Computer question

[Somewhat Damaged]

When I've turned my computer on the last couple of nights, it's taken much, much longer than normal to get to the log-in screen, and after I type my password, it takes a couple minutes before loading my desktop image, and then another couple minutes before my toolbar and desktop icons come up. I happened to read canexplain's thread the other night about how he'd contracted a Trojan virus on this board; fearing that may have been the culprit when my computer took so long to start last night, I ran my anti-virus (Avast). It didn't locate any viruses and I ran Ad-Aware afterward and got rid of 8 tracking cookies. I restarted my computer and everything started up smoothly. But then when I turned my computer on tonight, it took a really long time again. I'm not computer illiterate but I'm also not the most knowledgeable when it comes to sussing out viruses. Could it be that I've contracted a Trojan and that's what's responsible for my start-up being so slow? If so, why would that have been missed with my anti-virus? Can anyone suggest another anti-virus that works more effectively? Also, I have Limewire and notice that whenever I launch it, my computer starts going *really* slowly. I don't use it too much anymore as a result and am thinking of just uninstalling it from my computer. Is there something I could do to salvage that program or is there another that anyone could suggest getting? Thanks.

[SojuGorae]

Maybe you should try a disk clean-up of some sort. Or re-install whatever O/S you're using.

[suprefan]

Run a spyware program also and see whats going on. Most liskely thats it and when you get rid of it things should speed up. Also is your hard drive almost full? Things start slowing down when its almost full.

[vinylmartyr]

gremlins. think about it.

[orbit]

How much RAM does your computer have?

[corbo]

upgrade RAM. run cleanup. unistall programs. run the task manager and see whats taking up all your resources.

[billtino]

Pretty much any filesharing software (like limewire, e-donkey, bit-torrent, gnuetella, ect) is going to attempt to "phone home" to the mothership as soon as you log into your pc. whether you are actually using the software or not, it usually is running in the background taking up resources and bandwidth. I hear bit-torrent opens connections to various other filesharing programs too, so i'm guessing limewire does too. if ur not using it then uninstall it.

But seriously man. It's the porn. Admit it.

[Somewhat Damaged]

I went to the Properties of My Computer and this is the information I got:

Computer: Intel (R)
Pentium (R) 4CPU 1.70 GHz
1.69 GHz
256 MB of RAM

And I've got Windows XP. This is a refurbished computer that I purchased about a year ago. I've been putting quite a few CDs onto my computer as well; my Windows Media Player is filled with 7.87 GB of music.
So I don't look at my My Computer Properties very frequently; do those results basically mean that I've got .1 GHz of space available? Thanks for the hasty responses.

[orbit]

Check how much free disk space your PC has, maybe it is getting full. Besides you need upgrade that RAM. My PC has 1GB and it works very fast.

[Somewhat Damaged]

But seriously man. It's the porn. Admit it.

I do look at porn fairly regularly (who doesn't?) but don't have much downloaded onto my hard drive. I just go to sites where you can stream the videos in the browser (kinda like YouTube; one is even cleverly titled PornoTube!). And after every time I check shit out, I run Ad-Aware and delete all the tracking cookies that accrue. Is that not enough?

[corbo]

256 MB of RAM!!!? thats laughable. no wonder your shits slow
i cant work with anything under 1GB of RAM

[RotationSlimWang]

you need more ram, but your real problem is almost certainly too many startup entries. go to the start button, run, type in "msconfig" without the quotes. go to the startup tab, and uncheck everything that doesn't absolutely have to be running at startup on your computer. that means pretty much everything, except for your video card or sound card software. all other apps and crap should get unchecked, hit okay. don't bother restarting yet. open internet explorer, go to tools, options, delete all temp internet files and cookies, be sure to get both.

also go to your C: drive, if there's a temp folder delete anything in it. then go to documents and settings, open the folder with your user name on it, if you don't have hidden file showing enable already do so by going to tools, folder options, the view tab, then change the radial button to "show hidden files and folders." now there should be a folder called local settings in your user name folder, open that, open the Temp folder, delete everything in it.

