LAPTOP GETTING SLOWER AND SLOWER

[DILLIGAFF]

Used to post this type of plea in technical but not found yet on otherwise excellent new site.


Can anyone recommend a quick fix or download to speed up my laptop?


It always seems to be busy doing anything except what I have requested?


Latest trick is that I can type about 5 words before anything appears on screen?
And if I have the audacity to ask it to open something like "Control Panel" all it gives me is a blank screen with a little torch animation???


I run AVG on Windows XP and regularly defrag, cleanup etc.


Any suggestions oh great and mighty readers?

[Fazerider]

How much memory does it show as present? If RAM is insufficient then every time you ask it to do something it'll spend ages paging files in and out of virtual memory. If it's got less than you thought you had in it, try reseating the DIMMs, it may just be a contact problem.

[Bracechenko]

It's symptomatic of age. It's not a hardware issue as that will still be performing just as well, it's to do with the useless files that build up over time that still get loaded into memory taking up valuable resources.

Adding more RAM will help but that's the same as buying a new garage to help with the useless clutter that accumaltes over time. A much better approach is to back up any personal files that you have and to completely format and re-install a fresh Windows.

I do this approx once every year or so and you'll be stunned at how quickly everything loads! The only big resource drain will be anti-virus software...it's the bain of any PC and saps CPU time and memory. You could choose to turn off the real-time scanning and stop it loading up at the beginning and simply perform a scan manually every month to ensure you have no nasties.

Enjoy

[DILLIGAFF]

Thanx guys. Of course I have absolutely NO IDEA what DIMMS are, let alone reseating them.


I am also reluctant to turn off AVG as I imagine lots of nasties creeping in every time I go on line??   

[dazedandconfused]

You could choose to turn off the real-time scanning and stop it loading up at the beginning and simply perform a scan manually every month to ensure you have no nasties.

You could if you don't mind it getting infested to hell and gone in the meantime. All depends on the sites you visit of course. An alternative would be to invest in a nice lightweight AntiVirus solution like ESET Smart Security (http://www.eset.co.uk/Home/Smart-Security ) or an even better option for speeding it up (which the XP re-install would do pretty well) would be to change to Linux. If you only use it for surfing and Email then LinuxMint is a pretty good option.

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

I'd only really recommend Linux though if you have a friend who knows computers. It's pretty user friendly these days (even the wife uses it  ) but can still be complicated when you want to do certain more advanced things.

[Fazerider]

You can safely turn off AVG to see whether it's that that's slowing things down by making sure you're not connected to the internet first. Turn off your router then check you're not getting a connection via anyone else's wifi (if you are you can disable that in the control panels). Once you're sure you're isolated you can turn off AVG and reboot, so long as you don't plug any unchecked drives/CDs/DVDs/USB memory sticks in your laptop won't catch anything nasty while your anti-virus software is off. Compare how long it takes to do a few simple tasks like opening the control panel window etc and remember to turn your anti-virus back on before reconnecting to the outside world.

[Bracechenko]

Nasties and dodgy things come from visiting dodgy sites or clicking links from email. Don't do either and you'll be fine! Simples

[pointer2null]

Usually there are 2 reasons for laptop or pc getting slower a) full of viruses and pumping spam or b) full of shit installed by user: toolbars on IE, accelerators, gadgets etc etc. How many symbols are by the clock? Uninstall everything you don't really need. Remove all the addons and crap that have accumulated etc and see what happens.

Better still, ifyou have the install disc then wipe it and start again.

[Grahamm]

Download Startup Control Panel from http://mlin.net and then check the list of what is actually loading on startup against this list: http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php

You may (probably will) find that a whole lot of crap is being loaded which you don't need eg "quick start" routines for things like Adobe Reader (which is actually only useful if you use it several dozen times a day), prune all those out and only let the things you really need load and that should help.

Also download Startup Monitor from the same site which will warn you if anything subsequently tries to add itself to your startup list without asking.

[pitternator]

I recently had a major hard drive problem...just after downloading MS updates ! I had an error showing as " bad patch" and it was impossible to open up windows, any files or even get system restore to work. It could have been a virus, but I do have " protection"...but subsequently I did a full hard drive factory restore . The speed the puter works at now is much better. As such I would tend to agree that we stick too many superfluous programmes in, and hardly take anything out.
One big issue is I tunes...feck that thing is self colonising ! I dont have it on my hard drive now...but previously I could not remove it from the start up menu ...the thing was always working in the background ( spying on me I reckon ! ) ....feck it off if u have it.
Also - do you have windows defender / firewall running as well as AVG ? That will slow it all down too. I also heard AVG went bust ...so all yer virus definitions will get out of date rapidly and you will be open to attack.
Also , yer actual useable  ram may be  a lot less than you think, and some programmes need vast amounts of ram to work...which slows it all down yet again. My missus laptop supposedly has 3 GB ram, but it has precious little left after the operating system starts working ! I also think windows vista uses far too much ram just to operate...I used to be able to switch off a lot of the effects etc, but updates seem to have taken this facility away.
IMO its  a bit like adjusting suspension! - take it all out( programmes) ...then monitor progress and effectiveness as you put it back  in !

[Tefer]

Piriform do a good utility called CCleaner, its good, can delete all old browsing history and also deals with memory dumps and other windows stuff.


Malware bytes is a good malware remover, i also use avast free as AVG became unstable at different times!

[Oxygen]

I know it is not the simple answer but I can only agree with backing everything up and then do a fresh install of windows and it will be back to normal.

[Phil TK]

I'm surprised nobody has suggsted looking at the processes in task manager, this will actually tell you what is taking up cpu power. I should mention that you should never delete a process in TM, the trick is to google the names of any busy processes and you'll invariably find a geeks forum telling you what it is and how to deal with it -if it's an erroneous process.
 I have a utitlity on my laptop which shows cpu % usage, temperature and fan speed on the taskbar, it's dead handy for monitoring the computers performance.
 

[RedClive]

Lots of good advice here.  This has been alluded to, but there will be lots of stuff that has installed itself on startup. 


Go to the Run command and type in 'msconfig' and you will see what is starting and disable what you don't need.  Leave all the Microsoft stuff but get rid of pretty much everything else except the AVG entries.  If you miss anything you can just go back into msconfig and re-enable it.

[DILLIGAFF]

Lots of helpful advice here, Thanks.

I am reluctant to get my big axe out and start chopping bits out of startup as I may throw out the baby with the bath water?

.........................now if only I knew a friendly IT-HELP guy....................

[martynR]

What windows are you on? I would just format the disk and install windows again.




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