Computer becoming very slow

R

rimmer

Geek
Hi, just posting to say that my computer has been acting awfully slow in the last few days, this happened to me on my last windows installation until it became almost unusable it was that slow and required me to back everything up and reinstall windows.

What I mean by "slow" is its just generally becoming slow, msn will hang and take about 3 or 4 mins literally to reopen sometimes when minimized, which then freezes IE 7, WMP 10 if im listening to music. All I see is white bits on the screen where that active window was and the hourglass symbol. And just a sidenote - my CPu usage goes right up to 100%.

I know its not the fastest machine out, but it definity should not be as sluggisgh as its becoming.

Specs are:

Athlon 64 3200+ @ 2.5GHz Socket 939 on copper cooling
2GB of RAM @ 332MHz PC3200 crucial and team DIMMs
320GB Seagate SATA, 25GB Maxtor IDE
mATX Gigabyte board with Geforce 6150 chipset and PCI E
GeForce 6200 256MB + Turbocache
Thermaltake toughpower 600Watts PSu

Main / everyday used OS: Genuine Windows XP Home


basically I cant b arsed wiping this PC and reformatting it to reinstall windows. Any tips to make my PC more responsive?

Ta in advance
 
This may be pointing out the obvious but I'd check with MSCONFIG to see what services are being started at boot and if you're using the indexing service... turn it off:). You might also want to review how you use your Virus software too.
 
Definately check the startup services, run some virus/spyware programs. Not that I need to tell you, why you even askin us, you know what you're doing lmao. How old is the XP install? The life expectancy is pretty decent on XP, but you know how that goes. I actually prefer to reinstall XP every four months or so.. Can't beat the speed you get at first lol.
 
rimmer said:
What I mean by "slow" is its just generally becoming slow, msn will hang and take about 3 or 4 mins literally to reopen sometimes when minimized, which then freezes IE 7, WMP 10 if im listening to music. All I see is white bits on the screen where that active window was and the hourglass symbol. And just a sidenote - my CPu usage goes right up to 100%.
Click to expand...
Sounds like malware, especially since you surf with IE. Try housecall, then maybe run a few passes with Spybot S&D and Adaware.
 
What AV are you using ? If you are using Norton then remove and install some other Lighter AV... Norton is the worst too use.. try avg or avast,,,
 
Hi, thanks for all advice so far, I did an overnight virus scan with (yes my virus scanner is:) Avast Home Edition, picked up nothing, I went to my computer and turned off that index file whatever, and its seemed faster every since. As for task manager, once the computer is fully started up, I have 35/36 sometimes running processes and my PF usage on startup is usually 225MB or can go as high as 260MB.
Seems better ever since I have turned off that indexing, anyway just as a precaution I will install spybot and adaware, and does anybody think tune up utilities will help me in terms of general performance?

on the "lifetime" of an XP Installation, I usually format once every 8 months or so, but I would like to keep this at a minimal because its an arse and I just cant b bothered. Maybe keep it at once every year and a half or something...

thanks for help so far
 
HOW OFTEN DO YOU DEFRAG??? how much do you use this computer ?
If you are on the computer a whole lot, then try Defraging once a week.
This will speed up your computer also.there are allot of tricks you can
do/use to speed up any computer.
 
I perform the act of defragmentation once a month or more often on both my drives; One is a 320GB SeaGate SATA 2, and the other a 25GB Maxtor IDE/PATA 66

I know theres tricks and tweaks to make a system faster, so please let me know what some of them are :D

cheerz
 
Why don't you just try a simple disk cleanup get rid of all those unnecessary files
 
Pimp said:
Why don't you just try a simple disk cleanup get rid of all those unnecessary files
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Based on the severity of the slowdowns, it's probably something a bit more serious, like either OS or hardware-level issues. You might try doing a SMART test on both HDDs and see if they pass. Maxtors in particular have a very high failure rating. Windows is exceptionally bad at IO blocking, so if it's waiting on something from the Maxtor the whole system can freeze until it becomes available.
 
oh trust me, i hate maxtors, except for this one, its 10 years old and its the best, most longest lasting drive i have ever had.
i have experienced slowdowns from my previous "ended up dead" maxtors and i know its not down to my one.
i tell you, the older maxtors seem to be OK, its just the newer diamond max series ones...
 
rimmer said:
oh trust me, i hate maxtors, except for this one, its 10 years old and its the best, most longest lasting drive i have ever had.
i have experienced slowdowns from my previous "ended up dead" maxtors and i know its not down to my one.
i tell you, the older maxtors seem to be OK, its just the newer diamond max series ones...
Click to expand...
Not to be argumentative, but Maxtors use cheap bearings and bearing grease, so its the exception and not the rule when they last a long time. I'd still test it.
 
Trust me on this use one of these programs - REGCURE or Advanced Windows Care Personal (Freeware) Google it.

It cleans the registry like no other - I use REGCURE too, but you'll have to pay for it, best money you'll ever spend for speeding up your PC, if you're using REGCURE run the scan about 5 times in a row as it finds more errors after each scan. I have a 512 ram laptop and mine runs better than my friends 2GB laptop with a dual core processor.

Your computer if full of dead or invalid registry keys, basically its a needle in the haystack to find a valid key hence why the computer is slow, the quicker it find s the instruction in the registry the faster your computer will run. Trust me you wont be sorry!!!!
 
lavasoft adaware SE: found 28 problems

spybot: 760+ problems after scanning with adaware SE

no viruses though, plus just on a sidenote, i did all my scanning for viruses/mal + spy ware in safe mode
 
one more thing, after choosing a good balance between appearance and performance, (like having disabled shadows, but keeping the desktop from looking like windows 98) i seem to have one thing i cant seem to fix, its just me being picky, so its not a problem exactly, i just want to know how to get rid of the text background for desktop items, because it clashes with the icons below and annoys me

is there a way to change it back to being a transparent background so i can see my icons better?

attatched is a picture of what i mean.
 

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This depends on what you are running? Are you running win 98 ? Or ?
You can change the back ground text color too any color or transparent, In windows 98.. You should be able to do the same in XP.. If you are using Win 98SE and you want the look and feel of XP, then check this out..|MG| Windows 98 Revolutions Pack 7
 
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