Alan MaC

Every week I defragment, File Clean Up, Delete Temporary Internet Files.

However, my Lap top now seems to take forever to boot up & is running slow.

I took the cracking advice on here, ditched the Norton & run Eset Smart Security, much quicker, it has started in the last 4 weeks or so to run much slower.

Any tips from the Computer Gurus on how to cure this please?


Thanks.

Regards



Alan MaC

 

Real Lyte

I always format when in doubt, things accumulate easily that would take hours to sift through where I can reformat and reinstall stuff in just over an hour, especially applicable for laptops as they have more limited speeds.

Edit: I don't run antivirus on my laptop because it is resource hungry, I just backup regularly and don't download anything with it. Not one virus yet (I occasionally run scan to check then uninstall), you can avoid many problems by not downloading random crap and surfing aimlessly.

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shroud

Depends how far you wish to go. Dropping windows for a less resource and space hungry os would make a big difference. You can see some alternatives if you browse for windows alternatives (e.g Linux).

You can also consider getting more RAM, anything under 1GB can start to turn your machine to treacle, depending upon what you're running. Really cheap now and easy to install.

Also although you say you clean up your drive regularly, you don't say how much of it is used up. If it is largely used, then this will explain the slow running of your laptop.

Virusea, worms and trojans can also cause a sudden detrioration in performance, so make your you have run appropriate antui spyware, virus checks, etc

Real Lyte

Yeah I forgot the RAM thing having 1g+ is a cheap and easy upgrade, I would highly recommend a format too if you are up to it. Really just matters what you feel comfortable doing, what most ppl dun realize is that doing computer maintenance is mostly clicking next and putting things i slots where they cannot go elsewhere.

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ndondo

try to have less start up in MSCONFIG
then read up some services.msc on google and turn of the stuff you don't need

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Sergeyka

As a naive linux user, I will pretend that I have no idea what defragmentation is, what antivirus is, or why all twice-as-expensive laptops with windows were crunching their HDDs while mine was working happily ;o)

Added: the old windows 2000 crate under my work desk is rarely used, but there was time when it was crunching HDD instead of working for me. Found that it was some program that comes with M$ Windows, and does your files/documents indexing. Killed the bugger, wiped it off the hard drive, and PC worked ok ever since.

Just see what processes are running, and google up their names - could be useless resource-hungry monsters doing nothing good.
Kill! Kill! Kill!

Alan MaC

Thanks all, I have 66% of space left, is that OK?

Formatting & stuff, Google etc, can ypou be more specific in Muppet languge for me please?

Thanks.



Kind regards



Alan MaC

Real Lyte

Format=Fully erase the entire hard drive, put in windows cd and install from scratch, make sure to back files you wanna keep, if you don't know how to do this I would recommend asking someone who does.

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dirteemac

I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

<------------mac user

Sergeyka

Careful when formatting a HDD on a windows laptop, they often have specific hardware that you get pre-installed, and it won't come with a normal windows installation CD.

Perhaps your laptop has a "recovery partition" on hard drive - worth checking that, could save much trouble.

If these words sound like jibberish to you, find a friend who will do it for you while consuming your beer :D

Asking windows advice on the forum can be a little like trying to get a dentist check-up over a phone!

adieadie

You need to cut out the crap that's running. Lots of software runs services in the bacground that slow startup and general usage. Two approaches are needed:

1) remove application from startup. This page wil give the general jist of how to do this The MSConfig Guide! [Having a slow computer?] StyleZ.BLOG @ Republic Polytechnic but when you get to your startup applications you can google the names of the programs and see if you need them or not.

2) remove unneeded windows services Hacking Windows XP: Speed Up Your Boot - Disabling Unneeded Services - OS, Software & Networking by ExtremeTech

It'll be trial and error until you figure out what is what, but you'll ony break some application or function if ou screw up.

Cleaning up temp files, crap from the registry and other stuff like defragging doesnt really make a huge difference, but worth it if youre a mind to mess about - but remember deleting stuff from the registry is a good way to screw your machine over :)

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shroud

66% free isn't bad, so this probably isn't your problem.

I'd suggest spending £30 or so on an extra 1GB of RAM

Crucial even work out for you what RAM you require

Memory upgrades, flash media, and usb storage at Crucial.com

Might cost a bit more than other memory, but cheap anyway.

If you don't like the idea of opening up your laptop, then take it to a computer store who will do the upgrade for you. It should take about 5 mins.

If you have 2GB+ memory (crucial site should tell you what you have and what is possible), then you shouldn't really need more RAM, just for normal office type stuff.

Real Lyte

Yeah, as I said, formatting is probably outside your scope, cutting down on what starts up with windows will solve alot of speed issues; and it's very easy to do.

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Alan MaC

Cheers Everyone>>>>

Lots to think about.

Regards


Alan MaC

bbottomley

+++ to those who said "Don't format." It's just not the sort of thing for somebody in your position to do, especially on a laptop.

There's a great program available from Microsoft called Autoruns which tells you everything that starts up when you boot your machine, and lets you selectively shut off the ones you don't want. It doesn't delete them; it just shuts them off from starting up when you boot, and you can turn them back on at any time. To the extent possible it also identifies each program's source and purpose. A lot of what it finds is inscrutable Windows stuff that has to be there, but you still might find some things that have worked their way into your system over time which don't need to be there. A lot of programs install themselves in a very arrogant way, leaving stuff behind—some of which actually runs all the time in the background.

Don't be put off by the fact that Autoruns comes from Microsoft. It was actually written by an independent outfit called Sysinternals which was so good that Microsoft bought them and pretty much let them have a free hand and keep using their name. You can find Autoruns and lots of other good stuff at the Sysinternals site.

Another thing you can do to speed up your boot is to space out the things that happen there. As is, Windows tries to start everything at the same time, which really places a load on the system. Again, don't mess with the inscrutable stuff that needs to be there, but you can probably find some things that you could delay by a minute or so and never miss them. For this I use Startup Delayer, available at Major Geeks and other download sites.

Finally, consider a memory manager. There is controversy here regarding the best approach. Some will free up memory but use up other resources. One that takes a rather different approach is Clean Mem, also available at Major Geeks. It identifies every program running at the time and issues a Windows call that returns to the system all memory that the programs have requested and aren't using at the time. Then it uses the Windows scheduling system to run again in a half hour to do the same thing, and so on forever. Programs that really do need that memory grab it back instantly. Others don't even notice that it's gone. I've watched this happen. I've set this up as the final program to get started at boot time, so it clears out any residual memory allocations from things that happened during the boot.

However, all this having been said, you are faced with one truth: Windows systems get tired over time. There's just no getting around it. That's why formatting is indeed the best solution to the problem in the long run, but it comes with a large risk and the large hassle of reinstalling absolutely everything. It's not for the timid, or even for the ordinary folk.

Why are we talking about this in the European forum? There are people in the rest of the world who might be interested and wouldn't necessarily think to look here. I certainly wouldn't pose a question like this in the Eastern forum.

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