Computer Hope
Microsoft => Microsoft Windows => Windows XP => Topic started by: Rebecker on October 07, 2007, 05:02:27 PM
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I just recently fixed a problem on my computer, and now it seems that I have another.
I'm using a Dell Dimension 8300 thats about 5-6 years old, and I'm running Windows XP Home Edition, Service Pack 2. It has an Intell Pentium 4 CPU 3.00GHZ, and 512 MB of RAM. I use EZ Armor Firewall and eTrust Anti-Virus, along with AVG Free Version Anti-Virus. I also have Ad-Aware SE Personal version, also free, for catching spyware.
I just recently removed a troublesome driver from my system, and it no longer crashes frequently like it used to. However, it's now running incredibly slow and freezing up all the time, for no clear reason. I had a friend of mine come and look at it, and he updated the video card and changed all of the settings for performance over quality, and even that made no difference. It takes the system almost 5 minutes to start up, and it takes almost a minute for it to open a program.
When I open My Computer or Control Panel, it takes about 30 seconds for it to load the things inside it, while it gives me the flashlight graphic. That's never happened before. This computer has gone through periods of running slow before, but it's never run this slow or taken so long to run before. The hard drive is not full; It has 112 GB capacity and is only using 40% of that right now - 67.3 GBs are still free. I've defragmented and cleaned up unused programs and checked for viruses and spyware. I have no idea what to do to make it run faster. I think something's seriously wrong with it.
What should I do?
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Running two anti-virus programs at once on the same computer will certainly affect performance and can cause instability.
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Sounds like my machine. Lucky to get an open window. It has been really bad yesterday and today. I read a lot of the stuff on this site under general troubleshooting. I discovered the prefetch file or folder under C/windows/prefetch and deleted all the files therein. Yesterday my net provider said my modem or radio as they call it was junk so they gave me a new one. Just before getting here today to read your post I restarted and pressed F8 right at startup to get to one of the Windows diagnostic screens and selected "start from the most recent time your computer worked". After doing that there was a very significant improvement. I don't think my HD is bad. I'm guessing it's software. I asked at Best Buy/big money for them to work on it/ but he did mention memory going bad and gave me a price on checking it out. I think he meant the actual chip. I'm looking for a way to check it out. I'm also considering that the many programs I have deleted may have left troublesome things yet to be removed. I thnk you can buy software for that. I assume you know about clearing all the temp files and cookies, historys etc. ;D
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The antiviruses/spyware and registry make the machine slower and slower up to your point. Either reinstall Windows (simply back the files you need first) or more easily, add a good gigabite to your memory. I bet my girlfriends panties (cleaned) that this will make a huge difference.
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Have you read the first two entries on this forum?
Good stuff!
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Fresh install would do the job...
You might also try
downloading after fresh install...
Avg
Spybot search and destroy
Some sort of resighty cleaner... :D