Computer help -aaarrgh (1 Viewer)

ojibway

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I have a laptop and a PC , both under 6 years old, both of which have become redundant as my only solution to my problem was to buy a new laptop.

The problem with both of them is that they have become painfully slow at booting up - at least five minutes before they can be used.

I use Avast (free version) and Auslogic Bootspeed and have cleared cookies and history regularly.

The PC memory is nearly full so I have take all my photos off.

Can anyFun help me please - or they will be destined for the bin!:Angry:
Mike
 
Jul 28, 2008
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I have a laptop and a PC , both under 6 years old, both of which have become redundant as my only solution to my problem was to buy a new laptop.

The problem with both of them is that they have become painfully slow at booting up - at least five minutes before they can be used.

I use Avast (free version) and Auslogic Bootspeed and have cleared cookies and history regularly.

The PC memory is nearly full so I have take all my photos off.

Can anyFun help me please - or they will be destined for the bin!:Angry:
Mike

Memory is in 2 forms, "hard disk" and "RAM". The fomer is like a library of information, the latter is like your brain! e.g. You can do things quickly in your brain, but need to think more and look things up you don't know in the library, which is of course slower.

So people saying "I'm out of memory" often mix the 2 up.

Startup time typically slows down as applications and "stuff" is installed. THis is not due to taking up memory, more the way it "hooks" into the computer startup. Tools old have some affect on this. You need someone to go through your detailed startup (I recommned "autoruns" - but only for expert users as you can kill it ;) ) - and stop certain things starting up when the computer does. (But not removing it).

For instance, Adobe reader is slow to start, but to make it appear quicker it starts up in the background when the computer starts. So, rather than taking an extra 5 seconds when you want it, it takes 5 seconds at startup (guessing at 5 seconds).

So fine tuning all this stuff will make the computer start quicker, and as a positive effect, use less RAM (brain memory) and thus doing stuff will also be quicker.

FYI - my parents are using an 8 year old PC which is perfectly fine, and I've given dozens of laptops away of same era which still are fine. So its not the age, more the history on them that kills them. Sometimes extra RAM helps which can be cheap for middle age computers, depends on spec of machine as it is.

Also, I recommend MS Security Essentials on older computers - it is the least resource hungry anti-virus progam there is (free) - and good enough for most users.

Clearing history & cookies will have little if any affect on boot up time or general performance

Before you bin you need a good IT person to check it over and tune it.
 

TheBig1

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if you go to the start button on the windows desktop
type in msconfig

this will load the windows config tool
go to the startup tab and untick all the programs listed other than microsoft and your antivirus
save settings and reboot

this should help somewhat,

then prune down the rubbish saved on the harddisk, especially in the root directories and temporary folders
double click My Computer,
then right click on the C drive
select Properties
click on disc cleanup and follow prompts



then you need to run the disc defragmenter tool
double click My Computer,
then right click on the C drive
select Properties
click on tools tab
click defragment now
follow on screen prompts

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Jul 28, 2008
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if you go to the start button on the windows desktop
type in msconfig

this will load the windows config tool
go to the startup tab and untick all the programs listed other than microsoft and your antivirus
save settings and reboot

this should help somewhat,

then prune down the rubbish saved on the harddisk, especially in the root directories and temporary folders
double click My Computer,
then right click on the C drive
select Properties
click on disc cleanup and follow prompts



then you need to run the disc defragmenter tool
double click My Computer,
then right click on the C drive
select Properties
click on tools tab
click defragment now
follow on screen prompts

MSConfig scratches the surface, but should help a bit. If you are happy with that, play with Autoruns and see how much other stuff goes on and you'll see MSC is only a bit. ("Hijack this" can also be useful)

Disk clean up has been known to kill a system dead - rare maybe - but it happened to me. :( So I'll never use it again, I'll only do it manually.

And defrag, really not worth the time unless you are heavily into editting music or videos. In the old days yes, nowadays, really not worth it. Generally fractions of performance increase compared to sorting out the machine properly. Not once did I, or any of my teams, ever use defrag to sort a PC problem out. Ever. Tend to find the people who pass this on hear it from an "IT techie" - and if that is the case, walk away. Fast.
 
