Lap Top Became SOOOO Slow

[Guest]

It seems like 2 days ago my lap top was running great. ALl of the sudden, now
it takes forever to boot up and when it does, I can hardly even work on the
computer because things take forever to open, and when they finally do, it
seems like the computer locks up. I can't even get to the task manager by
control alt delete. I have to force a shut down by pressing the power off
button. I tried a System restore to try to get the computer back up and
running but it just isn't working. What should I do?? SHould I try a boot
clean up?? ANy suggestions???

 

[DatabaseBen]

Yeh, i notice my laptop got slow recently as well. This morning I tried to
run msdefender, but for some odd reason, it was unfuntional, maybe it was
attacked. So after reinstalling it found an adware in my system32 folder. I
also discovered my registry got "bloated" big time. So after removing a
couple of unneeded programs it shrank back to a respectaable 40 megs.

However, I would see if you are experiencing the same difficulty in safe
mode. If not, then it is likely something is running in normal mode and
taking over your resources. So before you exit safe mode try disabling
(temporarily) your startups. This will free up lots of memory and not
startup a possible flawed program when you reenter normal mode. Go to
start, run, msconfig, disable all your startups, reboot to normal mode.
Keep in mind that you might be also disabling your antivirals. But i am
presuming that they have been actively working to date. So, for them not to
be temporarily on and you not wondering and dowloading from the net, will
provide you some some protection until you decide to enable their startups
again.....

 

[Patrick Keenan]

It seems like 2 days ago my lap top was running great. ALl of the sudden,
now
it takes forever to boot up and when it does, I can hardly even work on
the
computer because things take forever to open, and when they finally do, it
seems like the computer locks up. I can't even get to the task manager by
control alt delete. I have to force a shut down by pressing the power off
button. I tried a System restore to try to get the computer back up and
running but it just isn't working. What should I do?? SHould I try a boot
clean up?? ANy suggestions???

You should determine what is running and taking processor cycles. Restart
in Safe Mode, and after running a virus scan, run msconfig from start/run.
On the Startup Tab, turn off anything you think is not absolutely necessary.
Choose Apply and OK, and restart in regular mode. If things are now
running OK, go back to MSCONFIG and turn things on one at a time until you
see what it is that's slowed the system down. You'll have to restart after
each one.

Of course, MSCONFIG may make it obvious what the problem is and tell you
where the malware is that is bogging your system down, so you can go
directly to the solution rather than playing around.

If you are familiar enough with such matters, look for the freeware Process
Explorer from SysInternals (now owned by Microsoft).
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html

This can show you exactly what processes are doing what - sort by CPU
cycles.

For example, recently I worked on a system on which Word would take several
minutes to open and the machine would be extremely sluggish. Process
Explorer showed that attached to the WinWord process was Norton Anti-virus,
despite the fact that I'd just disabled all NAV's apps and services (or so I
thought). NAV was stuck on scanning NORMAL.DOT and could not proceed. As
soon as NAV was terminated WOrd popped open. If I deleted normal.dot, word
opened properly. If it existed - NAV hung on to it. The only way round
was to uninstall NAV.

HTH
-pk

 

[DatabaseBen]

yeh, their program "autoruns" is impressive too....