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Slow PC Help needed asap.
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
My pc's running ridiculously slowly.
I tried defragmenting C Drive and not a lot happened.
It then said that to defragment D Drive, I'd need 15% of memory, but I only have 13%....
I have no idea what disk cleanup is or what defragmenting is, just that I need to do them.
Also, I tried deleting some programs from the 'add remove programs' but there's hundreds of things I don't recognise and therefore don't know if it's 'safe' to delete them.
I'm so lost, and I don't know what to do. I have approx 1k mp3's and about 12 full length movies on my pc... is this what's slowing it down?
I tried defragmenting C Drive and not a lot happened.
It then said that to defragment D Drive, I'd need 15% of memory, but I only have 13%....
I have no idea what disk cleanup is or what defragmenting is, just that I need to do them.
Also, I tried deleting some programs from the 'add remove programs' but there's hundreds of things I don't recognise and therefore don't know if it's 'safe' to delete them.
I'm so lost, and I don't know what to do. I have approx 1k mp3's and about 12 full length movies on my pc... is this what's slowing it down?
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Comments
I'm running IE 6.0...
I don't want to be an IE basher but it has been known to be very insecure and many scripts download themselves onto your computer through it. It happened with my computer before I found Firefox, my sisters computer got completely run down with absolute rubbish before she switched to firefox, as did my ex-gfs. I'm not saying it is this, but I never use Internet Explorer any more except to test out my websites.
Firefox is a much safer and some say easier to use browser than IE. Instead of opening in new windows, pages can open in new tabs so everything is within that browser. It is also much much safer. It blocks the really annoying spammy pop-ups automatically. You can also add gadgets to it, such as FoxyTunes so that when you're browsing the internet, you can also meddle with your music, change volume etc.
It's really no more difficult to use than IE, some say it's easier in fact. I've never looked back, and there are SO many articles on the web (I'll try and find one) which goes into much more detail about why Firefox is better. if you want to download it, there's a link on the left hand side of this page on my website.
Faster, more secure, easier to use.
Check your task list for running programs and maybe post it here. Also check your startup programs to see what runs automatically.
That's debatable
Often norton
2. In the task manager there are a number of tabs (applications/processes/performance, etc)
3. Click on the tab marker processes
4. Expand the window so you can see everything in the window to the right.
5. One of the headings should be CPU, one should be Mem Usage
6. Click on CPU and let us know the top of the list
7. Click on Mem Usage and let us know the top of the list
That should identify what is running and what is taking up a lot of memory and possibily slowing down the system
CPU - System Idle Process
and
Mem Usage - svchost.exe
Erm, it switches between;
iexplore.exe
explorer.exe
svchost.exe
lsass.exe
etc etc...
it doesn't keep still
I know you have anti-virus but do you have any anti-spyware (defender, spybot)?
and how much space si few on the hard drive?
Since then I deleted 4 movies and some music that I didn't want amongst other crap that I didn't need.
Just 'analysed' the C: drive and it says it doesn't need defragmenting.
It's running a bit faster, but it still takes a heck of a long time to start and shutdown and makes a heck of a noise doing it (that clicky, busy type noise)....
Clicky busy noise means your RAM is full and the page file is being used. There is a trick if you have two hard drives, move the page file onto the second (non primary) hard drive, but I won't go into that now as it might be confusing
As for RAM, it means you've got too many programs open. If you go to the third tab in Windows Task Manager, 'Performance', it should have a box that says Physical Memory (K).
Mine at the moment says:
Total: 2,096,172
Available: 1,390,172
System Cache: 1,390,328
(I added the commas) - this means I have 2000000 kilobytes of ram, or 2000 megabytes, or 2 gigabytes . And I have 1.3 gigabytes free, meaning I'm using about 700.
It also shows my CPU usage at a steady 1-2% :cool: (you've got to love dual core).
Or of course, if it's excessively clicky, could be a dying hard drive. Or just slow computer syndrome, that is sometimes unexplainable :grump:
If Windows is installed for more than 6 months, and the computer is running slow, best thing to do is wipe it and start again. Windows always seems to slow down with age, no matter how little you've installed.
Personally, I've never found defragging to help speed up a computer. Well, I lie - it made a difference back when I had 1gb hard drive space, and a P100.
If a modern machine is hitting the swapfile in any great amount, then it either needs more memory adding or processes removing. IMO it's best to wipe it and start again - if it's slow very shortly afterwards, then it needs more memory or the user needs to assess just what they are trying to do at any one time.
It is for this very reason that for many years now, I have kept data on a separate partition or drive. It's a great habit to get into, as you don't lose all your documents, music, films and settings each time you start from scratch .
Physical Memory
Total - 523628
Available - 183932
System Cache - 320952
CPU of 1-2%
Is that good, bad or indifferent?
If you reinstall windows without formatting the hard drive it'll stop all the installed programs and get it back to scratch (as click mentions) but you won't wipe anything like music or films. You should see exactly the same improvement without losing content, and it's the policy we normally follow at work when windows computers just start to break down for no obvious reason.
You will lose favourites for internet explorer, any installed games won't work, etc, so it's not without problems but anything that is just a file sat on your hard drive will come through it.
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/programs.php#hijackthis
As for starting from scratch, you need TrueImage from Acronis, it's so damn good, it's the best bit of software I own.
Indifferent really. You have 512MB of ram, which is an average-to-small amount, but some is still available. There are a couple of other fields you could look at -
It should say over to the left "commit charge" with three figures - total, limit and peak. It would be interesting if you use your computer normally for a few hours and then look at those values. Peak will tell you the largest amount of memory that has been needed. If that value goes over 500000 you need more RAM.
IE does that.
Yea actually, I have IE6 with the windows live toolbar and it's pretty nifty.
Bloody slow though, everytime you click on a link it goes 'click' and loads. That may be because I'm used to this extension I use in firefox though that pre-loads all the links on a page