Where should I start? (Critical errors)

[Lynda]

My sister asked me to look at her Dell Inspiron 1501 with Vista Home that
was running slow. First place I looked was Event Viewer and found hundreds
of errors in Applications and System some of them critical. Do you have any
advice about how I should start dealing with this? Should I be looking at
the oldest continuing errors or the critical errors which occured some days
ago but are not appearing today? The critical errors mostly involve
DriverFrameworks-UserMode. Some help in getting started would really be
appreciated.

 

[Michael Solomon]

My sister asked me to look at her Dell Inspiron 1501 with Vista Home that
was running slow. First place I looked was Event Viewer and found
hundreds of errors in Applications and System some of them critical. Do
you have any advice about how I should start dealing with this? Should I
be looking at the oldest continuing errors or the critical errors which
occured some days ago but are not appearing today? The critical errors
mostly involve DriverFrameworks-UserMode. Some help in getting started
would really be appreciated.

While the reference might indicate a problem with a driver, it usually helps
if we have the full error. Generally, if there is nothing specific, the
best course of action to is to check device manufacturer websites to make
sure you have the latest Vista compatible drivers for each device. That
said, errors are not necessarily unusual, if the error is causing the system
to crash, that's when you need to take more aggressive action.

This is not usually the cause of a slow system. First, we need to know the
system specs, we need to know if the system was always slow right out of the
box or if it began slowing down recently. Also, one of the first things to
do with a system that is suddenly sluggish is to scan for viruses and
malware/adware as these are the most common causes of such issues.

 

[DP]

Is it new? Bring it back.

 

[Lynda]

Thank you Michael for good advice. I also saw lots of disk errors so did
chkdsk /f. Since then no errors for 24 hours. This pc is used by teenage
boys so I will track down what they have done and them stop them from doing
it.

 

[Lynda]

Thanks, yes it is new but there are teenage boys using it. When I've sorted
out what bad things they have done and if problems remain then Dell support
may help.

 

[Charlie42]

Thanks, yes it is new but there are teenage boys using it. When I've
sorted out what bad things they have done and if problems remain then Dell
support may help.

A little piece of advice: Set up separate standard user accounts for the
boys, and apply parental controls for them from now on (Control Panel > User
Accounts and Family Safety).

Charlie42

 

[Michael Solomon]

Thank you Michael for good advice. I also saw lots of disk errors so did
chkdsk /f. Since then no errors for 24 hours. This pc is used by teenage
boys so I will track down what they have done and them stop them from
doing it.

This is not usually the cause of a slow system. First, we need to know
the system specs, we need to know if the system was always slow right out
of the box or if it began slowing down recently. Also, one of the first
things to do with a system that is suddenly sluggish is to scan for
viruses and malware/adware as these are the most common causes of such
issues.

You're welcome, Lynda, good luck.