Slow laptop? (1 Viewer)

[zaskar]

Got a problem with my laptop running slow over the past week and would appreciate and thoughts/tips please.
First, please understand that I am a self confessed computer Luddite so answers of one syllable would be most helpfull !

Laptop is an ACER Aspire 5536 running............... VISTA (yeah I know!)
I'm keen on DISC CLEAN UP & DEFRAG and dont store anything on it cos I dont trust 'em, its all downloaded to discs ASAP so the machine is fairly empty. I also dont do games.

It's been pretty fast up until the last week when all of a sudden, start up is slow as is shutdown. If I check the Task Manager, CPU is running at 80 - 90 % even with nothing fired up?
Also, if I look at the Processes tab in the Task Manager, there appear to be 4 processes there without my name against them and which I dont remember seeing before?





A fullly paid up McAfee and Windows Defender scans have found nothing untowards.

Any ideas please?
Thanks

 

[DBK]

I wouldn't worry about those processes, they are system things, for example the one with vxx in it is to do with the display.

Probably worth running a full virus scan. Microsoft Security Essentials is free if you don't have it and I assume it runs on Vista. Give it a quick scan first then a full scan, which will take ages but worth it. My computer got infected once and the MSE quick scan could not pick it up, only the full scan found the problem.

 

[gozomike]

I had a look at a PC a few days ago which had slowed down, to the extent you could boil the kettle make a cupa and drink it and with luck it may have decided to boot up fully.

Problem was big files and photos stored on the desktop instead of just links.

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[TheBig1]

theres a few bits of malware doing the rounds again. i recomend downloading and running malwarebytes and cleaning up the fragmented registry file

another commonish problem is the virtual memory paging file having issues which will slow the system noticably

 

[old-mo]

Hi mate............... a few months ago...

Jim told me what to do on my old puter, which had slowed right down to a crawl, but cannot find the thread... oh:

What ever he told me to do, Judy did it and it was back as fast as new...

Hopefully he will be along to tell you what to do and get you sorted... :thumb:

 

[Minxy]

Run malwarebytes and crap cleaner a couple of times at least and then afterwards defrag at least twice (all areas doing a full defrag, not a quick one).

Also it might be worth just checking how much RAM is showing as being 'live' in the system in case a stick of it has gone caput.

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[g8ysn]

g8ysn

every so often i re-boot mine when start up press f8 or another 1 is f10/on top of keyboard
depending on make model [works for me]:thumb:
sets to factory settings

 

[pappajohn]

automatic system/windows updates can cause problems occasionally.

You could try a system restore to an earlier date (before the last update).

Click start
all programs
System tools
System restore.

Follow instructions

 

[Yorick]

Best solution...

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[DBK]

I stripped XP off my old one and put Ubuntu (Linux) on it over Christmas. Quite a learning curve but seems to be going OK so far. It worked straight out of the box so to speak, even had the right drivers for the wireless card - which when I tried it a couple of years ago it didn't.