what could the problem be?

whodoo

our main computer in work is running extremely slow. windows live mail won't open and neither will mircrosoft word. It's connected to other computers on our network and they are all running fine.
i ran our avg to check for a virus but it says its clean.

any ideas what the problem could be? sorry if im not providing enough info.

thanks

degsie

Could be LOTS of reasons. Check task manager and see if anything is hogging the cpu/memory. Do a defrag and see if that helps. What OS?

Deano12345

degsie wrote: »

Could be LOTS of reasons. Check task manager and see if anything is hogging the cpu/memory. Do a defrag and see if that helps. What OS?

As well as those questions,how old is the computer ?

whodoo

thanks for replies.

you're talkin to a sort-of-novice so you'll have to explain OS.

Comp is about 3-4 years old but well maintained. I haven't tried the defrag yet but the comp seems to be running unusually slow.

Deano12345

OS = Operating system...XP,98,Vista etc

Try a defrag first though

whodoo

defrag seemed to work. problems with word now though....

word docs will only open if i right click and hit 'open'. won't open if i double click.
any ideas?

biko

What is the computer used for?
Are you tasked with fixing this?

Tbh, it's probably easiest to have a professional check it out. Might take half a day but you should see major improvement.

Also, download and run Ccleaner

whodoo

just wondering if its a common problem and easy to fix rather than getting someone in to look at it.

biko

It's common that old computers are slow and it's sometimes easily fixed, other times the computer must be professionally fixed. It's a little bit like a car that won't start - there could be one or more reasons, acting alone or together to make the PC slow.

If you could tell us what the computer is for (Workstation/Server?), what make is it (IBM/Dell?), what OS is on it (Vista/XP?) and what various software you have on it (Lotus Notes/MS Office/Norton Antivirus?) it'd be much easier to help.

You could try fixing it by removing things using ccleaner or pcdecrapifier

Cuddlesworth

whodoo wrote: »

defrag seemed to work. problems with word now though....

word docs will only open if i right click and hit 'open'. won't open if i double click.
any ideas?

Sounds very like a Virus I saw before.

Is it Vista or XP?

whodoo

its a Dell. Vista. Windows live mail is used and usual Norton anti virus stuff, microsoft office etc. Sorry if being vague but everything on it is very basic for the work we do.
The documents are on a network that other computers can access. Other computers/users can access word docs no problem but the existing problem with word is only happening with this 'main' computer.
Computer is about 3 years old.

Cuddlesworth

Go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12, find the winword.exe and create a new shortcut to it on the desktop,

Alternately right click on the application and go to compatibility mode. Untick the run as Administrator box. try open it.

whodoo

thanks for that. unfortunately it didn't work. can still open docs if i right click and hit 'open'. its when i double click the doc that an error message comes up and says that it cannot find the document

leninbenjamin

I've had viruses that behaved similarly alright, athough i've never come across one that would only target word.

as for AVG, no virus scanner is complete. of all the free ones AVIRA has the best detection rates, so you could uninstall AVG and give AVIRA a try if you wanted.

there are other free tools to try if it's malware/virus:

Spybot search and Destroy
Malwarebytes
Superantispyware
Adaware
Panda online scanner
Kaspersky online scanner

Might seem overkill to try so many, but from time to time i've had the odd virus that would only show up on one of the above.

and if all of the above dont find a hint of anything, you can be sure the easiest way of fixing the problem will be to reinstall the operating system (pain i know, but you could spend days trying to isolate and fix a small bug like this, whereas reinstalling the OS will only take an afternoon).

biko

I recognise the issue with the document not opening.
Does it only happen on the desktop? What if you have a document under C: ?
What happens if you doubleclick it while in Windows Explorer?

Does it look like this?