Slow Computer. Oh noes. What would help?

Lately, my computer has been getting a little slow. I normally keep my computer pretty clean. But over the years some things have snuck in I guess.. maybe it also is the russian sites I came across that instantaneously gave me virus-aids or something, at least my virus scanner didn't like it.

Basically: What can I do to get my computer fast like it was, preferably without formatting :)

Some things useful to know:

I have AVG virus scanner. The best, free one out there to my knowledge. That doesn't make it the best one out there, sadly enough. Is AVG sufficient?

I have just deleted Sytec -or something- firewall. It was said to be better, and I am sure it is, but I had the feeling to took up more memory then windows' normal firewall. Also, it gave a message every 10 minutes about how 'kernell DLL' or something with 'kernell' tried to access the interwebs. Annoying. Any advice on this subject?

Also, I do know about, and have, stopped some stuff from starting up already through msconfig --> start up. However, far more of the background-programs you see if you press ctrl+alt+del doesn't come from there. I think it is from msconfig--> services. But I don't know what and what not to disable.

Yeaaahhh. Or like any nice programs to clean up my registry?

EDIT: Oh yeah, I also have spybot S&D :)

Hope someone can somewhat help me. : )

Peace.

~Neruo

I would also try Spybot & Ad-Aware SE to help you with any unwanted spam or spyware in your PC.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AdamA

I would also try Spybot & Ad-Aware SE to help you with any unwanted spam or spyware in your PC.

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One more vote for Spybot!

Also, is it your network connection that's slow, or just your computer in general? It might be worth doing a ctrl-alt-delete, looking into your task manager, and sorting by CPU usage and then by Memory, to find various resource hogs.

I second Ad-Aware SE. Oooh and try disk defragmenting as well. Although my old computer was so slow that it kept freezing during disk defragmentation :(

Done it all 8) It's not That slow. Maybe I am just spoiled or something.

Quick answer, buy a new computer :P

But yeah i also have AVG its better than Nortan at least, and defrag disk should be done once a week everyweek, so should a virus scan and update and pest patrol etc...

for a quick, cheap boost, a stick of ram always works.

Try changing your virtual RAM settings, make them as large as possible.

Just try de-fragging your computer, it works every time for me.

You have three main options, none of which you'll want to hear ;): wipe the hard drive and reinstall, switch to a FLOSS OS, or get a new computer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Neruo

Lately, my computer has been getting a little slow. I normally keep my computer pretty clean. But over the years some things have snuck in I guess.. maybe it also is the russian sites I came across that instantaneously gave me virus-aids or something, at least my virus scanner didn't like it.

Basically: What can I do to get my computer fast like it was, preferably without formatting :)

Some things useful to know:

I have AVG virus scanner. The best, free one out there to my knowledge. That doesn't make it the best one out there, sadly enough. Is AVG sufficient?

I have just deleted Sytec -or something- firewall. It was said to be better, and I am sure it is, but I had the feeling to took up more memory then windows' normal firewall. Also, it gave a message every 10 minutes about how 'kernell DLL' or something with 'kernell' tried to access the interwebs. Annoying. Any advice on this subject?

Also, I do know about, and have, stopped some stuff from starting up already through msconfig --> start up. However, far more of the background-programs you see if you press ctrl+alt+del doesn't come from there. I think it is from msconfig--> services. But I don't know what and what not to disable.

Yeaaahhh. Or like any nice programs to clean up my registry?

EDIT: Oh yeah, I also have spybot S&D :)

Hope someone can somewhat help me. : )

Peace.

~Neruo

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Abexo Free Registry Cleaner: I use it all the time, search download.com for it.

But yeah, you're going to need a new PC/upgrade in the long run. Registry+defrag+formatting = buying time.

Flush the cache in your browser settings. Remove any Internet Explorer Toolbars you don't "really need" like Google, Yahoo, etc.

Definitely defrag the hard drive on a regular basis. Keep Windows Update running in the background for late night updates automatically. They do a "reasonable job" of keeping track of malicious software applicatons and remove them periodically with updates.

And adaware, and Spybot are both great freebies to keep those stupid bots off your computer.

Luck
Shodan

If my computer goes slow, this is what I usually do (most things you may have done already though)

Clear up any unnecessary files or programs you're not going to use. Make sure you check temp files aswell. For e.g, when burning a video, Nero makes a file of the video in 'My Documents' and sometimes doesn't delete it and this can take up something like 2GB at least.

Run disk clean up as a final cleaning method

Run AVG, Ad-Aware and a registry cleaner

Run disk defrag (may take a few years :D)

Check your virtual memory, if proccess are already taking up a lot of ram, make sure you have some of this handy.

Finally, just check what starts up and runs in the background using msconfig. Sometimes, things with no names may be starting up that aren't useful at all taking memory.

Sorry if you have heard all of the above before, but that is the routine I usually go through if I think my computer is running a bit slow and don't fancy a format.

Also clean out your system tray, will work wonders for your PC.

click Start > Run > type: MSCONFIG

Now look at all your start programs and check what they are here: http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php

You will find a lot of crap in there, a few viruses too no doubt!! Good luck :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Barnsey

Finally, just check what starts up and runs in the background using msconfig. Sometimes, things with no names may be starting up that aren't useful at all taking memory.

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Ah see you sugested this here lol - You can use my link to see what they all mean :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AdamA

Now look at all your start programs and check what they are here: http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php

You will find a lot of crap in there, a few viruses too no doubt!! Good luck :)

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Cheers for sharing that link. Usually I just went on a 'if it sounds dodgy its going' basis and that can't be safe all the time.

I'm also having problems with a slow computer. It's f-ing outdated, but what I do know is that it was running at a decent speed a few weeks ago and even slower now. I've been tweaking some of the settings and it seems to be running better, but one thing that was mentioned a lot was defragging. I skipped over it while looking through my settings because it sounded like something I didn't want to mess with, so could someone explain exactly what defragging is?

Fragmentation is something that happens on windows machines
It's what happens when a file is physically split up into chunks on a disk, due to how it's edited

You write a file to disk, called File 1

Code:

---

------------
|  FILE 1  |
------------

---

and then another file is written afterwards, called File 2

Code:

---

------------  ------------
|  FILE 1  |  |  FILE 2  |
------------  ------------

---

Then File 1 increases in size
now File 1 can't fit into it's original slot, so the new information is written to a new space on disk, and a pointer links the 2 parts together

Code:

---

------------  ------------  ------------
|  FILE 1  |  |  FILE 2  |  |  FILE 1  |
------------  ------------  ------------
          |              /|\
          |                |
            ----------------

---

Defragmenting the disk reorganises the file structures so that all files are contained in consecutive disk areas

Code:

---

------------------------  ------------
|        FILE 1      |  |  FILE 2  |
------------------------  ------------

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Oh, that makes a lot of sense. I'll be sure to try it. Thanks.

Okay, I tried it, but it was going really slow. Is it supposed to take a long time?

Also, the "before" image and the "after" image seemed to be the same.

Initial defrags take a long time, maybe hours. That reminds me I haven't done one in months and am probably do for one.

Wow, I was actually having slow computer problems but was too lazy to do anything about it until I found this thread.

I just did the MSCONFIG startup thing and restarted, and already there is a HUGE difference.

:embarrassed: I didn't even know there was a "defrag", geez. It'll have to wait for some other day, though.

Many thanks to everyone who contributed!