My PC - good spec - just seems to run really slow. I have up to date virus etc and all says clear but system runs really slow - for example click on Word & it takes 20 secs to launch it.
Any ideas what the matter could be ?

R.

 

Have you tried defragging the hard drive?

 

Yep tried that, no joy.

R.

 

how much memory is in the machine?

How many apps do you have running at startup and then sitting in the taskbar

right click on the taskbar and select task manager and see what CPU and Memory utilisation is

chances are if you have enough memory something might be causing the CPU to run at 100% or not enough memory in your pc so i has to start using the swap file to run progams which will slow things down a little

 

Probably malware,trojans etc, do a full scan on it with a decent removal tool.

 

Thanks guys - will look at those things tonight. I know that the hard drive is only 30% used, 70% free, so thats not overloaded. 512mb memory.

I get the all clear from all the virus tools I throw at it.

R.

 

Probably too much junk in the trunk, so to speak. But in this day and age you should really want 1gig IHMO.

Resource hungry Anti-virus software (Mc Afee, Norton to name many) and firewalls/security suites. Plug ins, toolbars/helperbars (yahoo tool bar/google toolbar). Quick launch plugs ins (quick time), MSN, and anything else that loads on start-up. It all adds up and results in a slow system.

And even then when the junk is removed, the registry is still left cluttered up with hundreds of un-needed entries, which the only simple way of cleaning up is a clean slate re-install or system restore.

I notice the newer Dell OEM installs are like this on a brand new machine I recently purchased one for a friend that was identical spec to my home build, but all the junk on it made it run far slower, yet it was brand new.

 

I like to reformate mine once a month and it runs so much faster i keep everything on disc and just keep the programs i use all the time on

 

CCleaner is a great way of keeping a trim registry. I haven't formatted or reinstalled (well 1 ghost restore) my XP installation since '04, and it's as quick as the day it was 1st installed.

I swear by ghost images. Once you have a decent image with everything installed and working correctly, you can always restore this, instead of fomatting and reinstalling all your apps, settings etc. A decent sized XP partition takes 30min-1hr tops to image/restore.

 

click start, run. in there type "msconfig"
In the startup section remove any of the crap you don't need.

and

Go to your c:\%windows%\prefetch directory.

Delete everything in there

 

I had a similar problem with my old PC. I simply removed every none essential piece of hardware, and it was fine. I must've had a fault with something.

 

Have you checked out 'Task Manager'? I recently had a performance issue with the svchosts.exe taking up 100% of my CPU time, causing major lags on system performance. Delving through google, and it appears to be a bug going around with the Windows automatic updates download manager. In the end I went to the Microsoft support site downloaded and installed the Hot fix.

 

BlkKnight, how do you get to "Go to your c:\%windows%\prefetch directory?"

 

%windows% is wherever you installed windows to.

"prefetch" is the sub directory