FabSwingers.com forum: Slow computers??

By *risky_Mare OP Woman
over a year ago

...Up on the Downs

Can any of you genius geeky types give me a simple checklist for routine 'mucking out' of a PC when it starts to get a bit run of the mill slow?? Do I defrag? Run spybot, etc, etc.

I don't think there's anything viral, it's just grinding a bit slower than it should, though it's quite old and needs replacing really.

Ta muchly xx

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Run spybot or ad aware, clean the registry, defrag, check your hard drive space and uninstall programs you don't need.

If it's the internet that is slow, remove toolbars and stuff that you've installed into your browser because they kill web browsers.

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By *igeiaWoman
over a year ago

Bristol

Defrag, check your automatic update settings and some anti-virus software makes everything run slower so check that out too.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Have a look at and play with CCleaner by Piriform.

One, it will clear out crap on a regular (as used) basis and two, it's an efficient way to remove programs you dont want or use. Incl registry errors.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

ps if using CCleaner, never use the "wipe free disc space" option.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Indeed, CC Cleaner is what I use.

AVG anti virus is a bugger, it kills your system.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

1.CCleaner

2.Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

3.AdwCleaner

4.Run Defrag (just analysis and then defrag if it needs)

Should just about do the job if you AV is up to date.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Use safe mode or download "speed it up for free" it makes it quick in no time.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Transfer what you want to keep to a USB and then do a factory reset.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

WTF at some of these suggestions.

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By *emmefataleWoman
over a year ago

dirtybigbadsgirlville

"1.CCleaner

2.Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

3.AdwCleaner

4.Run Defrag (just analysis and then defrag if it needs)

Should just about do the job if you AV is up to date."
This.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

"1.CCleaner

2.Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

3.AdwCleaner

4.Run Defrag (just analysis and then defrag if it needs)

Should just about do the job if you AV is up to date.This.

Hard drive space is very important, trust me, I work in IT and do this for a living.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

"Hard drive space is very important, trust me, I work in IT and do this for a living."

If it's full to the brim yeah. I'm suprised someone in IT has recommended Spybot though as it has been a joke for many years now.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

It does a job.

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By *inaTitzTV/TS
over a year ago

Titz Towers, North Notts

How about a hamster with a small sweeping brush?

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

whats cache memory?

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

One of the biggest overlooked problems is dust/fluff on the processor heatsink and fan.

Buy a can of compressed air and give it a good blow job

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Memory that stores bits of information so its easily accessible.

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By *inaTitzTV/TS
over a year ago

Titz Towers, North Notts

"whats cache memory?"

Johnny Cash's back catalogue

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By *risky_Mare OP Woman
over a year ago

...Up on the Downs

Thanks guys, running through that lot. I do have Malwarebytes but thought my IT guy said it can sometimes remove stuff I wouldn't want to remove....but I may be thinking of another 'rescue' programme we used once in an emergency.

I still use Spybot as it was the only one that found the last bit of one of those bloody toolbar invaders I picked up once - wise to those anyway.

I am using free AVG but never had a problem with it before so fingers crossed.

And I can't actually remember how to do a defrag - is it easy?

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By *Ryan-Man
over a year ago

In Your Bush

"WTF at some of these suggestions."

Haha I was thinking that. May as well balance a boiled egg on top of the monitor at the same time

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By *risky_Mare OP Woman
over a year ago

...Up on the Downs

"WTF at some of these suggestions.

Haha I was thinking that. May as well balance a boiled egg on top of the monitor at the same time

Will that make it quicker? Hard or soft boiled?

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By *Ryan-Man
over a year ago

In Your Bush

"WTF at some of these suggestions.

Haha I was thinking that. May as well balance a boiled egg on top of the monitor at the same time

Will that make it quicker? Hard or soft boiled?

For completeness smear some marmalade on your keyboard

Ps clean your temp files out (windows and tinternet)

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By *risky_Mare OP Woman
over a year ago

...Up on the Downs

Oh and where can I turn off spotify launching every time I boot up? Im on xp still.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Throw it in the bin and buy a new one!! Works every time

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

See if there's an option in Spotify to turn off it starting with Windows.

Or....

Start, Programs, Accessories

Run 'Command Prompt'

Type msconfig32

Hit return

When the program runs, go to the 'start-up' tab and disable Spotify.

