computer running slow

[weedmaster]

over the last month my comp has got really slow, i have defraged,tried restore run several virus scans and checked for spy and adware but it's made no differance, should i try to completely clear my harddrive, if so how do i do it i'm not very good with comps and know very little, so if someone could help a computer dumbass i would be very grateful and would be willing to smoke an oz for them.

[slipknotpsycho]

to reformat your pc, you're gonna need whatever OS you use on a disc....

other then that it's pretty straight forward, right click on your main harddrive from my computer and click 'format' after that's done, just pop in the OS disc and follow the usual directions...

what's your ram and processor speed? how many programs do you have running at start up? and lastly, what OS are you on?

[weedmaster]

thanks for your help slip, i have a intel celeron CPU 2.40ghz
2.39ghz,768mb of ram
harddrive 37.2gb free 7.64gb
i have 63 programs running at start up
i'm running windows xp profesional service pack 2, i take it that is what you mean by os like i said im a dumbass when it comes to computers lol.

[stinkyattic]

i have 63 programs running at start upl.
Doctor, I believe we have found a possible source of the problem!
Go into msconfig and clean that up- you don't need all of those. Strip out the OBVIOUS ones you don't use all the time, like DVD burner programs, adobe, etc- those you can open when you need them.
Leave your mouse driver though, lol!!!

[slipknotpsycho]

63 programs?!

dude that's your problem right there.....

go to start > run > type in msconfig then click on the startup tab, and deselect everything you can stand to lose (i.e. everything but your virus protection, if you're on xp none of those programs in the start up tab are essiental to the OS (and yes os is operating system, windows, linux etc)

[slipknotpsycho]

oh yeah if you're not sure what to take off, take some screen shots of the start up tab and i'll help you (prnt scr > paint > paste > save (as jpeg))

[home.grower]

CCleaner is an easy to use program that is free and can enable you to clean up programs that run at startup that can potentially slow your system..

google: ccleaner and download a copy today

Reinstalling might be your best bet.. you should split the drive into 3 partitions.. i would suggest one 10GB partitions C:\ for windows to shyt on... one 15GB partition D:\for windows programs to shyt on and a third partition with the remainding space E:\ to save data to.... This way, reinstalling windows on partition C:\ does not fk about with saved data on partition E:\ for example....

I have a 350 GB HDD with 10 35GB partitions... in my system I have 10GB for windows; 62GB for windows programs; another 10GB for windows programs I might just be testing that might contain viruses; and 2 30GB partitions for downloaded and saved material... It helps!

ZoneAlarm Security Suite controls system protection, virus and adware; while AdAware is what I use to control adware primarily... this simple set of principles keeps me running sweet!!

[snowblind]

ms config is your best bet, it should speed it up no end. all those programs are eating in to your cpu and ram power. after that is should be fine.

if you wanna run a complete format, which is advisable now and again, cus adding and removing programs, deleteing virus and stuff can alter the registy

boot up your computer and right asit turns on it should flag up a key to press to run the BIOS, go into this, then in on of the menus there will be a section that says boot, this should have your hdd selected as it will boot windows form the hdd. select this and change it to cd rom

then exit and save your changes

put ni the os disc and fire up your computer, usually they say press f8 to boot from disc, do this and it will load up from the disc and reformat windows.

peace
snowblind

[weedmaster]

thanks for all the advice peeps, i have now only 8 programs on my start up running but it hasn't made that much differance but it definately has speeded it up a little, going to try reinstalling windows and if that doesn't sort it out i will clean the hd then if that dont sort it i think i may just buy a new computer because this pc is 3 years old now and i suppose thats quite old for a pc, once again thanks for all your help:thumbsup:

[snowblind]

if you reinstall windows it will format the hdd anyway so just make sure that youhave everything important saved.

before you get a new one, you could probably add a few parts taht will increase its performance for a fraction of a cost.

forst i would say get some more ram, i dont know how many slots you have but if its 3 or 4 then you could but a 512 or 1gig ram card in. if you only have 2 then get a matched pair of either a gig or 2. if they are matched they work together perfectly and will definately improve performance.

if you dont have a seperate graphics card, it mite be advisable to put something in a nvidia 6600 or higher will see you right and can be picked up pretty cheaply at the moment.

finannly i would say put another hard drive in there. there easy to install. once you have put windows on just open her up and you will see there is another connector next too the one in already on a wide thin ribbon and a power supply from the psu.

this should free things up, best to use the smaller one for windows and programs and the other for all else

finnaly its worth givin you computer a clean on the inside. cheak that the fan vents are all clean and free of dust and then get rid of any other dust and ash in the machine

most of the parts can be got from ebay or Ebuyer - Cheap Computers, Laptops, Digital Cameras, TVs & more! (http://www.ebuyer.com) which is an awesome site

and you should have a bangign machine for the fraction of the cost.

peace

snowblind.

ps hit me up if you need help working out what ram you have

[weedmaster]

thanks for the info snow didn't realise that you lost anything when reinstaling windows my daughter wouldn't have been happy she has a lot of coarse work stored but worst than that i have alot of mj photos that i wouldn't want to loose lol, i'm to busy at the moment to try anything but i'll have a play and clean out the machine sometime in the week:thumbsup:

[CheeseOnToast]

CCleaner is an easy to use program that is free and can enable you to clean up programs that run at startup that can potentially slow your system..

google: ccleaner and download a copy today

Reinstalling might be your best bet.. you should split the drive into 3 partitions.. i would suggest one 10GB partitions C:\ for windows to shyt on... one 15GB partition D:\for windows programs to shyt on and a third partition with the remainding space E:\ to save data to.... This way, reinstalling windows on partition C:\ does not fk about with saved data on partition E:\ for example....

