its a hp laptop
2 gbs ram 2 gbs processor
hard drive has 177 gb free of 363
it has both norton and mcafee.
This is actually my wifes laptop, so she uses it primarily, but some things I have noticed trying to work with it.
It takes an outrageous amount of time to boot up from initial. There are only like 4 or 5 diff things selected to start up however upon boot up. Every so often while using it, and a lot of times when i close the lid on the laptop, ill hear a beep sound that lasts for about a second.
I've tried to defrag a couple of times and it would go on for a few days, and I suppose never finishes, I know it takes awhile, but 2 days should be plenty of time is my guess.
when browsing the net, constantly "not responded" on a page
you have to wait about 30 seconds or so before you can just scroll down
And the first sign that I saw something was wrong, no matter the size of a file, If i move, copy, delete a file to a different location, it does what I want, but the windows explorer task wont go away. I have to go into task manager and end the task that way. File goes where I want it still.
I know this is pretty general, but this is my wife's school/work computer and right now she despises doing any school work because of the speed of this computer.
Its pretty bad my windows xp with like 296 mb ram outruns this right now :(
any help is appreciated, and thanks a head of time.
So I'm probably going to format since its so slow. Any help on what i need to do from the start after the Format is complete to avoid the slowness i encountered this go around?
Is this vista? I would disable the aero interface if it's enabled.
Also before considering formatting, try removing norton/macafee and instead load a different software.
I would recommend avira antivirus (free) and also a free firewall (zone alarm). Both are small and faster. Use a returnil (free) as an antispyware software, it won't slowdown the computer.
Also do a chkdsk c: /f or a scandisk (with the boxes to fix errors checked). If you have corrupted files on the drive it will slowdown the entire computer. This will also prevent you from defragging the drive.
A slow computer is almost always related to antispyware/bloated security suites.
If you decide to format, use a free imaging software (macrium reflect) to backup the hard drive. That way if you run into problems you can at least restore your original drive.
Originally posted by mistycat: Sure sounds like both AVs are running realtime. You can also check msconfig for unnecessary start up programs or malware.
How do i find out if both avs are running realtime
and to me it appears a bunch of crap loads up at startup, but I really do not want to disable something that will hinder my performance
is there a list somewhere
or should i post what i have started up?
Both AVs will show in msconfig if running realtime with their icon in the taskbar. I only have my AV running at startup and have for at least a couple of years with no problems seen but this should show what's what: http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php
Originally posted by mistycat: Both AVs will show in msconfig if running realtime with their icon in the taskbar. I only have my AV running at startup and have for at least a couple of years with no problems seen but this should show what's what: http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php
great list of startups
i took over half of my things off
both AVs dont appear to be running
another question
I've disabled automatic windows update before, but no matter what i do it keeps coming back, good or bad thing?
HP no doubt will have a stack of shit that they bundle with it along with their updaters that run in the back ground not to mention any other junk you have installed,the link below is to a little utility that attaches to the task manager it will help tell you what's what that's running & whether you need it,you can use ccleaner to remove any startup entries,then either delete quicklink when finished or leave it & make sure you set not to run at startup since it does have an icon you can start manually
http://www.processlibrary.com/quicklink/
there's no need to have things like windows messenger run at start up or in the back ground or have your printer software startup at boot time either,little things like that
defrag-ya can't go past ultradefrag,it's small as & can be set to run at startup but before windows loads which means pagefile & hybernation file get defragged as well
security..wellllll microsofts security suites seems pretty good (antivirus,spyware scanner & firewall) mind you it's only been trialed for a couple of days so far along with my trusty spyware terminater app i like,no performance issues so far
yeah well that's my lot happy reformatting
oh yeah an imaging program is a must as jony said espcially if your about to reformat
macrium reflect acronis true image
norton ghost
EDIT:if it's xp it should'nt come back,you can set it to just notify of updates & not download & set which day