Jul 28, 2008
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I also found lots of redundant files in my 'Downloads' folder that had been left there after installing the relevant programmes.

Removing these typically won't improve performance, but will help reduce storage.

If you want to know what is taking up space, use "treesize free" from Jamsoft. But, of course, don't delete stuff you don't know about :) And don't moan too loud when you find large WIndows folders hogging lots of space :)

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I use CC Cleaner regularly on our laptops (work and home).
Also check that the desktop does not have loads of files on it (best practice is shortcuts only). I have seen peoples laptops take ages to load up because the they have, for instance, folders for photographs on the desktop and this can take ages to load the desktop.
 
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ojibway

ojibway

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Ahah!

I keep most of my folders on the desktop - hardly ever use the documents or photos section!
Must change my ways!:Doh:
 
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(I recommned "autoruns" - but only for expert users as you can kill it ;) ) - and stop certain things starting up when the computer does. (But not removing it).

NICE! not seen this one before...pretty darned useful... saves me wading through the registry when some unscrupulous git of a program puts something in there i don't want:thumb:

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Janine

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If you want to know what is taking up space, use "treesize free" from Jamsoft. But, of course, don't delete stuff you don't know about :) And don't moan too loud when you find large WIndows folders hogging lots of space :)

Great stuff!

It's found an old sudoku game that's taking up space that I don't have, but I can't find it any other way to delete it! It doesn't show up in the programme files listing or even when I do a 'search' for it!

Will it go if I just delete it from the Treesize listing?
 
Jul 28, 2008
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I use CC Cleaner regularly on our laptops (work and home).
Also check that the desktop does not have loads of files on it (best practice is shortcuts only). I have seen peoples laptops take ages to load up because the they have, for instance, folders for photographs on the desktop and this can take ages to load the desktop.

Stuff on the desktop will not slow down the computer much, especially if stuff is in folders. If you just have pictures or files on the desktop then it may take a bit of time to generate thumbnails of photos or get the program icon, but if things are in folders on the desktop this is fine and will not be the cause of slowdown.

(The only exceptions to this is if the desktop is redirected to an alternative location or you have roaming profiles in place or some form of NAS type redirection. I doublt anyone questioning speed will have any of this set up!)

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Jul 28, 2008
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Great stuff!

It's found an old sudoku game that's taking up space that I don't have, but I can't find it any other way to delete it! It doesn't show up in the programme files listing or even when I do a 'search' for it!

Will it go if I just delete it from the Treesize listing?

The files will be delieted, but not necessarily uninstalled. Ideally uninstall the software, but if it isn't uninstallable or removable then it may be your last option. But to answer your question, deleting from within Treesize WILL delete it from disk. (last resort though)

PS - why is Sudoko so large to warrent being deleted? Such a simple game shouldn't be taking up enough space to warrent looking at?
 
Jul 28, 2008
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NICE! not seen this one before...pretty darned useful... saves me wading through the registry when some unscrupulous git of a program puts something in there i don't want:thumb:

WARNING: If you aren't techie or interested in techie stuff, ignore the following as you will be bored sh**less.
:Cool:


Yep.
If you are slightly interested, or techie, get used to what you see there with and without MS filtering. It makes new entries (that sometimes may look like legit MS stuff) more obvious. It can cause problems if you stop everyting lol so tread carefully, but in the majority of cases the quickest way to speed up a PC is to go through this and remove all the stuff the end user doesn't need or want.

But takes practice and expereince not to f**k it up.

Also, make sure you run as admin on Vista/7.

Finally, you can run it again and tick thigs back, it just disables and moves them to a child registry key, so easy enough to put back.

If you've not heard of this, take a look at other sys internals tools, process explorer for instance is essential for keeping an eye on what is keeping the machine chugging.
 
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ojibway

ojibway

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Yeah, I un-installed Bing instead of Jing:Doh: but was glad I did as Bing was always overriding Google::bigsmile:

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