Help! Comp running slow. Tried everything.

[Guest]

Whenever I start up my Toshiba Satellite laptop, the startup takes at least 7
minutes to finish when usually it takes about 20 seconds. Also, many
programs have become slower and the mouse "skips" frequently. I've tried to
defragment, get rid of viruses, and try a system restore, but none of that
works either. This has actually happened before and after defragmenting,
getting rid of viruses and doing a system restore, it worked. But now, a
month later, the same thing has come back, but it won't go away this time.
Does anyone have a solution?

 

[Daave]

Whenever I start up my Toshiba Satellite laptop, the startup takes at
least 7 minutes to finish when usually it takes about 20 seconds.
Also, many programs have become slower and the mouse "skips"
frequently. I've tried to defragment, get rid of viruses, and try a
system restore, but none of that works either. This has actually
happened before and after defragmenting, getting rid of viruses and
doing a system restore, it worked. But now, a month later, the same
thing has come back, but it won't go away this time. Does anyone have
a solution?

Are you absolutely sure your computer is free of viruses, adware, and
spyware? Which programs did you use (and did they have the most
up-to-date definitions?)?

You didn't mention deleting temp files (always do this *before* the
defrag).

And you should probably disable certain apps/processes from starting up
in the first place.

http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/slowcom.htm has all the info you need on
speeding up a sluggish PC.

 

[Wesley Vogel]

Why is my computer running so slow, it used to be much faster?
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/slowcom.htm

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Vince

Try Start, Control Panel, System, Hardware, Device Manager. Are there
any yellow question marks there?

Are there any Error / Warning Reports in the System section of Event Viewer.
Please post copies.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Administrative Tools,
Event Viewer. When researching the meaning of the error, information
regarding Event ID, Source and Description are important.

HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308427&Product=winxp

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double
click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a
button resembling two pages. Double click the button and close Event
Viewer. Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of
the message. This will paste the info from the Event Viewer Error Report
complete with links into the message. Make sure this is the first paste
after exiting from Event Viewer.

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Whenever I start up my Toshiba Satellite laptop, the startup takes at
least 7
minutes to finish when usually it takes about 20 seconds. Also, many
programs have become slower and the mouse "skips" frequently. I've tried
to
defragment, get rid of viruses, and try a system restore, but none of that
works either. This has actually happened before and after defragmenting,
getting rid of viruses and doing a system restore, it worked. But now, a
month later, the same thing has come back, but it won't go away this time.
Does anyone have a solution?

Get Process Explorer and put a shortcut to it in the Startup folder. Watch
it as the system starts to see what is running and claiming CPU cycles.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/ProcessExplorer.mspx

Once you know what it is that's running, you will be able to decide what to
do about it.

HTH
-pk

 

[Pop`]

Let's see here: I think you answered you own question. See inline:

Whenever I start up my Toshiba Satellite laptop, the startup takes at
least 7 minutes to finish when usually it takes about 20 seconds.

20 seconds? Is this XP? Which version? Are you SURE it's 20 seconds? I
tend to doubt the number.

Also, many programs have become slower and the mouse "skips"
frequently.

Is it a roller ball mouse? Skipping suggests it needs cleaning according to
the docs with it, which I'm sure you read, right?

I've tried to defragment, get rid of viruses, and try a

system restore, but none of that works either.

This has actually

happened before and after defragmenting, getting rid of viruses and
doing a system restore, it worked.

OK, you defragged, got rid of viruses and did a system restore, and it
worked.

But now, a month later, the same

thing has come back, but it won't go away this time. Does anyone have
a solution?

Think now; you had viruses. You haven't convinced me you don't still have
viruses. Do you? How do you know? How about spyware? How do you know?
Etc.

Pop`