Cleanup of computer

  • Thread starter Thread starter Huub
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H

Huub

Hi,

I want to cleanup a Windows XP computer that has become rather slow. I
already ran defrag. What can I do more and how?

Thanks.
 
Huub said:
Hi,

I want to cleanup a Windows XP computer that has become rather slow. I
already ran defrag. What can I do more and how?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Defrag won't make much of a difference but weeding out the many unnecessary
startup tasks visible in msconfig.exe will. Remember also that your virus
scanner can place a big burden on your CPU, as can a third-party firewall
such as ZoneAlarm.
 
Hi,

I want to cleanup a Windows XP computer that has become rather slow. I
already ran defrag. What can I do more and how?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

How full is the Hard Drive?

If it's too full it can cause slow down as your swap file space gets
eaten up.

If you're comfortable with it I'd back up what you want to keep and
format the HD and reinstall Windows. Just remember to have all your
installation CDs ready and your Windows Key at hand.
 
Huub said:
Hi,

I want to cleanup a Windows XP computer that has become rather slow. I
already ran defrag. What can I do more and how?
Click to expand...

Here are the usual causes of sluggishness:

1. Malicious software (malware). You need to rule this out first! This
page has excellent information:

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Viruses_Malware

2. Certain programs that are designed to combat malware (e.g., Norton
and McAfee). Ironically, they can slow things down because they simply
use way too many resources. Sometime they cause conflicts with other
programs. And their default mode is to scan your entire hard drive each
time you boot up. Fortunately, there are other antimalware programs
available that use far fewer resources (e.g., NOD32, Avast, and Avira).

3. Too many of certain types of programs always running in the
background -- with or without your knowledge. (Then again, many programs
that run in the background have trivial consequences.)

To determine every program and process you are currently running, use
the Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Processes tab. You should
be able to sort by CPU usage or Memory usage to get a good ideas which
ones are the resource/memory hogs. You should write down the names of
all the processes for future detective work (or take a snapshot and
print it out).

Use these sites to determine what these programs are and to learn how to
configure them not to always run at startup:

http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.php#THE_PROGRAMS
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm

Sometimes it is recommended to use msconfig to configure the programs to
not run at startup. A better, more thorough program is Autoruns:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

But before you do this, you should use the preference settings of the
program in question. Otherwise, for some programs, they will return to
the startup list anyway!

If you do wish to use msconfig, it may be accessed this way:

Start | Run | type "msconfig" (without the quotation marks) | Enter (or
OK)

4. Not enough RAM, which causes the PC to overly rely on the pagefile. A
quick way to determine if this is happening is to open Task Manager
(Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Performance tab. Then note the three values
under Commit Charge (K): in the lower left-hand corner: Total, Limit,
and Peak.

The Total figure represents the amount of memory you are using at that
very moment. The Peak figure represents the highest amount of memory you
used since last bootup. If both these figures are below the value of
Physical Memory (K) Total, then you probably have plenty of RAM.
In case you want to explore this further, you may run Page File Monitor
for Windows XP:

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm

5. You might also want to check that your hard drive's access mode
didn't change from DMA to PIO:

http://www.technize.com/2007/08/02/is-your-hard-disk-cddvd-drives-too-slow-while-copying/

and

http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udma_fix/
 
I want to cleanup a Windows XP computer that has become rather slow. I
already ran defrag. What can I do more and how?
Click to expand...


There are several possibilities as to what your problem is, but the
most likely one these days is malware infection. What anti-virus and
anti-spyware programs do you run? Are they kept up to date?
 
Defrag won't make much of a difference but weeding out the many
unnecessary startup tasks visible in msconfig.exe will. Remember also
that your virus scanner can place a big burden on your CPU, as can a
third-party firewall such as ZoneAlarm.
Click to expand...

I run ZA Pro security suite on 2 XP and one Seven computer and there is no
annoying slowdown caused by it.
 
Hi,

I want to cleanup a Windows XP computer that has become rather slow. I
already ran defrag. What can I do more and how?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Thank you for all your replies.

I will do a spy/malware run on the computer and check the msconfig.
 
Thank you for all your replies.
Click to expand...


You're welcome. Glad to help.


I will do a spy/malware run on the computer
Click to expand...



But you didn't answer my questions. What anti-virus and anti-spyware
programs do you run? Are they kept up to date?

All Anti-virus and anti-spyware programs are very far from being
equally good. Just because one of each doesn't find anything doesn't
mean that you are free of infections.
 
I have a slow down and slow startup problem too. I've eliminate a
couple of items from my startup and even cleaned up my desktop (which
actually helped a tiny bit). I just finished looking at
start > run > services.msc and put some items on manual that had been
automatic, but my tower is still laboring noisily at the moment.

I use AVG and Ad-Aware. Both are free versions.
Click to expand...


Not terrible, but not the best products. If you want to stay with
freeware products, I recommend changing from AVG to either Avast or
Avira, and either replacing AdAware with *both* MalwareBytes
Anti-Malware and SuperAntiSpyware (or keeping AdAware and adding those
two to your aarsenal).
 
If I turn all process to manual and not automatic; can this cause any
problems? Should spyware/malware detecting programs always be on automatic?
Anything else?

It's good I read this. I am getting the same thing, and trying to turn off
(or down) all the process taking the ram and cpu. This is helpful.
 
Oh, yes... always free. I don't use my computer for business so
buying those things are not a write off for me.


Funny you would say that, because I've used both in the past. What
makes them better than AVG in your opinion?
Click to expand...


Less intrusive and catch more things.

Do they scan email and
Click to expand...


Scanning e-mail is totally unnecessary. They can do it, but I
recommend turning off that feature.

web pages too?


Thanks for those tips, because they are new products to me. They
won't conflict with each other and slow me down?
Click to expand...


Run one at a time.

I'm not very
impressed with Ad-Aware in its new form, so I was going to look around
anyway. Do you think I need a registry cleaner too, if so which one?
Click to expand...



No! Avoid all registry cleaners like the plague!

Registry cleaning programs are *all* snake oil. Cleaning of the
registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone and
don't use any registry cleaner. Despite what many people think, and
what vendors of registry cleaning software try to convince you of,
having unused registry entries doesn't really hurt you.

The risk of a serious problem caused by a registry cleaner erroneously
removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit
it may have.

Read http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html
 
On the subject of retail malware programs: How are Norton 360, Kaspersky,
Webroot......? Those three are pretty common, and often in store flyers.
 
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