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Naughty Office 102 - review by Captain Jack| Author | Post |
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| ma meeshka Iconoclastic Member  3939 Posts 4/06 |  Posted - Dec 25 2007 : 8:57PMAbout a week ago my PC just decided to slow down and make everything load super slow. This is from start up to shut down. I'm running a Pentium Due Core II something something that's less than a year old. Any suggestions on why this might be the case? Or, more importantly, what should I do to make this fast again? I was thinking of backing everything up and reformatting. I've never done it before, but I know how. Is that too drastic? [Link] |
| ma meeshka Iconoclastic Member 3939 Posts 4/06 | Posted - Dec 25 2007 : 9:01PM [Link] |
| conquistador Deactivated User Hellhamster. 2947 Posts 10/03 | Posted - Dec 25 2007 : 9:03PM It is refreshing. Especially deleting files that I have had forever but never mess with. You could try running crap cleaner also. ccleaner.com If you do decide to flatten and rebuild be sure to burn yourself a disc of all your needed drivers first. Download the freshest ones from the respective sites. [Link] |
| ma meeshka Iconoclastic Member 3939 Posts 4/06 | Posted - Dec 25 2007 : 10:19PM The annoying thing is that if I want to back-up everything I might have to buy another external hard drive. [Link] |
| howie Member 144 Posts 11/03 | Posted - Dec 25 2007 : 10:43PM --- an anti-virus scan --- running spybot --- defragment of hard drive [Link] |
| ma meeshka Iconoclastic Member 3939 Posts 4/06 | Posted - Dec 25 2007 : 11:56PM [Link] |
| conquistador Deactivated User Hellhamster. 2947 Posts 10/03 | Posted - Dec 26 2007 : 12:30AM Have you checked the device manager for possible fuckups? Like in this case if you have 2 sticks of ram maybe 1 of them is fried or loose? Is it running hotter then normal? When you reach your hand to the back of the machine can you feel your fans still working to pull air through the case? If you are a person who feels comfortable fussing inside your case you could open it up and just give everything an inspection and gently push all your connections to make sure everything is snug and in place. 24 hours to defrag seems like way too long to me unless you NEVER do it and you have been downloading tons of torrents at the same time all over your 1 terabyte drive. [Link] |
| Harri Patel Senior Member #SDNY he's all yours. -- Michael Steele 5110 Posts 3/03 | Posted - Dec 26 2007 : 1:42AM [Link] |
| ma meeshka Iconoclastic Member 3939 Posts 4/06 | Posted - Dec 26 2007 : 2:10AM thanks for all of your suggestions. i will try this stuff whenever i get the chance (opening it up will probably take some time). [Link] |
| ma meeshka Iconoclastic Member 3939 Posts 4/06 | Posted - Dec 26 2007 : 2:17AM okay, so, a handful of things are running at about 20,000 k... except firefox is running at 112,668 k... i've only got a few ADT windows open with that though. System Idle Process is using between 89-99 CPU. i'm not familiar with this so i don't understand what it means, i just use this to shut stuff down. [Link] |
| RandomPrecision Senior Member Enjoy! 8175 Posts 3/06 | Posted - Dec 26 2007 : 5:32AM [Link] |
| Harri Patel Senior Member #SDNY he's all yours. -- Michael Steele 5110 Posts 3/03 | Posted - Dec 26 2007 : 1:19PM 24 hours to defrag + slow running might mean your hard drive is failing. Is it making any unusual noises, such as clicking? If you know what brand of drive it is, go to the manufacturer's website and download their diagnostic program and run it. If you don't know the brand, you can figure it out in the Device Manager, or open the case and try to see the label. [Link] |
| conquistador Deactivated User Hellhamster. 2947 Posts 10/03 | Posted - Dec 26 2007 : 1:47PM That should start you xp machine with only essential programs running. Is it still slow? Then it might be a hardware thing. [Link] |
| BigBobxxx Senior Member 2681 Posts 5/04 | Posted - Dec 26 2007 : 1:56PM It's free, it's good, and it will uncover things that anti-virus and anti-malware/spyware programs don't see. (1) Is your computer updated and current with Microsoft? (2) Are you running anti-virus and anti-malware/spyware programs... and are they current? What programs are you using? (3) Did you get CCleaner and run it? (4) Is your hard drive reaching capacity? How much free space do you have? (5) How much RAM memory do you have? I'm betting your computer caught something. It's also very likely that . exe programs you didn't ask for and don't need have gotten installed in your Startup Items folder. If you want to look around in there: Start >> Run >> type in "msconfig" and click OK >> click on the Start folder and look around (extreme top right). Everything will look strange to you, so don't panic. Ask questions here before changing anything just to be safe :) Startup Folder clutter (many unneeded programs being automatically started for you) can slow you down bigtime. Almost none of them are needed. Many do nothing more than constantly connect with their internet "updating" sites. You can always update a program yourself without the nanny approach :) [Link] |
| Drew Black broken crankshaft 8009 Posts 9/99 | Posted - Dec 26 2007 : 1:59PM [Link] |
