Slow PC

[snowcat]

My desktop has almost ground to a halt even typing this pushes processor to 100% and words can take 30 seconds to come up.

question, will buying a registry cleaner do any good? or is there any other tools that may help.... I really really don't want to do a complete format and reinstall...

 

[grandads_shed]

try system mechanic or something similer

 

[Paul.]

You could try CC cleaner, its free, but if its suddenly started playing up run a virus, and adware scanner as well, run msconfig from the start/ run menu and see whats starting up with windows, probably half of its not needed.

 

[tomsutton529]

Clean internet cookies and temp internet files..
Get rid of programs you dont use
Put all your data into folders etc (not all over the desktop or spread about the whole hard drive)
Use http://www.malwarebytes.org/ (its free)
defrag your hard drive
go into task manager (CTRL, alt, Del) and see how many tasks are running a nice clean operating system will have 30/40 running anything above 45+ isnt too good and points to a lot of programs taking up memory.

Sometimes windows will just get tired and good old re-format is in order. If you came to me and said Mr Sutton fix my computer.. I would back up the data and reformat with a slipstreamed Disc....

If its something that has come on very suddenly, Ie yesterday it was fine today its slow then look at a system restore to a few days ago.. windows updates can be a pain at times.

 

[rtbcomp]

You could also install something like DUMeter to see if there is any internet activity - it may be downloading an update or uploading your entire harddisk to HMRC

 

[Tigman]

I use System Mechanic ! very good !

 

[scarecrow]

i ran tigpaul cleaner and it tolt me i hav over 500 register errors what are they and are they bad
and to fix it they want $40

 

[snowcat]

The problems not sudden, just getting worse and worse, which is why I suspect registry and rubbish have cluttered it.....Its only used for the internet I have another computer for CAD, and keep this laptop for all things workbased....

 

[Paul.]

i ran tigpaul cleaner and it tolt me i hav over 500 register errors what are they and are they bad
and to fix it they want $40

Thats odd scarecrow, cc cleaner is freeware, I've just downloaded and run the latest version, and it works fine, not a mention of money, are you sure you downloaded the correct file?.
Here's another link click, click on the word mirror 1

 

[tomsutton529]

The problems not sudden, just getting worse and worse, which is why I suspect registry and rubbish have cluttered it.....Its only used for the internet I have another computer for CAD, and keep this laptop for all things workbased....

I would go for a reformat, I assume you dont have any data to back up apart from the settings from IE / Firefox / Chrome (browser) it can take days to chase a problem around and it takes an hour tops to re-format..

then again the amount of people I have said to me its just for the internet and it turns out that in some silly folder was their entire family holidays pics from 1970 and I just formated the drive....

 

[Pete.]

The problems not sudden, just getting worse and worse, which is why I suspect registry and rubbish have cluttered it.....Its only used for the internet I have another computer for CAD, and keep this laptop for all things workbased....

Use ctrl + alt + del on your keyboard and select task manager. If you see google update in the list then end task it. Should give you an instant speed-up. I always know when this is running, disable it but it comes back when you update some stuff. Have a look what other stuff is running under your username.

Go to start - run - type 'msconfig' and see what's in your startup list. Should be a lot you can disable, and you can't do any serious harm by disabling the wrong stuff since when your pc is new that list is empty.

In internet explorer go to tools - internet options - programs - manage add-ons and there's a lot of stuff in there you can disable too.

If you make a search on Google, do you get the pages you are expecting from the results or does it re-direct you to a different page? If you are getting re-directs there's a good chance ou've picked up a rootkit. Use tdsskiller to search your pc for one that is currently quite prolific.

 

[graffian]

Whats this XP?

 

[Wedg1e]

Whats this XP?

My backup PC runs Windows 2000, solid as a rock. MS claimed they were dropping support for it a few years back but you can still get up to SP4 (I think) and other updates for it.

My oldest laptop runs Win95 - the very first edition! It can't even run version 2 it's that basic. Pentium 166 with 16Mb RAM and a 1.2Gb Hard disk... positively steam-age, but when I was sat in the blazing sun in the Saudi desert, reworking some CAD drawings in a rush before legging-it to Bahrain airport and a flight home, it was worth more than any high-flying desktop

 

[gavuk]

I would prefer to repair install if you really don't want to reformat ....have a look here for a tutorial...xp repair install should leave all documents etc in tact ..

 

[graffian]

But a repair install or an install without deleting/formatting doesn't necessarily cure problems. Best to sort the problems.

 

[malcolm]

Pete's advice is what I would do. What is using the resources? (Ctrl Alt Delete , click on the Processes tab then click CPU and scroll to the top to see what wants 100% of the thing).

 

[spaffmonkey]

I agree with the above recommendations CC cleaner and malwarebytes

my PC and lap top had both got really slow

run the malware and it found lots of viruses my normal anti virus didn't

and the cc cleaner made it speed right up.

 

[scarecrow]

thanks paul its running a good bit better now has been slowing down for quite a whileand sounding like its constipated
now all I need to do is figure out why Firefox stops responding for about 30 seconds usually happened after its been opened for a minute or two

 

[Pete.]

CCleaner is a good tool but you have to be very careful what you do with it. It relies on the user to make informed decisions on what to keep and what to remove.

 

[graffian]

Plugin-container was a real hog, the latest version seems pretty good though.

You could post a tasklist?