I have a 350 GB HDD with 10 35GB partitions... in my system I have 10GB for windows; 62GB for windows programs; another 10GB for windows programs I might just be testing that might contain viruses; and 2 30GB partitions for downloaded and saved material... It helps!

ZoneAlarm Security Suite controls system protection, virus and adware; while AdAware is what I use to control adware primarily... this simple set of principles keeps me running sweet!!
Why do you have a seperate partition for possibly infected software?

I dont see the need to have that many partitions, i would say a partition for tempory files, one for OS, one for storage, and one encrypted would be more than anyone would ever need.

[snowblind]

yeah dude, it does it as you reinstall the os. to make sure its all good for it to write on.

techincally speaking it doesnt actually delete the data, it just lets the computer know its able to be written over.

but its one of those things where once you start it you have to follow it through.

if you have a cd/ dvd writter just burn them off then your good to go.

from the rpoblems your experiencing i would imagine that its just because its a few years old and getting a bit clogged up. formatting the hdd and reinstalling windows and cleaning the dust of a pc, is pretty much the same as changing the oil in a car.

i used to work for the pc world helpdesk, not that that is a sign of having computer knowledge, but i know how to solve most things.

long as its not a packard bell, you'll be fine. :)

snow

[weedmaster]

thanks snow the only problem i have from what you say is that it is a packard Bell, are they poor machines then, it's about 3-4 years old and last year someone i know updated it as much as they could with a better graphics card more memory and a couple of other things but i can't remember exactly what else they done to it, but i have now lost contact with him as he moved up north, otherwise i would have asked him to sort it for me, so being a packard bell then do you think if i get no joy after reinstalling windows and cleaning the inside i should just ditch it then?

[babystarbud]

not true, always judge a machine on its spec, the badge on the front is irrelevent.

The problem will machines like packard bell, is that they dont come with a real windows intall disk, just a recovery disk, so you can use that to reset you computer, or if you want a true clean install....

on your case somwhere will be a windows XP licence number ( on a holographic sticker)
If you download a windows XP OEM edition CD from pirate bay or somwhere, this will work as an origeonal XP disk, just use your licence number to register it.

[rebgirl420]

I use that msconfig thing every week, have for years now. Thank god too, sometimes ill have 100 some programs going

[snowblind]

lol, how did i know. rite basically packard bell run things a little differently. when you first load up the computer it does a thing called at tattoo. this basiacly writes the information of the computer, ie spec to the hard drive and then installs the nessecary information from the os disc. this basically stops people taking the packard bell discs and using them to put as many copies of windows of as many computers.

ive never tried to put a normal copy of xp onto a pb computer, but in theory it should work. however if it doesnt, tattoos can be a real pig.

the computer will be fine as you will already have one on the hdd, but when you reinstall windows it will write the drivers for the components you orginally had wen you got the pc. so if you had a new graphics card the drivers wont be installed.

the packard bell website is wikid though and you can get all the nessecary drivers by entering your serial number

now your computer proabbly didnt come with any recovery discs and instead will have asked you to burn some when you first booted it up, but most people, myself included, never borhter. this is an advantage because all the data is still on the hdd.

you may have got a red boot disc aswell, but you should be able to run the recovery from the hdd. when you first boot up the pc it should display noramally before windows starts, something like F5 for recovery or F7 or F11. this will take you into the recovery menu and will allow you to run a complete reinstallation of windows.

just take note you will not have all the nessecary drivers. but they are easily obtainable from the web and all the essentials will be there. it should be fine, just make sure you go into control pannel > system > hardwar >device manager the select the item you want to get rid of the driver. double click and then click the driver tab and uninstall.

most drivers are avaliabe from the maufacturer's website and if you dont know what that is you can get some component scanning programs and they will tell you.

to behonest packard bells are good machines and although things are different to noraml machines it is there for customer benefit. they just suck when you have a broken hdd. but as you dont you should be all good.

if it was just the graphics card and the ram then you shouldnt have aproblem as ram is controlled by a centeral generic driver so an increased yeild will just be automatically adjusted too. and graphics cards usually are named on the card itself.

but apart from that you should be set.

run through a recovery and yeah it should be all good.

depending on the machines date, there may be an option to run a recovery and keep your data, but on older machines it is not always an option, but if you boot up the recovery then you will know know. just load it up check then bomb out.

but sometimes they dont always save the data and ususally just that located in the my documents sections. so just move all the important data into them, but i would always make a back up just incase.

that should be everythink recovered to get you'se sorted

snowblind

[weedmaster]

i've got a genuine windows xp pro disc , so i'll give it a shot.

[babystarbud]

one thing to note, if your computer came pre-loaded with xp home, your serial key will not work with an xp pro disk, you have to use the same version for it to work.....