| ma meeshka Iconoclastic Member 3939 Posts 4/06 | Posted - Dec 26 2007 : 7:36PM A few quick answers: - the hardware isn't making any unusual noises (will look up diagnostic programs later) (1) Is your computer updated and current with Microsoft? yes (2) Are you running anti-virus and anti-malware/spyware programs... and are they current? What programs are you using? i am using avg free edition, avg anti-spyware, spyboy, and... something else. (3) Did you get CCleaner and run it? i'm about to do that now. (4) Is your hard drive reaching capacity? How much free space do you have? 109gb free out of 279gb. (5) How much RAM memory do you have? 1gb drew: the firefox update could very well have slowed it down. originally, i thought it happened around the same time i installed itunes. i have nevered used or needed itunes, but i bought someone an ipod for xmas and wanted to charge it and set it up before i gave it to them. while it was running it totally slowed down my entire pc. i uninstalled it a few days ago. could this have anything to do with it? [Link] |
| Drew Black broken crankshaft 8009 Posts 9/99 | Posted - Dec 26 2007 : 8:15PM [Link] |
| conquistador Deactivated User Hellhamster. 2947 Posts 10/03 | Posted - Dec 26 2007 : 8:29PM ituneshelper or itunes_helper was some iteration of one of them and the other was AppleMobileSerice or something like that. Disabling this stuff is simple if it turns out to be the culprit. Take a look and see if there is apple or itunes related shit running when you are not running I tunes or don't expect to be seeing it. EDITED to add that this can be done with a CTRL-ALT-DELETE and doesn't involve the list on msconfig. (tough there might be mention of the programs/services one or both places) Edited by - conquistador on 12/26/2007 8:31:26 PM [Link] |
| BigBobxxx Senior Member 2681 Posts 5/04 | Posted - Dec 26 2007 : 8:56PM Before running CCleaner for the first time, UNCHECK "Cookies" from the list of items to be cleaned. You can go into your Cookies later from within CCleaner and choose those you wish to protect from being deleted. Then, you can re-check Cookies and it wil delete all those you didn't/don't protect. I run CCleaner after EVERY single visit to the Internet -- it only takes 1-2 seconds! The first time will possibly take a minute or more due to the large amount of crap that has been building-up. There is also a CCleaner utility (part of the CCleaner package you install)called "Issues" (possibly called "Registry" in the newest version). This will safely delete items from your Registry that are left over everytime you update and/or delete programs. It is entirely safe and trustworthy. You can also backup items before deleting them (but I don't bother as it has NEVER made a mistake in the four+ years I have been using this program). Be sure your Spybot is up-to-date and be sure to "Immunize" your system. Spybot now blocks over 40,000 bad Internet addresses. If your system has been infected with certain malware, this just might block it from "phoning home." [Link] |
| ma meeshka Iconoclastic Member 3939 Posts 4/06 | Posted - Dec 27 2007 : 12:48AM Aside from that, I have tried msconfig, and ran the computer in Diagnostic mode, but it still ran slow. I uninstalled itunes AND ApplemobileService a few days ago and they don't seem to still be running anything, although I do still have Quicktime installed. I still can't pinpoint what it might be, but I haven't given up yet. It sucks having such a big hard drive because it takes hours and hours just to do one scan. To top that off, one time when I rebooted XP told me it had expired and I had to re-register and re-activate it. Wow. Loads of fun there. [Link] |
| ma meeshka Iconoclastic Member 3939 Posts 4/06 | Posted - Dec 29 2007 : 7:16PM Do PCs suffer from old age? Could it just be slowing down because it can't run as fast as it used to? There are no viruses. It seems like there are no problems with it at all. There's just a slower startup. And sometimes when too many programs are running it struggles. I will try Harri's suggestion later. I have a feeling that might take some time. [Link] |
| BigBobxxx Senior Member 2681 Posts 5/04 | Posted - Dec 29 2007 : 7:43PM Knowing this will help us decide whether it is "old age" or not [o\|] Although it worked fine one day, then not the next, so something's not right. [Link] |
| conquistador Deactivated User Hellhamster. 2947 Posts 10/03 | Posted - Dec 29 2007 : 7:56PM but not today. Windows is like that. [Link] |
| Bornyo Deactivated Member 803 Posts 12/04 | Posted - Dec 29 2007 : 9:23PM Of all the stuff you've tried that should be one of the easier things to do. [Link] |
| ma meeshka Iconoclastic Member 3939 Posts 4/06 | Posted - Dec 30 2007 : 2:03AM I've lost my copy of the specs, but it's roughly a Pentium Core 2 Duo 3.00GHz w/ 1GB RAM. I think I may be able to find chips from another computer, but I'm even more clueless when it comes to hardware. I could get someone to do it for me, but I'll have to wait until everyone goes back to work in the new year. [Link] |
| BigBobxxx Senior Member 2681 Posts 5/04 | Posted - Dec 30 2007 : 3:26PM It's definitely not "old age." FYI, when you launch CCleaner, it will show you right in the top of its window how much memory is there (i.e. physically there and working). The total will reflect any shared memory being set aside for video (i.e. physical total - shared memory = amount you will see). Just a quick way to verify your memory cards are seated and working. [Link] |
| ma meeshka Iconoclastic Member 3939 Posts 4/06 | Posted - Dec 30 2007 : 6:54PM I will still get all of this stuff checked out, but I can live with a slow start-up as long as windows runs smoothly. Thanks everyone for you help.  [Link] |
| ma meeshka Iconoclastic Member 3939 Posts 4/06 | Posted - Jan 19 2009 : 5:07AM that's all. [Link] |
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