Computer slowdown

[john_morris_uk]

I wonder of any of you IT experts can help?

My PC (two/three years old Pentium at a few hundred Mhz) is slowing down even as I use it. When I first boot the system, all is fairly normal, but the mouse pointer becomes more and more sluggish with use and the forum takes longer and longer to load. I am on Freeserve Broadband and when first flashed up , the whole thing is lightning fast. However, gradually the pages take longer and longer to load and (especially when the system is downloading a YBW forum page) the mouse cursor becomes very very sluggish.

I have the latest Mcafee Virus checker and its updated and run almost every other day. Mcafee firewall is in place and seems to be working. Thanks in advance.


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[Captain_Chaos]

Think different.
Dump the PC and get a Mac.

<hr width=100% size=1>My drinking team has a sailing problem

 

[mystymike]

Hello. If you are certain that you are clear of a virus attack, then the problem may be caused by a program conflict, say a recently downloaded file or a program you have loaded yourself. The latest version of anti-virus means, in todays climate,one that was updated last night. M.K.

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[Robin]

Is it raining?

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[jimi]

have you defragmented the disk recently .. I had a similar problem which was cured by this.

<hr width=100% size=1>.. whit way roon should it be again ..

 

[nct1]

Is it just the internet that keeps slowing down (which is normal from time to time due to denial of service attacks on your internet supplier).

If normal operations are getting slower over a number of days, try de-fragmenting the disk.

Apologies if these suggestions are teaching you to suck eggs.

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[Geoff2]

What Jimi said, defrag the disk, clean the disk up and remove all temporary internet folders, and you will be surprised how fast it will go again. If you don't know where all this is, start, programs, accessories, system tools and off you go. Depending on size of hard drive, it can take up to an hour.

Good luck

Geoff

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[ships_parrot]

Even cheaper - get linux for free

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[Guest]

antique

by a new bottom bit ,,,300 squid,,,, bobs yer uncle

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[Brian_B]

Clean then defrag.
Double click on My Computer
Right click on the C: drive and select Properties
Use the Disk Cleanup
Then click on the Tools tab and select Defragment Now...
This could easily run for a couple of hours depending on disk size.



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[oldsaltoz]

You should also run 'scan disk' once a month.

<hr width=100% size=1> Old Salt Oz /forums/images/icons/cool.gif Growing old is unavoidable. However, growing up is still optional.

 

[jonjo]

If the slowdown is specific to internet activity you might have picked up some browser spyware that is feeding details of your browsing activity to a remote internet server.

Spyware is not technically speaking a form of software virus therefore you need to run a different type of scan program. Be warned some Spyware scanners are actually spyware programs in disguise.



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[davel]

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,18393,pg,2,00.asp>This link </A> might help.

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[BrendanS]

How much free space do you have on your disk. The gradual decrease in speed might be due to system running out of space to put temp files

<hr width=100% size=1>Utinam logica falsa tuam philisophiam totam suffodiant

 

[Oldhand]

Shrinking space for temporary files was my first thought too. Needs to check his free disc space.

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[AuntyRinum]

Defrag as has already been said but it also sounds as though you may be running out of memory. The more you download and hold the slower it will all get. Try closing pages, when possible, rather than using the back / forward function. If it is memory, easily solved by buying another memory chip (RAM), very cheap these days. Make sure you have a slot for additional memory before you buy it. If running broadband I would suggest you should have at least 128Mb RAM.
Ignore the advice about buying a Mac, this is usually given by people heavily into graphics. Only 5% of the world's software is written for Macs so if you have one you are very limited (this should start an interesting string of protests but can't help that). Mac users don't seem to be aware of that. They have their place but are not mainstream.
So to recap - defrag first and if that doesn't work, buy more RAM.

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[LadyInBed]

If you are running 'older' ver of windows - 95 or 98
Defrag and load up and run <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.sci.fi/~borg/rambooster/index.htm> Rambooster </A> it frees up 'locked' memory.

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[nickjaxe]

You could try a program called "end it all" it free to download stops unnecessary progs running in the background when you shut down it resets back to normal, it helps mine to run faster.

Nick.

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[BrendanS]

this isn't just a speed issue though. It's a gradual slowing over time, which suggests the computer is running out of resources. Throwing applications at it, is not going to solve the underlying problem.

From exerience, I'd put disk resources first, with a possible Ram resource issue as second.

<hr width=100% size=1>Utinam logica falsa tuam philisophiam totam suffodiant

 

[bbilly]

If it gave acceptable performance you don't need anything more - save the money for your boat. The PC doesn't seem very hispec'd and it's filling up the RAM, when the RAM is full it starts to 'page' (use the HD as an extension of the RAM), as the HD is 000's of times slower than the RAM the programs execute slower and slower.

You need to clean up by clearing the cache and once a week defrag. Otherwise add some RAM as suggested.

Try clearing your IE cache and deleting temp files:
Open the browser (IE)
Tools | Internet Options

Delete cookies
Delete files
Clear History
OK

The only thing you lose are the recent sites visited and some pages may be slow to load the "first" time (reloading the cookies).

Hope this helps
Before defragging empty your Garbage Bin

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