Yes, you heard right, more computer problems for me. This time my compter is going really freaking s-l-o-w-l-y and it's a-n-n-o-y-i-n-g. It takes forever to boot up, it goes slow and even crashes when I try to browse files, I ran Spy Sweeper and it said it got rid of like, 36 spybot programs and somewhere around 1,250 "traces" but I'm starting to think it was like, fake or something, I don't know. My comp runs at 2.81Ghz and it has dual shift memory, so it shouldn't run this slowly. I'm thinking about running a defrag but i'm not sure how much that will help. I've currently used 17.9 of 127GB of space on my computer.

Please help :(

Try ad aware. That's a good program. I think its bogged down with spyware sounds like.

Originally posted by STTCT
Try ad aware. That's a good program. I think its bogged down with spyware sounds like.


Ran that already, all it found was some tracking cookies :/

I remembered last time i also got VERY slow boot-up/loading slowness.....

And it was because my PC was courrpted, so try a reformat.

defrag will help, so will disk cleanup. i would do a virus scan as well. also check the page file size (right click on my computer, advanced, performance settings, advanced.)

after that if its still running slow start windows in safe mode and see if that makes a difference. also you could try a clean boot by running msconfig (start, run, type in msconfig, tick selective startup and uncheck everything, then your computer will do a 'clean' boot. then go back into msconfig and select normal startup, then your computer will reboot again.

Originally posted by Siv
defrag will help, so will disk cleanup. i would do a virus scan as well. also check the page file size (right click on my computer, advanced, performance settings, advanced.)

after that if its still running slow start windows in safe mode and see if that makes a difference. also you could try a clean boot by running msconfig (start, run, type in msconfig, tick selective startup and uncheck everything, then your computer will do a 'clean' boot. then go back into msconfig and select normal startup, then your computer will reboot again.

i'll try, thanks...

lemme guess Siv, you work in tech support :p Either that, or some seedy underground gif. laboratory somehwere ! :p

hope you get it fixed IG, that would suck, having a new computer which is playing up.....maybe it hasnt recovered after that style xp ordeal ??

Have you installed anything new recently. Ppl sometimes find after they have installed things like Norton systemworks with disk doctor in it that it fudges things up .....

MTFBWYA

Originally posted by Astrotoy7
maybe it hasnt recovered after that style xp ordeal ??
it was a reformat, as far as my comp knows that time never existed

Right, well, what worked for me in the past is fixit Utilities. My god, it worked like a wonder. For some reason, the built in defragger didn't do anything, but the one in this (not called defrag, but "speedup", it defrags, and does some other interesting thing) Worked great. Thats all I know...

lemme guess Siv, you work in tech support

yep, and now heres some interesting information....

Originally posted by IG-64
it was a reformat, as far as my comp knows that time never existed

that’s not entirely true, you see when you delete a file it doesn’t just disappear into thin air. no, what happens is the computer marks the file as a ‘deleted’ file and reads it as free space. once that happens you can no longer see it but its still there until it’s overwritten, which could be awhile before that happens. The same happens when you format the drive, all you files are still there but they are all marked as free space. That’s why some viruses can still work after a format. The solution is to do a low-level format, a dos-based program which you can get from your hard drive manufacturer. this will reset all the 1s to 0s and wipes the drive completely clean.
so if you’re a terrorism or something and the police are banging at your door, don’t think that by formatting your hard drive they wont be able to see what you had on your computer. no no no, there are programs that can convert files that the computer has marked at deleted or reformatted back to the original file type and they will be able to see everything (or atleast most) of what you had.

interesting eh? :bored: :D

yeah siv!
oh yeah i saw a program earlier in an issue of PC World or Maximum PC that can restore accidentally deleted files based on that principle.

p.s. hey siv, i hate tech support!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(jk)

Siv, you're nuts!

But while we're at it: our PC here at home has been running really slow; it's acting like it does when we've sucked up lots of ram with a high-end game or having the IE browser open for a long time - but it's acting like that permanently. We can't seem to find a solution; the defrag won't even run (it just sticks at 0% permanently) and the only correlation is a win98 update we did about the time this all started. Any suggestions besides a fresh install of win98? Cause that's where we're headed at this point...

you see? i'm not just a pretty face with an ass that wont quit.

:D

Originally posted by Master_Keralys

the defrag won't even run (it just sticks at 0% permanently)

if this all started when you used windows update then it may of place some system files in a bad sector of the disk. maybe a bad cluster in the page file.
its definitely having trouble reading something, . try running scandisk, with the surface scan. I’m afraid a reformat may be the only solution though.

Originally posted by Siv
yep, and now heres some interesting information....



that’s not entirely true, you see when you delete a file it doesn’t just disappear into thin air. no, what happens is the computer marks the file as a ‘deleted’ file and reads it as free space. once that happens you can no longer see it but its still there until it’s overwritten, which could be awhile before that happens. The same happens when you format the drive, all you files are still there but they are all marked as free space. That’s why some viruses can still work after a format. The solution is to do a low-level format, a dos-based program which you can get from your hard drive manufacturer. this will reset all the 1s to 0s and wipes the drive completely clean.
so if you’re a terrorism or something and the police are banging at your door, don’t think that by formatting your hard drive they wont be able to see what you had on your computer. no no no, there are programs that can convert files that the computer has marked at deleted or reformatted back to the original file type and they will be able to see everything (or atleast most) of what you had.

interesting eh? :bored: :D

nice

www.goldenbow.com)

VoptXP is a good defragger that I use... I am satisfied with it.

Defragging helps at times but this sounds much more serious I suggest you take it in or hang around here to get more opinions

Whenever my comptuer gets messed up, these steps always fix it:

1. Go to Start->Run and type "msconfig". This'll open the msconfig window. Like Siv said, go to Startup and uncheck everything EXCEPT FOR SYSTRAY!! Systray is basically your comp's inner workings - uncheck it and your computer will never boot up again.

2. Restart and unplug your cable or modem.

3. Go to MS-DOS Prompt and type scandisk. When the scandisk is done, type defrag. All of this will take about a day, so start the second one before you go to bed or something.

4. Go back to msconfig and re-check all the options. Restart and re-plug in the cable/modem.

Siv is also right about the deleting thing - when you get a new comp, you have to shred your old harddrive, not just format or delete all your files. Otherwise a tech-smart ID thief could revive the deleted files and use them to steal private information.

btw, if you're using XP, type scandisk c (step 3) and not just scandisk.

Also, delete all cookies, history, and temproary internet files. And it never hurts to delete a bunch of files either.