The PC Clinics

Hi, quick question.

My laptop is in bits, has been for almost a year now, getting worse and worse. I've tried to fix it myself but at this stage I'm scared I'm doing more harm than good. I'm thinking of just sending it to someone who knows for sure what they're doing to get it done with. Thing is I'm very protective/attached to it, plus I can't afford to spend more than €60. I've had a google and was thinking of sending it to The PC Clinics in the Ilac. Anyone here know if they're trustable/good?

I know how weird this is, but it's like leaving a child with a babysitter for the first time!

Alanstrainor

What have you done to fix it? Most ways of fixing it really are very simple tbh, nothing to be afraid of.

I've just tried simple stuff, took McAfee off my computer, replaced it with AVG, tried downloading registry cleaners, Ad-Aware, other stuff to try and spot viruses, tried turning off windows updates (saw it on a site with a similar problem to mine). Went in to Resource Monitor, (tried a couple other performance monitors downloaded from the web, can't even remember what they were called), tried to pinpoint the cpu usage offender.

I really don't think I'm capable of fixing it.

Alanstrainor

click on the start button, click "run", then type in "msconfig" (without the quotes). I windows should appear, there should be a tab called startup. In there you'll find all the applications that will run when you turn on the computer. There should only be a handful of things ticked in there, things like Windows Operating system, and AVG should stay, but almost everything else can be removed. It should make things much faster. You'll have to reboot to notice the change.

Also download ccleaner, it's free and cleans up a lot of junk.

But tbh, the best possible solution would be to reinstall the operating system, are you running windows 7?

Lazarus2.0

Sometimes less is more ... if you have a recovery disc or partition you can back up your files to any removable media and restore the machine to how it was the day you bought it . While this may not be necessary its often an easier path than adding and removing bloatware .


Oops - was posting as you replied , Alanstrainor . I'll shush now

redux

What do you actually mean by your laptop is in bits?
Is it just slow? Are you getting unforced shut-downs?

Whatever you do, do not mess with a registry cleaner unless you really know what you are doing. That is the fastest way to major problems.

If it is just slow, uninstall all crapware and software/programs you never use, or installed "just to see"
Then defragment your drives.

Alanstrainor

Alanstrainor wrote: »

click on the start button, click "run", then type in "msconfig" (without the quotes). I windows should appear, there should be a tab called startup. In there you'll find all the applications that will run when you turn on the computer. There should only be a handful of things ticked in there, things like Windows Operating system, and AVG should stay, but almost everything else can be removed. It should make things much faster. You'll have to reboot to notice the change.

Also download ccleaner, it's free and cleans up a lot of junk.

But tbh, the best possible solution would be to reinstall the operating system, are you running windows 7?

Yeah I'm running window 7, yeah I've tried all that in the first paragraph, and yeah it's already been suggested by a friend to reinstall the OS. I considered installing ccleaner only earlier this week actually, but I decided against it because I've already tried a lot of cleanup methods and they don't make much difference.

redux wrote: »

What do you actually mean by your laptop is in bits?
Is it just slow? Are you getting unforced shut-downs?

Whatever you do, do not mess with a registry cleaner unless you really know what you are doing. That is the fastest way to major problems.

If it is just slow, uninstall all crapware and software/programs you never use, or installed "just to see"
Then defragment your drives.

It's slow. The cpu spikes to 100% every few minutes, sometimes it's constant, sometimes it's a bit better. Basically I can't play any sound or video without serious stalling/buzzing/tripping over itself trying to play. It takes 5 times as long as it should to do any task.

It's a Dell (which is why I don't want to try and get help from the manufacturer), it's got 500GB hard drive and 4GB RAM, so as far as I'm aware, slowing down should be the last of my worries. I don't download movies, music or anything that's "just to see", with the exception of the few programs I downloaded in an effort to fix it, all of which I uninstalled when they didn't help. I defragment and use disk cleanup regularly.

Unless someone has a magical fix, I really would just like to know whether or not to send it to The PC Clinics.

mp22

by the sound of that I would start with malwarebytes,then superanti spyware.Get rid of avg,try avast or one of the other free anti virus's.

Hal Emmerich

true-or-false wrote: »

I've just tried simple stuff, took McAfee off my computer, replaced it with AVG, tried downloading registry cleaners, Ad-Aware, other stuff to try and spot viruses, tried turning off windows updates (saw it on a site with a similar problem to mine). Went in to Resource Monitor, (tried a couple other performance monitors downloaded from the web, can't even remember what they were called), tried to pinpoint the cpu usage offender.

I really don't think I'm capable of fixing it.

Did you find it? Filter by Cpu and watch for it?

mp22 wrote: »

by the sound of that I would start with malwarebytes,then superanti spyware.Get rid of avg,try avast or one of the other free anti virus's.

Run them in Safe mode.

Have you the re-install discs? It's really easy to do if you have. If you don't I doubt they cost much from Dell, why do you not want to deal with them?

This thread may be worth a read if you don't have the discs.

Slunk

They fixed my laptop and were the cheapest anywhere in Dublin i could find. Mine had a broken hd after a fall. Retrieved the data and installed a new one. Id recommend them anywaye.

Alkers

Spend your 60 euro on an external hdd, back up all your documents/files you want to keep and then reinstall windows. Your pc will be as new then (possibly faster if it came with loads of junk installed) and it will be easy enough to keep that way.

QwertyFinger

true-or-false wrote: »

It's slow. The cpu spikes to 100% every few minutes, sometimes it's constant, sometimes it's a bit better. Basically I can't play any sound or video without serious stalling/buzzing/tripping over itself trying to play. It takes 5 times as long as it should to do any task.