Ok and exit.

Either should stop it.

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By *Ryan-Man
over a year ago

In Your Bush

"Oh and where can I turn off spotify launching every time I boot up? Im on xp still.

If there isn't a setting in Spotify to stop it starting when windows does.

Click start, then run.

In the run command box, type msconfig

In the window that appears, click selective start up.

Then click the start up tab, this will display a list of program's that load when windows starts up.

Look for spotify and uncheck it then click ok. You will then be asked to restart the PC.

Be careful doing this as you don't want to inadvertently uncheck something that you need.

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By *Ryan-Man
over a year ago

In Your Bush

Prof has faster fingers than me

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By *pple16Man
over a year ago

Macclesfield

Get a apple mac

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

"Get a apple mac"

you appear to have missed "don't" from your post

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By *risky_Mare OP Woman
over a year ago

...Up on the Downs

"Get a apple mac"

For £450? I doubt it, thats the quote for a new pc of the spec I need to run Adobe suite!!

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By *wiftieeMan
over a year ago

near Glasgow

Have a look at and play with CCleaner by Piriform.

One, it will clear out crap on a regular (as used) basis and two, it's an efficient way to remove programs you dont want or use. Incl registry errors. "

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Iobit offer a good suite of free software for virus checking, defraging and uninstalling. you might also want to use their driver update program as old drivers can take the edge off your Performance too

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By *risky_Mare OP Woman
over a year ago

...Up on the Downs

Done CC, Adaware, Spybot, seems faster, doing Defrag, will run Malaware too for fun, dumps some progs I don't use - got 102GB free/66% so that should be OK anyway?

Thanks all xx

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By *he Happy ManMan
over a year ago

Merseyside

"Can any of you genius geeky types give me a simple checklist for routine 'mucking out' of a PC when it starts to get a bit run of the mill slow?? Do I defrag? Run spybot, etc, etc.

I don't think there's anything viral, it's just grinding a bit slower than it should, though it's quite old and needs replacing really.

Ta muchly xx"

I would reinstall windows. As you are using XP I would delete XP and install windows 8 or windows 7. Microsoft no longer supports XP.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

"Done CC, Adaware, Spybot, seems faster, doing Defrag, will run Malaware too for fun, dumps some progs I don't use - got 102GB free/66% so that should be OK anyway?

Thanks all xx

Yeah that's all good. What in particular is going slow? Startup? The Internet or everything?

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

"Done CC, Adaware, Spybot, seems faster, doing Defrag, will run Malaware too for fun, dumps some progs I don't use - got 102GB free/66% so that should be OK anyway?

Thanks all xx

Yeah that's all good. What in particular is going slow? Startup? The Internet or everything?"

Ooops, am drinking wine, re read that and it's faster lol

hehehe

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Will the same work for laptops?

I'm thick as two short planks when it comes to technology. I don't even know what half of this stuff means.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Frisky, have you got adequate backup of all your important/valuable files?

At least one copy; preferably more, one of which is "off-site" eg at your mates or families house.

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By *risky_Mare OP Woman
over a year ago

...Up on the Downs

"Can any of you genius geeky types give me a simple checklist for routine 'mucking out' of a PC when it starts to get a bit run of the mill slow?? Do I defrag? Run spybot, etc, etc.

I don't think there's anything viral, it's just grinding a bit slower than it should, though it's quite old and needs replacing really.

Ta muchly xx

I would reinstall windows. As you are using XP I would delete XP and install windows 8 or windows 7. Microsoft no longer supports XP. "

Sorry I don't think I can cope with the prospect of that!!

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By *risky_Mare OP Woman
over a year ago

...Up on the Downs

"Done CC, Adaware, Spybot, seems faster, doing Defrag, will run Malaware too for fun, dumps some progs I don't use - got 102GB free/66% so that should be OK anyway?

Thanks all xx

Yeah that's all good. What in particular is going slow? Startup? The Internet or everything?"

I think it was everything a little - it was getting stewed up booting up sometimes, and chrome was getting tangled up so slower as the day progressed and need to to be shut down and reopened. But it does seem faster now - there were some large caches/temp files etc, but only one or two malware jobbos. Spotify does have a place you can stop it on bootup in it's own preference menu, so got rid of that too and it does seem quite a bit quicker, even with a defrag still going on. xx

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By *risky_Mare OP Woman
over a year ago

...Up on the Downs

Frisky, have you got adequate backup of all your important/valuable files?

