Help! Slow comp. 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?

 

[Guest]

Hey Vince,

Check to see how much ram you got in your laptop. Anything less than 512MB
will cause your computer to be slow.

Click my computer & click properties. Hope this helps.

 

[Pop`]

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?

Well, let's see, since you posted twice, and twice said that you "tried
everything", how can there be anything left to try? If you've already tried
everything, what good will repeating everything do?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

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?

The most common culprit these days, and the first thing you should be
looking at, is whether you have malware infestation. I recommend that you
go to Malke's Malware Removal site at
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware and follow
the instructions there.

If that doesn't help, then post back for other possibilities.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Check to see how much ram you got in your laptop. Anything less than
512MB will cause your computer to be slow.

Note two things:

1. He says "usually it takes about 20 seconds" and "But now, a month later,
the same thing has come back." Clearly his problem hasn't always been there,
so the amount of RAM he has isn't causing his problem.

2. It is not true that "Anything less than 512MB will cause your computer to
be slow." This is *not* a one-size-fits-all situation. You get good
performance if the amount of RAM you have keeps you from using the page
file, and that depends on what apps you run. Most people running a typical
range of business applications find that somewhere around 256-384MB works
well, others need 512MB. Almost anyone will see poor performance with less
than 256MB. Some people, particularly those doing things like editing large
photographic images, can see a performance boost by adding even more than
512MB--sometimes much more.