Can someone help me with my PC?

[Asa Samuel]

Hey, my PC has this problem that suddenly came out of nowhere about a year ago.

Whenever i try and do too much is going REALLY laggy, and I don't mean downloading films while listening to streamed music and trying to play on WOW at the same time or anything big like that, its just things like watching youtube for too long , playing flash games on websites like newgrounds.com or miniclip.com for more than a few minutes or watching DVDs, I can't even Burn DVDs or CDs anymore.

I used to be able to play computer games fine and watch dvds fine and everything like that, then i got the internet set up (wirelessly connected) and it was fine but then after a while it started doing this.

Even if i close down whatever it was that was making the computer slow it still carries on for a few minutes and it makes everything slow, so slow that i can't do anything at all.

i only have a gig of ram, and i know that would probably help but i can't afford to buy anything at the moment, and it used to be fine anyway.

It runs on xp but i don't know the name or model of the computer as i got it free from a friend.

Can anyone give me some tips of how to get it to stop running slow when it happens, or even better stop it happening alltogether?

Thanks in advance.
Bass Junkie.

[Phalex]

You didn't try to fry bacon on the CPU did you?? Ya know, for as bad as that messes stuff up, it's surprising there isn't a warning.

[spark_chaser]

viruses....there are lots of viruses that your computer can get even if you are running virus protect programs which is probably it. You can also try to de-frag it and XP naturally slows down after 2-3 years and just gets worst, and im not sure why but that's what a very reputable IT guy at my work had told me...I had the same thing happen to My computer i gave it to him he re-formatted my machine and it worked great

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Run antivirus and some anti spyware (AVG and Spybot S&D are great programs, and free).

If it doesnt help, try defragging, if that doesnt help, it might be time to do a fresh install of XP.

What Spark chaser says is pretty true, XP tends to get bogged down after a while (Ive heard its due to the way the registry is handled, but dont know how true that is).

[Kenbuntu]

seems to be true. My XP is messed right now, and im wayyyyy to lazy to re format. I did however install Ubuntu and im using that right now. Its pretty crisp and works fine if all you do is play games, watch moveis, word process, msn etc. I'm sure it'd be running a lot better if it was the sole OS on my system, but works great nonetheless.

[Moondance360]

Bass Junkie,
You may very well have to do a fresh install of Windows XP.
There are several free programs that may repair or at least keep your puter running smoothly.

Comodo Firewall - is a good free one and is PC World Magazine recommended.

Spyware Blaster - will help keep spyware off the machine altogether instead of cleaning it up afterward.

Avira Antivirus Personal Edition - Occasional popup urging you to upgrade to the paid versaion. Another PC World endorsed program.

Spybot S&D - cleans out all kinds of spyware

Ad-Aware - another fre spyware removal tool

Regedit - free registry editor. Clean out the registry of old, usused files left by programs you have deleted and no longer use.

Hope this helps you out some.

[hbarcat]

Maybe it's a tumor.

[Chunk-O-Funk]

How often do you maintain your computer?

Do you regularly clear the temp and history files as well as delete all your cookies?
When was the last time you ran an anti-virus?
How ofter do you use the defrag utility?

Doing this stuff once a month or so will keep you computer running smooth. If you really want to get it back to running like new again. Save all your personal files and do a re-format.

[Kyon`]

You want to defrag your harddrive, much space is left on it to start? Reformatting should be done at least once every two years. Also below there's a link to newegg, they're having a sale on memory, might want to check, $20 upgrade could help loads.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category...17&name=Memory

http://www.ccleaner.com/
Also this a nifty little program that can clear cookies and other temp files that normally wouldn't get cleaned up, just make sure under application for firefox or IE you don't delete the save passwords.

[ehque]

Generally the way i would set up a computer is with windows running on the smallest hard drive i can find and everything else on a separate hard drive. That way i can wipe the system without having to juggle data on thumbdrives or burnt CDs.

[Kyon`]

Originally Posted by ehque

Generally the way i would set up a computer is with windows running on the smallest hard drive i can find and everything else on a separate hard drive. That way i can wipe the system without having to juggle data on thumbdrives or burnt CDs.

A a separate drive would also be a good option for the future.

[Chunk-O-Funk]

Originally Posted by ehque

Generally the way i would set up a computer is with windows running on the smallest hard drive i can find and everything else on a separate hard drive. That way i can wipe the system without having to juggle data on thumbdrives or burnt CDs.

Originally Posted by Kyon`

A a separate drive would also be a good option for the future.

This also works when making a partition on the hard drive. It will save you the cost of adding another hard drive as well.

[Asa Samuel]

Well i did try installing xp fresh a while a go (transferred just my music files and a few images onto a laptop) and started it over, then partitioned my hard drive and put all my music onto the smaller one (cannot remember why i did this) but that did not help.

I will try running an anti-virus scan and spyware (although i use firefox and thought spyware was rarer on FF?) and i'll also try that programme that clears cookies, temp files etc, and it that doesn't work i will do a de-frag.

Does a de-frag clear any files as i dont want my images suddenly dissapearing

EDIT: if i dont know the make/model of my computer, is there a way i can find out what sort of RAM i need without opening it up?

spybot also said i had 2500 files in my temp files folder, i'm guessing this is bad? it cleared them for me.

[JNowiski]

just go ahead and buy a new great computer, now you have your excuse to do so

[Asa Samuel]

Ok, I did a spyware check and found 17 things that it had to fix and then did an anti-virus check with AVG.... first take a guess at how many threats popped up then scroll down...












Nearly 50000!!!!! eesh!! i didn't think there would be that many LOL. I'm now gonna try running a DVD and see if it goes slow again and when i next get a cash injection, i'm going to buy some more RAM

[Nino Valenti]

Originally Posted by hbarcat

Maybe it's a tumor.

"It's not a Tuma"

[derelicte]

sounds like an svchost problem. check you system processes. and get a good antivirus + spyware.

[Asa Samuel]

Ok, while i am here another little problem, I can't open task manager.

I've tried doing ctrl+alt+del and that doesn't work, and right-clicking on the taskbar and clicking task manager doesn't work.

[spark_chaser]

Sounds like you need to trade it in for a new bass

[ehque]

Originally Posted by Chunk-O-Funk

This also works when making a partition on the hard drive. It will save you the cost of adding another hard drive as well.

I couldn't remember whether you could wipe different partitions of drives seperately, so i held back giving that advice. However, I generally recycle my "data" drives of old computers into "system" drives of new computers, so i don't really have that cost problem.

Scavenging is my problem. I have 880GB of space on one computer now...