Hi guys,

My computer is running really slow, and I don't know why. Yesterday afternoon and Friday afternoon I had to reboot because the computer's speed was affecting my productivity. I've removed virtually all my photos. I've run adaware and hijackthis, and I haven't found much bad stuff.

When it runs slow it sounds like it's doing something, like it has a virus. I'm imagining some sort of spyware bouncing spam off my computer, but I can't figure it out.

Thanks so much for your help!

Amy

Try System Restore. Go back before Friday.

"and I haven't found much bad stuff." Well, any bad stuff can be bad. Have you run an anti-virus scan as well? There are free online scanners available. Panda, AVG, Avast come to mind. There are others as well.

Life's more painless for the brainless.

Amy, there are lots of good free cleaners listed on one page in my sig link. I would suggest running those and you may also want to D/L avast free and get it to do a bootscan on reboot.

Also D/L winpatrol and find out what is running in start-up on ur PC.

Goodluck

Some HELP in posting on Computing.net plus free progs and instructions Cheers

Thanks so much, guys. I really appreciate this. I've got avast, and I'll try running that. But whenever I run it, it never finds anything. I've always thought it was more of a preventative measure. How do I use it to scan my computer so that it finds stuff?

I just mean that when I've run adaware and ccleaner, they've found cookies and stuff, but nothing out of the ordinary.

How do I do a system restore?

Thanks! Amy

Hi guys, all good suggestions. I'll give these a try. Thank you! Amy

Hi guys,

I downloaded and ran winpatrol. How do I know what to disable or remove? Thanks so much for your help.

Amy

try disabling all runing services at start-up : click RUN > MSCONFIG > SERVICES TAB > PUT A CHECK ON HIDE ALL MICRISOFT SERVICES > DISABLE ALL

then restart the system.

amy, a good rule of thumb is to google the questionable entries and see if they are safe to remove.

Hi guys,

I did most of this, and now my printer doesn't work. I got a message saying the computer couldn't find the printer. Assuming I corrupted it somehow by doing all this stuff, I uninstalled it with the plan of installing it again.

Now the installation disc doesn't work. It starts to install, and then I get a noise like an error has occurred, and the installation stops.

Called HP, and of course they won't do anything for me because the warranty is up. Please help!

Thanks,

Amy

did you by chance unknowingly download the SP3?
If so, that could account for things not working.
Right click on My Compuer and see which service pack is installed.

I clicked on properties, and it says Service Pack 2, is that what you mean? Amy

i can help you speedup the computer

http://www.kamrock.net/liveone.htm

follow this link, it will make your computer fresh again, only microsoft know how to do it, no wonder it their windows.

http://www.kamrock.net/liveone.htm

Amy, you asked eariler how to do a scan with avast, here's how to do a bootscan.

Click on the avast icon on ur desktop. when it opens and looks like a radio....click on the down lokking toggle switch on the top left and that will open a menu. Click on 'schedule a bootscan' and it will tell you you have to reboot.

Anything it finds...move it to the chest.