computer running slow

[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.....