My laptop has really slowed down and when I ctrl alt delete there are so many processes going on?

Question

How do I know which ones to remove? my brother says this is what is slowing it down, although he has downloaded online and skype, would this have any effect? i do an ad-aware and spybot check daily

I meant to say he had downloaded online poker and skype

All the processes soound like gobble de **** to me, although i have been told teh ones that say "system" are needed but the ones with my name next to them are not

Answer 1

If you don't know which ones to remove don't touch them! Use Winpatrol to stop unecessary programs loading on startup.
http://www.winpatrol.com
And use Ccleaner to clear out all the temp files and other rubbish; use the Issues tool and the Cleaner tool;
http://www.ccleaner.com

Answer 2

Firstly, do not mess about with the processes via the task manager, you could do damage to your pc or make programs corrupt.
A lot of processes run in the background un-necessarily, especailly in windows xp. If we download and install lots of other programs then they all add up and cause a slower running computer.
To start, uninstall any old programs you no longer need or use. Remember to uninstall them correctly by using their own uninstaller or Add/Remove utility in the control panel.
You can use the site below to decide on some background processes that don't need to run from startup and can be ran only when needed. These are stopped from running (not uninstalled or deleted) by using the utility "configuration". You can get to this by going to start/run then type in the box :
msconfig
go to the "startup" tab. Here you can uncheck some of the programs that don't need to run from startup. However, do be careful not to stop the likes of anti virus apps. Any you are unsure of you should search for info on or use the site below.
When you make any changes, you will be promted to reboot the pc, in the window that appears on bootup, just check box and "ok".
If you find some things aren't working correctly, go back and recheck the program.
It may be a good idea to keep a note of any changes you make.

http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm

Answer 3

One sure fire way to increase the speed is to get a memory upgrade.

Other things to do is uninstall any software you really don't need then use ccleaner to clean out any junk from the PC http://www.ccleaner.com then defragment the hard drive.

Check what programs are running when the system starts and disable things you don't need running all the time from starting with windows this can usually be done in the programs options or you can deselect any programs using the system startup tool in spybot search and destroy (need to activate advanced mode).

Also download hijackthis from http://www.hijackthis.de when you run a scan you can paste the logfile in to this site and it will tell you what you should disable and give more information on what everything is

Answer 4

depending on how much you know about computers
if you have windows xp, if you go to my computer, at the top left there should be a button that says "add/remove programs" this is where you can take off programs that you do not need to help your computer regain its speed
after running virus and spyware scans, you should get the names of infected files and see if you can remove those programs
because i dont noe exactly what you mean
if you email me
[e-mail]
i can help you more
but in the mean time
a way to see what is using the most space on your computer and making it slow is when you ctrl alt delete
under processes it will show you how many
k's the program is using for example on my computer
firefox.exe is using 61,899 k's
generally the higher it is the more its contributing to you slwo speed.

Answer 5

I had same kind of problem and went to PC world website and linkd to download 'windows defender' did a full scan and now all is back to normal.
Follow this link and i't'll take you there:

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

I did download all those ones that come up spybot, adware, etc but think that made it worse. They look like they're genuine because they come up with system error messages but not sure if they are. Its so hard to tell whats going to work and whats going to cause more problems.

Good luck

Answer 6

This had happened to me before, and I had little to no processes going on..Usually you need more virtual memory, or RAM. You can buy it in computer stores, or the company's website of whatever manufactured it. Eventually mine just went away, affter about 6 frustrating months. Try closing Skype, you never know.

Answer 7

go to http://www.liutilities.com and look through or search their process library. They will tell you exactly what the file will do.

I agree with the first poster regarding winpatrol. It looks in the registry for things that start hidden from view.