[corbo]

"msconfig"

thats what the command was! thanks! i had forgotten about this.

[el_chaman]

never mind, rotation got it first

[orbit]

Also, download Prevx. It is an anti-spyware/malware program and it works really good. Most of the time the antivirus doesnt detect any malware, so this would be perfect for that.

www.prevx.com

[KenMixtape]

[Somewhat Damaged]

Thanks for all the help. I'm gonna have to wait till this weekend to upgrade my RAM but for now I've already got things going much faster.

[breakjaw]

A good program for cleaning out all the temp files and crap is CCleaner.Note:it will also erase your History,etc by default you have to set it to not do this if you don't want it to.
It's one-click on your Recycle Bin,and then clck again and voila,everything's cleaned out.

[clarky123]

I do look at porn fairly regularly (who doesn't?) but don't have much downloaded onto my hard drive. I just go to sites where you can stream the videos in the browser (kinda like YouTube; one is even cleverly titled PornoTube!). And after every time I check shit out, I run Ad-Aware and delete all the tracking cookies that accrue. Is that not enough?

Your PC should be used as a gateway to education and world events not pornography. Perhaps a few more sundays at church would see your computer run properly.
Seriously though....filth will f$&k it up every time - its broken get a new one!! Enjoy the gig.

[TomAz]

When I've turned my computer on the last couple of nights, it's taken much, much longer than normal to get to the log-in screen, and after I type my password, it takes a couple minutes before loading my desktop image, and then another couple minutes before my toolbar and desktop icons come up. I happened to read canexplain's thread the other night about how he'd contracted a Trojan virus on this board; fearing that may have been the culprit when my computer took so long to start last night, I ran my anti-virus (Avast). It didn't locate any viruses and I ran Ad-Aware afterward and got rid of 8 tracking cookies. I restarted my computer and everything started up smoothly. But then when I turned my computer on tonight, it took a really long time again. I'm not computer illiterate but I'm also not the most knowledgeable when it comes to sussing out viruses. Could it be that I've contracted a Trojan and that's what's responsible for my start-up being so slow? If so, why would that have been missed with my anti-virus? Can anyone suggest another anti-virus that works more effectively? Also, I have Limewire and notice that whenever I launch it, my computer starts going *really* slowly. I don't use it too much anymore as a result and am thinking of just uninstalling it from my computer. Is there something I could do to salvage that program or is there another that anyone could suggest getting? Thanks.

you have some sort of malware (not necessarily a virus) that ad aware is not catching or disposing of properly. you clean it up but then it reinstalls itself. I run both Ad Aware and Spybot, the two in combination seem to do ok.

run task manager, click on processes, then sort by CPU consumption, you can see what's eating up your machine. if it's somethign you don't recognize google it and learn what it is. if it's malware sometiems you can find instructions for effective removal.

[Alchemy]

How much RATM does your computer have? You might think about deleting it for extra memory so that your computer runs faster.




Just kidding.

[zajaa]

can anyone recommend a good brand of external hard drive? this aint exactly my area. i had a laCie that failed after like 3 months, need something reliable..

[HunterGather]

to all of you: get a mac

[zajaa]

got a mac. do not like adware/spyware/virus. but um. about that external hard drive...

[bballarl]

I have a 500GB WD Passport that is pretty nice. Make sure you buy something with an internal fan (or whateverthefuck, I'm not technical about all of this) so it doesn't just eat shit one day.

[HunterGather]

Ah yes then.
Western Digital drives are great. The small portable ones (Passport) that dont need anything other than a USB drive are good, as well as the bigger ones that need external power.

In any case, they are reliable. Both of mines are still running strong with no problems.

[bmack86]

I've now got a western digital. I like it quite a bit so far. Stay away from Seagate. They make a decently priced 1.5 TB drive, but it crashed on me after a year. The fan died, it overheated, and the drive literally melted. Heartbreaking.

[zajaa]

btw thank you, you classy gents.