Computing.Net > Forums > Security and Virus > Painfully slow at boot up

Computer Problems? Computing.Net has over 1,000,000 posts about all things technology related! Over 90% answered within 24 hours! Click here to start participating now! Also, be sure to check out the New User Guide.

Painfully slow at boot up

Reply to Message Icon

Name: baggie953
Date: October 10, 2008 at 05:36:57 Pacific
OS: Win XP SP2
CPU/Ram: P4 2.4GHz with 512Mb
Product: Dell Inspiron
Comment:

Hi

My friends computer is so slow it reminds me of an old 486!! Can anyone in the know please give advice on how to clean up this system and thus make the computer run at the speed at which it is designed.

many thanks



Sponsored Link
Ads by Google

Response Number 1
Name: Kaithlyn
Date: October 10, 2008 at 05:50:02 Pacific
Reply:

hello,
you provided very little details. maybe the computer itself is kinda old? maybe your friend set many programs to start on boot. i know some anti-viruses has option to scan a computer on boot, in this case the boot may take some time.

anyway, i recommend running antivirus and antispyware scans just in cases. maybe there are some nasty things hiding in the dark ;)

tc;


0

Response Number 2
Name: astroraptor
Date: October 10, 2008 at 06:26:22 Pacific
Reply:

Backup, format, start from scratch. Really, why spend hours on end trying to figure out what the culprit is.


0

Response Number 3
Name: Kaithlyn
Date: October 10, 2008 at 06:43:12 Pacific
Reply:

astroraptor, because the culprit might stay after everything you recommended to do. personally i would format and reinstall windows, but that doesn't help in each case.

i assisted this person who said he kept formatting C drive but the infection kept reappearing all the time. finally i came up with the reason: he had illegally downloaded movies on other drives that required a "codec" to watch them. you can easily guess the reason of infection he had, he always downloaded the fake codec which installed other malwares.

what i'm trying to say is: if there are some problems with infected files the problems won't be gone if you format hard drives but keep the files on dvd or usb.

tc;


0

Response Number 4
Name: baggie953
Date: October 10, 2008 at 06:48:38 Pacific
Reply:

@ astroraptor

Not the most helpful of solutions!!

@ Kaithlyn

Thanks for your help, I am running Spybot and it found very little, the anti-virus software is AntiVir and this has not found any problems!

The computer is about 3 years old, but had worked at a good speed but has now slowed considerably. It is used by my friend and her two daughters and between them they seem to download the world lol Maybe they have installed something nasty that the anti-vir are not finding?

I heard about the HiJackThis and wondered if I should try and install this to see if it fixes the Registry? what do you suggest?

Many thanks again :¬)

many thanks


0

Response Number 5
Name: Jack Frost46
Date: October 10, 2008 at 07:25:19 Pacific
Reply:

The first thing to try on a slow computer is

CCleaner this link will get you ccleaner with

out the yahoo tool bar ,

http://www.majorgeeks.com/CCleaner_...

next defrag

and the next thing is how many real time protection progams are you running because every time you access a file it is checked by them all , this will slow you down

regards


0

Related Posts

See More



Response Number 6
Name: baggie953
Date: October 10, 2008 at 09:57:00 Pacific
Reply:

@ Jack Frost46

Many thanks, have run CCleaner and Defragged the hard drive and it seems to have speeded up a little but not too significantly.

Running the following programs:

Antivirus = AntiVir
Firewall = Windows Firewall
Junk Bot = Spybot S&D

Nothing else is running that I am aware of.

Any further help is appreciated.

many thanks


0

Response Number 7
Name: Jack Frost46
Date: October 10, 2008 at 10:52:44 Pacific
Reply:

Well if you want to be sure you could run

malawarebytes-anti malware & clear all it finds , like all anti-malware , AV it can throw up false positives but very rarely ,and can be retrieved from quarantine
apart from the programs you mentioned do you have many other programs that auto start ? they could slow your computer down at start-up and use resources . if so temporarily disable them from start>>run>>>msconfig>>>start up & see which ones are slowing you the most .

I hope this has been of help to you , also I think that if you had serious malware problems they would have manifested themselves in other ways by now .

Regards


0

Response Number 8
Name: Kaithlyn
Date: October 13, 2008 at 06:53:37 Pacific
Reply:

malwarebytes antimalware is great. however if you're willing to try hijackthis, the procedure is not complicated. here's hijackthis download, install the program and run it to make a log. then copy a log and post it on some hijackthis analysis forum. here are some forums: hijackthis log analysis
HijackThis Logs and Malware Removal.

tc;


0

Response Number 9
Name: baggie953
Date: October 13, 2008 at 08:56:33 Pacific
Reply:

@ Jack Frost46

Many thanks again for all your help, very much appreciated.

@ Kaithlyn

I have followed your advice regarding the hijackthis, here's hoping it'll all get sorted.

To all that have helped - cheers :¬)

many thanks


0

Response Number 10
Name: hhb6
Date: October 20, 2008 at 08:17:44 Pacific
Reply:

Hi
try this program from http://www.incodesolutions.com/remo...
download http://www.incodesolutions.com/down...
based on my own experience 99% of the time it solves the problem


0

Response Number 11
Name: tokenz
Date: October 20, 2008 at 11:28:27 Pacific
Reply:

Actually a reformat and reinstall would be the way I would go also. If you arent smart enough to figure out whats making it slow than a format and reinstall makes sense. Also ask anyone that run for performance and stability and they recommend a reinstall every so often. The reason Install uninstall install unistall. You will have pieces leftover, a bloated registry. etc. Now i know im not going to spend three days trying to clean everything when a wipe and reinstall takes. hours. So yes that was a viable and good suggestion. Now as for your friend with the codec issue. if you pirate expect problems. I mean Come on.



0

Response Number 12
Name: plbyrd
Date: October 20, 2008 at 13:15:47 Pacific
Reply:

Your choice of Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware
makes a huge difference in the performance of
your computer. Some take a very brute-force
approach and do full CRC regression testing
on each file write and read. If you
aren't running a modern 7200 RPM hard drive
you are going to want to cry while this is
happening.

I've been using Windows Live One Care for the
simple fact that it seems to have the least
amount of impact on system performance.

One way you can determine if the AV software
is the issue is to simply disconnect
(physically) from your network, turn off the
AV software, and reboot. If it's
significantly faster then you need to think
about either a hardware upgrade or changing
AV software.


0

Sponsored Link
Ads by Google
Reply to Message Icon






Post Locked

This post is quite old and has been locked from receiving new replies. Please create a new posting instead.


Go to Security and Virus Forum Home


Sponsored links

Ads by Google


Results for: Painfully slow at boot up

Turn off AVG from loading at Boot www.computing.net/answers/security/turn-off-avg-from-loading-at-boot-/8059.html

pic at boot-up and shut down? www.computing.net/answers/security/pic-at-bootup-and-shut-down/3802.html

help boot up and all programs slow www.computing.net/answers/security/help-boot-up-and-all-programs-slow/21590.html