computer errors

[mirabriani]

My PC has really slowed lately, so I phoned a friend who suggested I use a debugging device. He also suggested it might need "defragmentation" so I followed his instruction up to click hard drive. I am not sure if hard drive is drive "c"
"Errorguard" is telling me I have 121 errors but wants 25 dollars.
Is any one able to advise me?

Happy New Year Briani

 

[snowleopard]

unless you have a very unusual setup your hard disk will be C:

beware that defrag can take several hours to run, often best to do it overnight.

it's more likely that you have a large accumulation of software running all the time. if you press ctrl-alt-del you will see a list of every program resident in your computer.

here are a few useful checks:

1. click on my computer.. disk C.. properties. if the pie chart shows the used space over 90% you need to do a purge.

2. if you have XP you can run the system monitor which will show how much memory is in use. there is a nasty bug in some windows programs called a 'leak' where the program grabs a bit of memory for itself then forgets to release it when the program finishes. after a while almost all the memory gets locked up in this way and the computer spends more time playing with itself than doing any real work. the quick fix for this problem is an occasional re-boot.

 

[BrendanS]

It really depends on how your computer is set up. Run the Defrag that comes on your computer operating system. Drive C is certainly your hard drive, but you may have other partions other than C. Run defrag on C first, then run it on any other drives it allows you to do so. It may take some time if you've never done it before!

Ignore Errorguard for now, and see what happens after you run defrag

 

[mirabriani]

Thanks for that, Snowleopard and Brendan.
I have family commitments right now.
I will follow advice when I return

Happy New Year Briani

 

[Lightnup]

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

If defragging doesn't do the trick, LavaSoft Adaware is a FREE program that will seek out and remove all those little tracking and pop-up files on your computer. First time I ran it, it found 366 files that needed deleting. Now I run it weekly and there's always something that has snuck in.

Steve

 

[powerskipper]

meet the development team.

 

[Birdseye]

[ QUOTE ]
My PC has really slowed lately, so I phoned a friend who suggested I use a debugging device. He also suggested it might need "defragmentation" so I followed his instruction up to click hard drive. I am not sure if hard drive is drive "c"
"Errorguard" is telling me I have 121 errors but wants 25 dollars.
Is any one able to advise me?

Happy New Year Briani

[/ QUOTE ]

First make sure the anti virus is up to date and the system has been scanned. Then second run a program like Adaware or Spybot to remove any spyware on your pc. Then run the defrag program (star>programs>accessories>system tools>defrag). If the problem still remains you likely have two many programs up and running in the background. Check on this as suggested above.

Happy New Year to you, too!

 

[colin_jones]

Both my ofice and home/boat computers got very slow, especially at start up, but have enormously improved by using two very neat little programs, which do much the same, but do have some essentials of their own.

They are EasyCleaner 2 - which is shareware and very simple to use. It downloads in about 6 mins and does a super job of cleaning out redundant and duplicated files, getting rid of cookies and histories etc.

Registry Mechanic is £24.95 (or thereabouts) but can be put on several PCs. It works really well. It sorted out over 700 possible conflicts on my much used boat laptop, which also doubles as an office machine when I want to work at home. Certainly worth the money because it gets deep into the registry - which is an area which scares the hell out of me.

If you use either and are not totally confident, it pays to set Windpows XP to a restore point the day before you operate the programs above. I did it as the belt and braces philosophy of a born PC pessimist, but did not need it.

If you need any more info, PM me, or email via the colvicwatson website.

 

[musicman]

If you have XP (im not sure if this works on any other Windows OS's - does anyone know??) go to start>run then type "msconfig." this gives you a window with loads of tabs at the top. click on "startup" and there you will have a whole list of programs that start up and run in the background when you boot up your computer. If you know what the programs are and you dont need them or rarely use them, uncheck the boxes and your computer will boot up much faster and will run faster with less programs running at the same time.
If you're feeling adventureous, you can have a look on the 'sevices' tab on the msconfig screen, and these are all the services the computer does in the background without you knowing about it usually. Theyre stuff like infra red or wireless network scanners if you've got them on your computer and stuff that sends random messages to big software companies about your computer usage. They also take up some of your computer's processing power, so if you know what they are, disable them. However, a word of warning, be very careful with what you uncheck here because some of these services are what make your USB devices and various other hardware work and are essential for computer use.

Alternatavely, you can just format your hard disk and start fresh!

 

[pete]

Hi
For computer advice from computer addicts ,re security, free programs,spyware, viruses.ect ect look in - forums- at
www.webuser.co.uk
Pete

 

[pragmatist]

90% ? I'd panic if I ever got to 90 - 50-60% full is the recommendation from programs like Diskkeeper (recommended) /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif No wonder your PC runs slowly

 

[mirabriani]

Hi Chris I followed your advice and did a defrag overnight
I also did check 1 Pie chart shows 2.17 GB used and
18.6 GB free
I did not want to risk saved file as I have two years VAT on disc, so I did not try anything else. I hoped all would now be well but Errorguard is still telling me "last time 121 errors"
I intend to save files to disc tomorrow (about time?)
Thanks all Briani

 

[snowleopard]

as a result of advice on this thread i decided to tackle the huge list of tasks running on startup on my machine. i ran msconfig then googled the names of the items in the list and soon found this site which listed almost all of them. i was able to get rid of around 40% of them and it has speeded up my machine and removed a very irritating long-term bug.

thanks everyone!

p.s. the subsequent defrag took 4 hours to run!