At least one copy; preferably more, one of which is "off-site" eg at your mates or families house.

I confess no - got a good back up on portable hard drive but that's it.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

"Can any of you genius geeky types give me a simple checklist for routine 'mucking out' of a PC when it starts to get a bit run of the mill slow?? Do I defrag? Run spybot, etc, etc.

I don't think there's anything viral, it's just grinding a bit slower than it should, though it's quite old and needs replacing really.

Ta muchly xx

I would reinstall windows. As you are using XP I would delete XP and install windows 8 or windows 7. Microsoft no longer supports XP.

Sorry I don't think I can cope with the prospect of that!!

Wise.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

"Done CC, Adaware, Spybot, seems faster, doing Defrag, will run Malaware too for fun, dumps some progs I don't use - got 102GB free/66% so that should be OK anyway?

Thanks all xx

Yeah that's all good. What in particular is going slow? Startup? The Internet or everything?

Yeah, with t'internet it's all about add ons. Get rid of everything you don't need and it should go tickety boo.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Nobody yet had suggested that you move away from windows.

Ubuntu Linux is a free OS (Linux is Unix like, Mac OS is a unix distro), pretty easy to use and manages to carry out all the most common tasks with little adjustment from windows.

You don't need AV software or adware cleaners, to defrag etc. It just works, when you update it all the applications get updated too.

Granted it's not for everyone, sometimes you may get the out compatibility issue (Google knows all when fixing). There are some applications that don't have an alternative. If you just use the internet and email with the odd office application you should find that it did it all happily. Certainly worth a look.

I haven't started my virtual windows PC for well over a year.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

"Can any of you genius geeky types give me a simple checklist for routine 'mucking out' of a PC when it starts to get a bit run of the mill slow?? Do I defrag? Run spybot, etc, etc.

I don't think there's anything viral, it's just grinding a bit slower than it should, though it's quite old and needs replacing really.

Ta muchly xx"

Get CCleaner from Piriform.

It'll do everything you'll need

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By *risky_Mare OP Woman
over a year ago

...Up on the Downs

It seems to be fine now, will see how it goes through the day! x

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By *een_VoyeurMan
over a year ago

Lanark / Surrounding

Download Microsoft essentials and if you have any Norton programmes then remove them x

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

As above posters have said ...

Ccleaner

Security essentials ( Microsoft free )

Also giving the machine a dam good clean, getting rid of all the dust etc is a must !!

As also said XP is no longer supported so recommend going to Win 7 / 8

Some good advice given so good luck

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By *risky_Mare OP Woman
over a year ago

...Up on the Downs

It's OK it's pretty much fine now thanks, or good enough 'til I get a new one! x

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

"Transfer what you want to keep to a USB and then do a factory reset."
Yes perhaps occasionally but how do you go about your anti virus like norton you can,t put that on your memory stick can you... I phoned them up last time and they reset it back on.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

"Hard drive space is very important, trust me, I work in IT and do this for a living.

If it's full to the brim yeah. I'm suprised someone in IT has recommended Spybot though as it has been a joke for many years now."
I always think of

That little robot guy what was his r2..?

In star wars fame going around The back Of yer pc in a microscopic version or smaller still...

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

when you own a computer for any length of time the RAM can start being hogged by all the programs you install

worth checking what kinda usage you have going on. RAM upgrades are one of the easiest and inexpensive upgrades for speeding things up

recently upgraded to an SSD drive aswell and im never going back to HDD again

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

"How about a hamster with a small sweeping brush?

"
His main role

His working behind the scenes in hamster

Movies he,s on borrowed over time otherwise...

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By *risky_Mare OP Woman
over a year ago

...Up on the Downs

"when you own a computer for any length of time the RAM can start being hogged by all the programs you install

worth checking what kinda usage you have going on. RAM upgrades are one of the easiest and inexpensive upgrades for speeding things up

recently upgraded to an SSD drive aswell and im never going back to HDD again

Thanks, I got a quote on an upgrade for what I want recently, but it's beyond that now after 8 yrs or something, it needs replacing now, too much is out of date!!

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