Sluggish computer.?

Question

I'm running Windows XP, have broadband. I use AVG, Zone Alarm Firewall, Windows Defender, Spybot, Spyware Guard. I have deleted cookies, defragged, deleted temp files,disk cleanup. run all ani-virus and anti-spyware programs, Ran Windows malicious software removal tool. I've got about twenty processes running (aside from System and Local service), which seems alot, but they're all needed. I've 82% of free space left on the hard drive. Why is my computer so slow to do anything???

Answer 1

It all depends on how much RAM you have... if you have anything less than 512MB, I would definetly buy additional modules.

Answer 2

You have a lot of great responses so far, and I would defiantly follow a great deal of their advice. You may also want to go into your control panel and remove any unused programs. If you have AVG, make sure you delete any other anti virus programs you might have on your computer and didn't realize it. Norton and McAfee might still be hiding in there. As someone who works in a computer sales, service and repair shop, AVG is a great tool, and you don't need or want the others on there.

Another spy-ware you might want to look into is Ad-Aware, you can get this at www.download.com.

Also, it is essential that you defrag your computer, do a disk clean up and a scan disk.

Good luck.

Answer 3

Aloha from Down Unda!

This is merely a theory but I suspect we are all undergoing the sluggishness with our computers because the servers are busy with new programs & data processing overloads caused entirely by the implimentation of various new ideas from Microsoft, Google, Sun Systems, Yahoo, AOL & another half a million other major 'anti-virus' organizations. The differences of operation with Mozilla, IE, MSN, & AOL are creating interactive nightmares. The servers seem to pause a few seconds, trying to collect the respective data & simply fail to be able to process, scan, track, collect, & diseminate the necessary commands. The inconsistancies are certainly interferring with MSN Groups, closing browsers & clogging systems to a wide degree of failure. I know from constant monitoring that even broadband is limited & sluggish when minor glitches fail to reveal parts of the browsers functions on new windows. Certain features simply disappear. The rhyme & reason for a peaked CPU confirms my own system isn't failing due to anything internal. It seems to be a bombardment of variables far beyond our control. My task manager reveals explorer.exc, iexplore.exc & firefox.exc working overtime to strain the resourses. Should too much data be collected on one of these 3 processes, the result is 'unexpected error' & shutdown is arbitrary. Sometimes there is a warning, sometimes none! There are 'waves' of perfection & 'waves' of sluggishness & 'waves' of complete failures.

Formula One Grand Prix Suzuka Countdown 2 days 14 hrs tick tick tick
Go Michael! Go!

K-den, M1/NSWMoke aka mikewonaus ;-)

Answer 4

wow some of those are good but one thing that is lacking the problem yes is your ram and you could do with som defrag
and disk cleanup but you need to make shure your processor is up to date if it is then it is for shur your ram and you can even get better ones from computer stores and lay of so many windows that is a big factor in the speed because open windows take up ram space and to many can hurt it.
it is also good to clean your computer of dust once a month unless it is really dusty where you live then i recommend once a week


listen to all of them there good but if you do get programs to do it of the net be car full that is one of the big est places viruses like to hid.

and i recommend defraging be for installing any thing

Answer 5

You forgot to do one important thing which a lot of people don't do. You need to clean up your registry files as well. These are the files that slow the computer down. There are a lot of registry cleanup software which are free on the Internet. Download one and install it. After cleaning up the registry files, you will notice the difference.

Answer 6

Could be any number of things....alot of those programs you mention often conflict with eath other.

You didnt mention running scandisk or defrag..they help a great deal.

Also, dust/dirt inside your computer (in your power supply unit, clogging up your heatsink and laying over your componants) can really slow things down and could lead to a meltdown later....open her up and give her a clean...heres a couple sites that tell you how to do this safely

Answer 7

You sound like your under attack from hacker city lol whats with all that protection loading up?
do you go to alot of warez sites? or porn sites?

your not going to get a virus from playing yahoo games or any other friendly site i think your doing over kill and the protection!

Im a computer tech and i use no protection! But then I like to get new viruses lol no joke i like to be the first one to solve so when i get customers i know what to do to repair there machines
but me and all the surfing i do and i do go to some unscrupolius sites once inawhile
STILL i very rarly get anything!

so first i think you sould cut down on the protection just my 2 cents

second click on your start button then in run type in msconfig
then click on the startup tab all of that stuff is loading with windows
uncheck all that you do not want to load with windows as all that extra software is slowing your machine down as well

hope i helped
Victor C.

Answer 8

Run the msconfig utility. Go to Start, then Run and type in: msconfig
Go to the startup tab
You will see a list of all the programs that are loaded when your computer starts up. Uncheck any that you do not have to have. (Usually you can uncheck them all). If you decide you to need one, you can go back and recheck it.
You can also go to the services tab and stop any process you do not want to run automatically on your PC.

Answer 9

Don't worry, my computer is really slow too. Are u sure that u don't have too many windows open? Sometimes that slows down my computer. Other than that all I can tell u is that it could be the type of computer too. Some computers are faster than others. I hope that helps!

Answer 10

looks like you have too much you dont need. why not buy mcafees all in one?it protects your system plus everything else. if all these programs are not the same like in name they conflict each other and slow your pc down,and since you have 20 programs running its real easy to see why your pc is so slow. do one process at a time. your processor needs ample time to process.