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Hi-
I know nothing about computers but I do know that mine is running extremely slow. I don't know where the problem might be so heres the info I knowWindows XP 2002
Pentium 4 CPU 1.8 Ghz, 761 MB of RAM
2 hard drives, (1) 75 GB (21Gused) and the other is 18G (17G used)I'm not gonna pretend like I know what any of that means!
I've tried to defrag it, but it doesn't help...any ideas??
most probabily you have installed some application which is slowing your pc down. You may also have too many programs. First of all try to uninstall some stuff. Secondly try to degrag your computer. Read this article on how to defragment your computer hard disk
WebMaster of WEB TALK
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Installed software can't slow your PC down unless it's running.
Run Task Manager (right-click taskbar, select Task Manager). The performance tab should show no more than a few percent usage. If it's high (say 80-100%), go to the Processes tab and see what's using the CPU - sort the CPU column by clicking on the heading. If "System Idle Process" comes to the top, click again. The culprit(s) should be at the top. If you can't identify what the problem is, post back here.
Another possibility is that your disk(s) aren't running efficiently, but I'd suggest checking out my first suggestion and getting back to us with the results.
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I'm working on the defrag again right now.
How do you know what is ok to uninstall. I'm trying to uninstall stuff that says its rarely used. But what if I have a "windows media format 11 runtime" and a "windows media format 11". which one do i delete? or should i not delete?!
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k, so what do i do if its infected. The AVG hasn't come up with anything that i can see...
and....i clicked the little button in the right hand corner on accident and now it says that these comments are offensive...sorry
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ok, i ran the task manager and it was running very high...but it was because of the de frag. so now that the defrag is finished. its running all over the place, anywhere from 2% up to 100% in any given 10 seconds...Maybe thats normal, i don't know...the 2 things that pop up on top alot are iexplore.exe, wmiprvse.exe. I'm not sure what these mean.
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I'm guessing you're not familiar with basic file system maintenance. Do you still have IE set to store every site you visited for the past 20 days? Do you ever dump the contents of your temp folder? What about history, temp internet files, cookies? Do you scan for viruses regularly? What about spyware & malware? Do you have a firewall installed?
Cleaning and Tweaking Downloads
Firewalls and Security Downloads
Do you have a lot of crap loading at startup? iTunes, Realplayer, QuickTime, AIM, Yahoo messenger, etc? All that stuff slows the system down. If you need it, fine, but don't have it preload at startup. You can run MSCONFIG to disable unnecessary programs from loading at startup.
How to use MSCONFIG in Windows XP
Do you have any toolbars installed such as Google, Yahoo, etc? They won't register as spyware but that's exactly what they are...get rid of them!
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iexplore.exe is Internet Explorer, wmiprvse.exe is a system task, but it can cause problems. See here for instructions on how to "calm it down" as it were.
As I said, you shouldn't need to uninstall anything, unless it's the thing causing the problem. It's a good idea to defrag every so often (once a month?) but a fragmented disk won't slow your PC down much, whatever people say. In your case, you've got plenty of space on your main drive, so it couldn't be THAT fragmented in any case.
Don't take any notice of "doom-merchants" who say your PC is infected - it might be, but they don't know that any more than you or I do. There are plenty of people here who'll do their best to help you. Post back with an update.
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