windows XP on laptop

[me4u2nvdale]

my husbands laptop is running extremely slow. I have disc cleaned,defragged,
removed all unwanted programs, cleaned up shortcuts on desktop, ran virus
scan, ran RegClean, and a spybot program to no avail. It speeds up slightly
and only for a short while.

it is extremely slow starting up and slow getting a website to come up. once
you get the website up it is a bit quicker.

I have also cleared the history and cookies etc.

Help!
Dale

 

[Daave]

my husbands laptop is running extremely slow. I have disc
cleaned,defragged,
removed all unwanted programs, cleaned up shortcuts on desktop, ran
virus
scan, ran RegClean, and a spybot program to no avail. It speeds up
slightly
and only for a short while.

it is extremely slow starting up and slow getting a website to come
up. once
you get the website up it is a bit quicker.

I have also cleared the history and cookies etc.

Some thoughts:

More detailed information is needed. What do you mean by "ran virus
scan"? What is the name of the program? Are you sure its virus
definitions are up to date?

RegClean may have done damage to your PC! As a rule, all registry
"cleaning" programs should be avoided; they do not noticeably improve
performance and there is always the chance real damage may occur (e.g.,
the inability to boot!).

What do you mean by "a spybot program"? Do you specifically mean Spybot
Search & Destroy?

Slow startups are not necessarily problematic. Chances are that updates
and scans are occurring. Of course you can configure your programs to
perform these activities at other times if you wish.

Clearing history and cookies is fine, but it won't speed up your
browsing. What do you mean by "etc"? Again, you need to post detailed
information, please! Clearing your browser cache (i.e., Temporary
Internet Files) can be beneficial, though.

Here is a rundown of the usual causes of sluggishness:

1. Malicious software (malware)

2. Certain programs that are designed to combat malware (e.g., Norton
and McAfee). Ironically, they can slow things down because they simply
use way too many resources. Sometime they cause conflicts with other
programs. And their default mode is to scan your entire hard drive each
time you boot up.

3. Too many of *certain types* of programs always running in the
background -- with or without your knowledge.

Use these sites to determine what these programs are and to learn how to
configure them not to always run at startup:

http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.php#THE_PROGRAMS
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm

Sometimes it is recommended to use msconfig to configure the programs to
not run at startup. A better, more thorough program is Autoruns:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

4. Not enough RAM, which causes the PC to overly rely on the pagefile. A
quick way to determine if this is happening is to open Task Manager
(Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Performance tab. Then note the three values
under Commit Charge (K): in the lower left-hand corner: Total, Limit,
and Peak.

The Total figure represents the amount of memory you are using at that
very moment. The Peak figure represents the highest amount of memory you
used since last bootup. If both these figures are below the value of
Physical Memory (K) Total, then you probably have plenty of RAM.
Otherwise, you may want to explore this further by running Page File
Monitor for Windows XP:

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm

5. You might also want to check that your hard drive's access mode
didn't change from DMA to PIO:

http://www.technize.com/2007/08/02/is-your-hard-disk-cddvd-drives-too-slow-while-copying/

and

http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udma_fix/

 

[Leonard Grey]

Let's start by going through what you have already tried:

The Disk Cleanup Wizard can increase the amount of free space on the
hard drive, but a computer performs its work in RAM, not the hard drive,
so freeing up space does not affect a computer's performance. (The only
exception is where the hard drive is almost completely filled - but you
would know if that was the case.)

With the speed of today's hardware it's not likely that defragging will
increase performance enough to be noticeable. These days, defragging is
more about preventing program errors. Nonetheless, defrag is a valid
approach to slow performance.

"Removing all unwanted programs" -- See my note on the Disk Cleanup
Wizatd above.

Desktop shortcuts have nothing to do with a computer's performance.

So-called registry cleaners (like RegCure) have no proven value and can
easily cause irreparable damage to a computer.

History and cookies have no effect on the speed of a computer.

On the other hand, viruses and other malware -- few infections are viral
these days -- can certainly slow a computer.

Slow performance is easy to understand: It means that your CPU and/or
RAM are not able to process the work you giving them quickly enough. The
solutions are:

1- Reduce the workload on your processor and RAM: This means closing
memory- and processor-intensive applications until your computer's
performance becomes acceptable, or
2- Upgrade your RAM and/or CPU. (Financially it makes more sense to
increase the amount of RAM.)

Two more things to keep in mind: Malware infections are often very
memory- and processor-intensive. Also, if you have compromised your
system with incorrect settings (for example, by fiddling with virtual
memory) and using so-called registry cleaners, you can cause performance
to decrease.

Make sure that your anti-malware software is running, then download the
latest signatures and run a full scan.

If you don't have comprehensive anti-malware software, that's like
driving a car without seats belts or air bags. Either way, you're
eventually going to get hammered. Install comprehensive anti-malware
software and learn how to use its features. A 'comprehensive' solution
scans for all types of malicious software in the background, on demand
and on schedule.

For now try scanning your system with /several/ of the better online
scanners, such as:
Kaspersky Antivirus (http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner)
Panda ActiveScan (http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan)

Download HijackThis from www.trendsecure.com. Run it, save a log, and
post the log at one of the many sites that support HJT, such as
spywarewarrior.com, bleepingcomputer.com, and temerc.com -- but not
here. Within a day, sometimes within an hour, you'll have one-on-one
step-by-step advice from a security expert on cleaning up any
infestations—or you'll have a clean bill of health from the volunteer
expert.

Even the best detection and removal software can't fix every malware
infection. If none of the above remove the infection, you may want to
show the computer to a professional.

 

[Macho]

You haven't specified your computer configuration, may be your
computer configuration is not upgraded, speed of your computer also
depends upon memory size of
your RAM, Processor type(pentium 4, core2duo, celeron etc), clock
speed(mesured in ghz), L2 cache memory, motherboard type and whether
it performs well with
the cpu, harddisk memory size(measured in gb), type (sata, pata) and
speed (rpm), screen resolution of you monitor(bigger the resolution
slower the computer).

* Also remove any unwanted program from the startup by the command
"msocnfig" in command prompt.
* Try not to apply any theme, screen saver, wallpaper.
* While using your laptop go to task manager and check which program
uses the more memory. if it is not necessary, end the process. Stop
the services for next
startup which is not necessary by "msconfig" or services.msc
command.
* Give an appropriate value of memory space for page files.
* Clean up unwanted data from hdd specially from system drive.
* Antivirus software uses processing power by automatic scanning stop
it or uninstall it if not needed.
Hope this will solve your problem.