my computer is running s l o w .........?

Question

i updated my antivirus protection program upon prompting, (McAfee) and now my computer is running so freaking slow........not just the internet, windows programs too........what should i do????

Answer 1

Have you tried freeing up the space on your hard drive, a lot of clutter can cause this, also does your disk need defragmented, that is all I know, my pc will warn me to run express cleanup, but that is from Norton antivirus.

Answer 2

It may still be installing the updates; give it 20 minutes or so, and then reboot the computer.

If it still runs slow, and you have the McAffee cd-rom, try uninstalling and re-installing the software, and then update it.

If it STILL runs slow, there is a good chance you already have a virus on your computer, and it is trying to disable McAffee. At this point, your best bet is to get some professional help.

And yes, some viruses are being written that have the capability to disable anti-virus software...

Good luck!

Edit:

System Restore rarely helps; don't bother with it...

Edit #2:

Jesus Tapdancing Christ... don't any of you people understand troubleshooting? The problem started just after she did an update; you need to concentrate on that. Running scandisk & defragging on a regular basis is great, but that is NOT going to help here. Either her update went bad, or she has a virus/trojan/worm already resident on the hard drive that is messing with the update...

Answer 3

You got a lot of very good answers.
1. Clean up your pc. Ccleaner is a very good and free program.
2. Defrag hard drive. You should clean up and defrag weekly. Windows is such a filthy daug.
3. Find a good registry cleaner and defragger. Run it.
4. Here is something no one mentioned. Review and clean your startup group. You may have programs running in the background that you don't want or need. Here is how to do that:
Click start - run - type 'msconfig' - click startup tab.
Compare your startup group with www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php
Good Luck,

Answer 4

This could be becuz of many reasons! One of the main reasons, is the your computer may be full of temporary files that you may have not cleaned out, becuz this uses your computer's memory, and this slows it down! The most common reason however is spyware and adware. Download FREE scanners that will clean out your computer, I HAVE HAD THIS HAPPEN TO ME B4, AND AFTER RUNNING A COUPLE OF SCANS (which take about 15 min.) your computer will run like its new! Try "adware home edition" and "spybot S & D" from "download.com"

--Rich

Answer 5

Do a system restore with the date selected before you you did the antivirus update

Answer 6

May have been a bad update. perhaps system restore to a time before the upgrade. You will still need to do the upgrade but it may work better the second time.

Answer 7

You should upgrade the memory chip and graphic card than you computer will be a.o.k. hope this helps.
p.s. Try removing unwanted or rarely used programs that take up space in computer.

Answer 8

click on start /run type in the box
msconfig
click ok
click on the services tab
look in the list for
imapi cd-burning com
Distributed Link Tracking Client
un-tick the box on them 2
click on apply & ok
your have to restart the pc when your back at the desktop
everything will run fine

By freeing disk space, you can improve the performance of your computer. The Disk Cleanup tool helps you free up space on your hard disk. The utility identifies files that you can safely delete, and then enables you to choose whether you want to delete some or all of the identified files.

Use Disk Cleanup to:

• Remove temporary Internet files.

• Remove downloaded program files (such as Microsoft ActiveX controls and Java applets).

• Empty the Recycle Bin.

• Remove Windows temporary files.

• Remove optional Windows components that you don't use.

• Remove installed programs that you no longer use.


Tip: Typically, temporary Internet files take the most amount of space because the browser caches each page you visit for faster access later.

To use Disk Cleanup

1.
Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Cleanup. If several drives are available, you might be prompted to specify which drive you want to clean.

Disk Cleanup calculates the amount of space you will be able to free.
Choose the files that you want to delete.

3.
Clear the check boxes for files that you don't want to delete, and then click OK.

4.
When prompted to confirm that you want to delete the specified files, click Yes.


After a few minutes, the process completes and the Disk Cleanup dialog box closes, leaving your computer cleaner and performing better.



Speed Up Access to Data
Disk fragmentation slows the overall performance of your system. When files are fragmented, the computer must search the hard disk when the file is opened to piece it back together. The response time can be significantly longer.

Disk Defragmenter is a Windows utility that consolidates fragmented files and folders on your computer's hard disk so that each occupies a single space on the disk. With your files stored neatly end-to-end, without fragmentation, reading and writing to the disk speeds up.

When to Run Disk Defragmenter

In addition to running Disk Defragmenter at regular intervals, optimally monthly, certain events warrant running the utility outside of the monthly rule of thumb.

You should run Disk Defragmenter under the following circumstances:

• You add a large number of files.

• Your free disk space nears 15 percent.

• You install new programs or a new version of Windows.


To use Disk Defragmenter:

1.
Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Defragmenter.




Click Analyze to start the Disk Defragmenter.


2.
In the Disk Defragmenter dialog box, click the drives that you want to defragment, and then click the Analyze button.

After the disk is analyzed, a dialog box appears, letting you know whether you should defragment the analyzed drives.

Tip: You should analyze a volume before defragmenting it to get an estimate of how long the defragmentation process will take.

3.
To defragment the selected drive or drives, click the Defragment button.

After the defragmentation is complete, Disk Defragmenter displays the results.

4.
To display detailed information about the defragmented disk or partition, click View Report.

5.
To close the View Report dialog box, click Close.

6.
To close the Disk Defragmenter utility, click the Close button on the title bar of the window.


Detect and Repair Disk Errors
In addition to running Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter to optimize the performance of your computer, you can check the integrity of the files stored on your hard disk by running the Error Checking utility.

As you use your hard drive, it can develop bad sectors. Bad sectors slow down hard disk performance and sometimes make data writing (such as file saving) difficult, or even impossible. The Error Checking utility scans the hard drive for bad sectors, and scans for file system errors to see whether certain files or folders are misplaced.

If you use your computer daily, you should try to run this utility weekly to help prevent data loss.

To run the Error Checking utility:

Important: Be sure to close all files before running the Error-Checking utility.

1.
Click Start, and then click My Computer.

2.
In the My Computer window, right-click the hard disk you want to search for bad sectors, and then click Properties.

3.
In the Properties dialog box, click the Tools tab.

4.
Click the Check Now button.

5.
In the Check Disk dialog box, select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box, and then click Start.


In most circumstances, select Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors.

6.
If bad sectors are found, choose to fix them.


Tip: Only select the Automatically fix file system errors check box if you think that your disk contains bad sectors.

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trojans
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Malicious mobile code


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Spyware

check your internet speed/download/upload speed to make sure your isp server is not ripping you off if they say your getting 3.5 mb download speed and 2.4 upload speed make sure you are from the net speed test website


http://performance.toast.net/results.asp?testtype=1&loadtime=2.609

Answer 9

try the advice on slow computers found at http://www.debog.com

Answer 10

defragment computer and scan with adware free anti- virus