then close the Self-Extractor window.

Using My Computer/Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\Program Files\HijackThis and double click on HijackThis.exe to run it. If you would like to make a shortcut for your Desktop so it's more easily accessable, right click HijackThis.exe and choose Send To > Desktop (create shortcut).

Please run the extracted HijackThis.exe from now on. Delete any copies of HijackThis.zip that you have saved.

Open HijackThis and click Do a system scan and save a log file. Copy the entire contents of that log and post it here

poptart007

If I did get another 256MB, how easy or hard is it to add? Is it something I could manage myself or should I get help? Also getting an external HD for my music and stuff would prob slow it down even more I'm assuming :rolleyes:

Ruu_Old

It depends, on my Dell, you just open the hatch under the laptop and slot in the RAM there and away you go. As for the external hard drive, I would recommend one the Western Digital My Book range that are sold from Komplett.ie, they have them ranging from €85 (for 250GB using USB 2.0) upwards.

poptart007

mines not a dell it's an e systems 3087, got it from pc world in november

BostonB

poptart007 wrote:

OK go easy on me I'm not the most technical person in the world
I do use AVG at the moment instead of norton or mcafee.
as for spyware i'm not sure - what would be good for this?

As for RAM - I only have 256MB DDRII 553 RAM - not sure what that means

Perhaps its running the scan daily. Turn that off.