*rain*drops* said:
I've got a Toshiba laptop with XP Pro/MCE2006 on it. Just recently
it's been running slow. I've got 1 gig of memory. Sometimes I have
Photoshop, Word, an OCR program and WMP open at the same time,
switching between them. It used to handle that okay, but now it's
slow. The hard-drive is 80 gigs, and it's just over half full.
I'd like to figure out what's making it slow. Run some diagnostic
tests etc. I ran the Toshiba diagnostic tool that came with the
computer -- it said my computer passed all the tests, but there's no
other information. Kind of the computer version of idiot lights, I
guess.
I have Norton Utilities, Winternals, the Toshiba stuff and the XP
utilities. I only know how to use a couple of features.
Can somebody help me pin down the problem so I can get this computer
running faster, like it used to? Thank you.
I'm not aware of any single program to do those things for you, but your
description is a little telling in what you did not mention having done:
First, set a "control point", e.g. establish some measurement of time you
can compare against when you are done. Don't rely only on your own
perceptions; they can and will fool you.
-- Create a Restore Point.
-- Internet Explorer:
Start; Programs; Accessories; System Tools; run Disk Cleanup.
That will clear out out of date and leftover chaff and temporary files
that can cause a machine to waste time.
Let it check for everything except Compress Old Files; you don't need
that and it makes the thing take forever to run. It just compresses system
folders that haven't been used in a long time to conserve space.
-- Run Chkdsk on all drives. You will have to reboot to allow it to run on
the boot drive; on screen instructions will show you.
You have Norton Utilities but didn't meniont version so I'll guess:
-- Run Windoctor
-- Let it clean up broken links, paths, etc.. 99% of the time the
default repair is the right option to choose.
-- If you don't have WinDoctor, then run One Button Checkup.
-- Run Speed Disk (or XP's own Disk Defragmenter).
It will take a long time to run if you haven't done it in a long time. Be
prepared to give it time.
-- Check Event Viewer for error messages and if there are any, take care of
them.
-- Update and run your antivirus software; do a complete scan.
-- Update and run all of your spyware detection programs. If you dont'
have them, get Adaware from lavasoft.com and Spybot Search & Destroy from
spybot.com.
-- Go to Microsoft, find, download and run UPHClean. It's a sort of
optimizer for the startup functions.
-- Go to Microsoft, find and download and run BootVis for XP. Use the
"Optimize Registry" feature. Don't worry, it does NOT change the registry -
it just rearranges things to make them load more efficiently.
-- Restart but go into Safe Mode (pressing F8 as the machine boots).
-- Using windows explorer, locate c:\windows'temp. Empty that folder. You
will not be able to delete any temp files with today's date/time after your
last Restart, so skip those. Everything else will be deletable and you do
not need.
-- If there is a .tmp folder, empty that one also.
-- Use Exporer to search the boot drive for ~*.* files. Delete any files
it finds that start wiht the "~".
-- Repeat, this time searching for *.tmp files. Delete those if their
time/date is prior to your last reboot time.
By this time, there shouldn't be a lot of those types of files left, so
the searches won't take an unreasonable length of time to run.
-- Restart, then Shut Down, disconnect power from the computer (not just
turn its switch off), the reapply power and boot the computer again.
-- Do one more Restart.
-- Now check the computer's perceived speed; see if it hasn't improved. I
suspect it will.
HTH
Pop`
