PC Slower

[toronado455]

I've noticed that my computer is a bit slower particularly on launching
programs. It seems to have happened after I installed Avast but I'm not
sure. Is there a way to temporarily disable Avast to see if that clears
it up? And if it turns out it isn't Avast, then how do I "clean up" the
system of any unneeded programs running in the background?

 

[R. McCarty]

Every program adds some loading on the system. AV is going to
place hooks into normal operations like open or run and that will
translate to some reduction in overall speed. What you need to do
is check overall system loading with TaskMgr. Compare the PF
meter count with your physical RAM. If your system has 256 Megs
of RAM and the PF meter is 312 then the system is paging. In that
case you either reduce Startups & Watchdogs or add more RAM.
Avast is a good AV, but it does fall in with several other AVs that
do affect system performance. You want to test your system with
TaskMgr after a fresh boot and with no applications open/running.
This will give you a quiescent/idle loading level.

 

[toronado455]

After reboot, PF meter showed 152, and total processes was 31. After
about a minute that dropped to 141 and 29. Not sure why. I didn't
launch or quit any apps (other than TaskMgr) after the reboot. I have
256 MB installed and another 256 on the way from Crucial.

Still, 29 background processes seems a bit much. I'm new to Windows
though so that may be the norm. In any case, if I wanted to try to thin
that out a bit, how do I learn how to do that?

 

[Guest]

You might try the two following links to see what is runing.
*************************************************
ProcessLibrary

http://www.processlibrary.com/
*************************************************
Windows Process Library

http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/
*************************************************
29 to 31 doesn't sound like too much but it depends on what they are.

Foxhole

 

[Crowder]

After reboot, PF meter showed 152, and total processes was 31. After
about a minute that dropped to 141 and 29. Not sure why. I didn't
launch or quit any apps (other than TaskMgr) after the reboot. I have
256 MB installed and another 256 on the way from Crucial.

Still, 29 background processes seems a bit much. I'm new to Windows
though so that may be the norm. In any case, if I wanted to try to
thin that out a bit, how do I learn how to do that?

I have 54 running but I have plenty of horse power. Every program you
install since the system was new will slow things down a bit. Each one will
also want to load at startup but not many really are needed. You have to
find out which ones are running and decide what ones to remove at startup.
That is if that is why your system is slowing. You can use msconfig to
temporarily stop most and see if there is one app in particular that is
causing trouble. You may have other things going on like virus or spyware
or Trojans etc. I am assuming you have updated AV SW and scanned for the
usual.

Crowder.

 

[Rock]

I've noticed that my computer is a bit slower particularly on launching
programs. It seems to have happened after I installed Avast but I'm not
sure. Is there a way to temporarily disable Avast to see if that clears
it up? And if it turns out it isn't Avast, then how do I "clean up" the
system of any unneeded programs running in the background?

How to Troubleshoot By Using the Msconfig Utility in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=310560

How to perform advanced clean-boot troubleshooting in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=316434

 

[toronado455]

I checked out all the processes with liutilities.com and everything
checks out OK and legit. So I guess I'll just leave everything alone.

One thing that was confusing though was that for many of the Windows
processes, liutilities says it is also registered as a virus or worm.
For example:

Note: svchost.exe is a process which is registered as the
W32.Welchia.Worm.

And that I should get this WinTasks 5 Pro thing to find out which it is.

 

[toronado455]

Everything looks OK in my msconfig start up list. Except the first item
in the list has no name and no command. I've looked in the directory it
is in (HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run) but I don't
see anything with no name there.

 

[Plato]

I've noticed that my computer is a bit slower particularly on launching
programs. It seems to have happened after I installed Avast but I'm not
sure. Is there a way to temporarily disable Avast to see if that clears
it up? And if it turns out it isn't Avast, then how do I "clean up" the
system of any unneeded programs running in the background?

One can use msconfig | startup to tweak such niggles.