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laptop running slow, memory at 100% ? help needed possible boot sector problem

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  • 18-01-2008 2:52pm
    #1
    NeVeR
    Registered Users Posts: 5,325 ✭✭✭


    Hi Guys
    my mates laptop Dell insppiron 6400 (about 6 -8 weeks old),, he give it to me and tells me its running very slow. It starts up and then i check task manager and memory is nearly running full. I download AVG and Spybot search and destory, after about 2 hours Spybot finishes and finds some small things nothing that would be slowing it down this much. I delete them and try to run AVG but it wont run.. I tried the Online Housecall scan from trendmirco but it wont run,, I keep getting connection to slow.. but it's fine apart from the slow PC.

    I restarted in Safemode and ran AVG,, after a second i get the error


    "boot sector of disk c Reading Error"

    and it finds nothing else wrong with it...
    Could this be the problem ?
    whats my next move? return to dell ?

    any help would be great
    thanks.


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    #2
    NeVeR
    Registered Users Posts: 5,325 ✭✭✭NeVeR


    i just found this http://forum.grisoft.cz/freeforum/read.php?1,54168,54172

    so i dont think it's that..

    what could be slowing down the PC and using nearly 100% memory


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    #3
    Hal1
    Registered Users Posts: 8,720 ✭✭✭Hal1


    Just make sure there aint two antivirus programs on there. AVG is a bit shít, and you might wanna try Kaspersky which also offers an online scan like trend micro. If you downloaded spybot make sure you immuninise the system, you will see the option for it in the menu.

    Check running processes in task manager, and if there is something iffy google the process and be sure not to remove any system critical processes. You can disable processes from running at startup by typing 'ms config' in the run dialog box, or download hijack this which does the same thing basically. Let us know how it goes.

    p.s. post the log file for hijack this here.


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    #4
    NeVeR
    Registered Users Posts: 5,325 ✭✭✭NeVeR


    wont be able to check this stuff till Monday now..

    What if there was 2 anit virus progs running at once ?


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    #5
    Hal1
    Registered Users Posts: 8,720 ✭✭✭Hal1


    It can be really bad and bring the machine to a crawl causing all sorts of problems.


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    #6
    ethernet
    Registered Users Posts: 3,568 ✭✭✭ethernet


    How much RAM does it have? I hope it has more than 1 GB if it's running Vista.


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    #7
    NeVeR
    Registered Users Posts: 5,325 ✭✭✭NeVeR


    I'll have to check what anti virus it's running. I know he's running Windows defender and Mcafee would that do the damage ? ,, I'm not sure that else he might have.

    Yes it's 1 gig and it is Vista.. Nothing i can do there it's Dell that should put 2 gig in... the Laptop is only about 6 weeks old..


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    #8
    Hal1
    Registered Users Posts: 8,720 ✭✭✭Hal1


    NeVeR wrote: »
    I'll have to check what anti virus it's running. I know he's running Windows defender and Mcafee would that do the damage ? ,, I'm not sure that else he might have.

    Win defender is just M$'s lame attempt for an anti spyware fix so its not and antivirus, but mcafee is and its useless imo.[SIZE=-1] Kaspersky would be better and its free, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]AVG is also free but not that reliable at detecting viruses. Only install one though. :o[/SIZE]


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