Sounds like throttling, whats the model you have, a fair few of the XPS models have experienced similar problems. Install the newer version of the bios, its a difficult enough problem to fix if it is throttling, you may need to get a new charger. I'd need more information on the model to give more help. Another free solution to get a quick fix is AdvancedSystemCare 4, its a free program, nice and easy.

Remove any sidebar on the desktop if you have one, useless Ram and CPU guzzler. Chrome > Firefox in terms of both CPU and RAM usage.

Skerries

i would save your money and not send it out to be fixed
for all the effort you have spent so far i would definitely think about reinstalling the OS as it will only take a few hours to get it back to square one especially if you have the recovery disks that came with the laptop, remember to back-up first
it may also be a hardware issue as well so i would run the diagnostics on it first
from bootup hit f12 and run the diagnostics, it will do a memory test and then go into a gui program
go to custom test and on the right tick the box for non-interactive tests and run
if the diagnostic partition is gone from the laptop you can run it from the disk that came with the pc or download it from the support page for your laptop

Hal Emmerich

Hal Emmerich wrote: »

Did you find it? Filter by Cpu and watch for it?

Yeah it seems to change sometimes, but the usual culprit is svchost.exe, which I've been told could mean any number of things since there's loads of them, sometimes it also seems to be something called IPhelper or something to do with the WLAN Dell wireless applet. Then another thing I've noticed is that the System Idle Process, which is essentially telling you how much cpu you're NOT using, is included in the cpu usage, ie. cpu=100, 30% of which is the system idle process, which doesn't make sense. If system idle process is 30%, AFAIK the cpu should only be at 70%.

Dell, why do you not want to deal with them?

Went through quite a rigmorole getting the laptop in the first place. I was using a bank draft, which I though might cause problems, but I was assured that it was totally ok and normal. Que 2-3 months talking periodically to someone who couldn't speak English, kept trying to sell extras to me, returned my bank draft once and lost it another time, then once I had finally gotten it sorted, laptop arrived, and after a few weeks started getting phone calls saying I hadn't paid, even though they had sent me the laptop after payment confirmation. There was a lot of hassle basically, and I'd rather not deal with them again, regardless of what department.

Simona1986 wrote: »

Spend your 60 euro on an external hdd, back up all your documents/files you want to keep and then reinstall windows. Your pc will be as new then (possibly faster if it came with loads of junk installed) and it will be easy enough to keep that way.

I had been planning on buying a external hard drive, I guess I could give it a shot but I've just been a bit scared of messing it up more. Plus I'm not sure I have the right discs. Thanks though, I'll bear it in mind.

QwertyFinger wrote: »

Sounds like throttling, whats the model you have, a fair few of the XPS models have experienced similar problems. Install the newer version of the bios, its a difficult enough problem to fix if it is throttling, you may need to get a new charger. I'd need more information on the model to give more help. Another free solution to get a quick fix is AdvancedSystemCare 4, its a free program, nice and easy.

Remove any sidebar on the desktop if you have one, useless Ram and CPU guzzler. Chrome > Firefox in terms of both CPU and RAM usage.

I use chrome, but I actually have firefox installed too, as it's better for dealing with pdfs, and my laptop is primarily for college use, so I get through quite a lot of pdfs. Chrome is my first stop for internet, but it seems to download stuff that's just not necessary to download, so I kinda need firefox too. I actually think chrome might be causing problems, as it downloads it's own adobe flash, as well as the computer's version, so I have two flash downloads on my computer at any one time, and it crashes sometimes. Usually if I've let the computer go into standby and then opened it again.
It's an inspiron 1545, running windows 7.

And Skerries, thanks, I plan to have one last go at fixing it once my exams are over. I've run diagnostics like that before but not at start up, so I'll try that thanks.

Thanks guys

duckysauce

QwertyFinger wrote: »

Sounds like throttling, whats the model you have, a fair few of the XPS models have experienced similar problems. Install the newer version of the bios, its a difficult enough problem to fix if it is throttling, you may need to get a new charger. I'd need more information on the model to give more help. Another free solution to get a quick fix is AdvancedSystemCare 4, its a free program, nice and easy.

Remove any sidebar on the desktop if you have one, useless Ram and CPU guzzler. Chrome > Firefox in terms of both CPU and RAM usage.

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RichardDuffy

To actually answer your question, I would absolutely recommend the pc clinic in ilac. It's very rare that I encounter a PC problem I can't take care of myself but when I do they're my first and only port of call. They're quick, reliable, cheap and they really know what they're doing. My girlfriend has gone to them a few times as well with problems I simply didn't have the right tools to tackle. They fixed her probem while she waited and it was so simple they didn't even bother to charge her. I'm actually waiting for them to open to do some hard drive recovery as I write this. If you're tired of your home grown solutions definitely go to them.

phill106

+ a million for the numerous backup to external and restore laptop suggestions.
If you are not sure if you have the right disks, backup ALL your documents/pics whatver anyway, unplug external backup (just in case) and reboot.
I believe with dell its f11 on reboot, but if not it will display on screen which button to press.
Go through the process, it should say whether recovery media is needed or not (may be only the recovery partition is needed).
If it says you need certain recovery media, it will tell you what it is called, check this against whatever discs you have.
If all is well, proceed with the recovery process, make a cup of coffee while it does its thing, and check on it once in a while in case there are any prompts for interaction.
Once it is done your laptop will be like you first bought it. I suggest removing any bloatware (rubbish programs you dont need) as well as the mcaffee that may be preinstalled. Connect to your network and run all windows updates (microsoft security essentials is available as a windows update, I would recommend this as a lightweight antivirus, legal and free).
Once this is all done, come back here and tell us how easy it was and how you saved yourself 60 euro.

Any repair place will immediately do the same as a first troubleshooting step as it removes the possibility of a software issue, before testing for a hardware issue. You should do the same.