my computer is SO SLOW! help.?

Question

all of a sudden, my computer is deathly slow...it's ridiculous. and it wasn't always like this. i haven't installed anything on it lately, except for mcafee virusscan, and i've gotten rid of some viruses (thinking it might speed it up).

also, it keeps shutting down on me (about once a week) and then it will go to the screen that checks for inconsistencies before turning on the computer...and it takes 14 HOURS for it to get to 100%. not exaggerating!!!!!

what can i do without doing anything too drastic? (yes, i'd like to take a sledgehammer to it, but obviously i'd be without a computer then.)

Answer 1

You probably have spyware. Run an anti spyware program, or reformat, clean install..

Answer 2

There are a couple things you can do. The first is to defragment your hard-drive. Its easy to do and takes about 30 minutes or so to finish. (Basically, it will organize your computer for faster operation.) The second thing, and you won't like this, is to format your hard-drive. Its clean and efficient, but is time-consuming to reinstall all your programs and files.

To defragment:
Go to the bottom left of your screen and click the "Start" button
Go to all Programs and hit
Find accessories and click
Hit System tools and you'll find "Disk Defragment" and click it.
Find the analyze button and after a minute it will ask if you want to defragment, hit it.

To format:
I recommend you find a friend who has some knowledge about this and ask them to help. But if you want to, read up on it with Microsoft help . If you are afriad you still have viruses, this is kinda the way to go.
If you can, try to take all your documents and other wanted files and place them in an external hard-drive or memory storage.

Finally, if both do not help, its time to face the sad truth... You might just have an old computer that needs to be "put down." If you still have a Pentium I or II, it might be time to browse the computer stores. Sorry.

Answer 3

First off run some spy ware checks. Also do the Virus scan in Safe Mode. If you have XP, then find a System Restore point before you installed the McAfee virus scan and see if you can restore to that. I know from use that McAfee will slow down a computer, but mine just went from 8 seconds on boot up to around 15/20 seconds and I have Security Center 7. It sounds as if you are either loading a lot of un-needed programs on start up all of a sudden or you are running a lot of processes. Look in task manager and see what your CPU usage is.

Ron

Answer 4

Slow system might have so many reasons that even Microsoft might not know about it entirely. And it takes really very very long time to diagnose it and most of the time the issue is not taken care of completely. Also slow system have different description. Like the moment you press that power button, till the time you see your logon name, how much time does that takes. And after you selected your logon name how much time it takes to go to your desktop screen with all your icons and no hourglass mouse pointer. Now while you are using your system, how long it takes to pull up a new application or switch from one window to another or complete a requested task. And then again when you shutdown your system for how long does it stays on the windows is logging off screen, then how long it stays on the saving your settings and then again how long it stays on the windows is shutting down screen. So slow system can experience one or all of the above mentioned scenarios.

Here i can simply suggest you a few steps which might be of help to you. But the best of the solution that would definately take care of the problem is a clean OS installation.
Yes data is going to be a big concern for you then, so you can try for these steps below, but if everything else fails then you'll be left with no option than to do a clean format / reinstallation.

First you did not say when exactly did this problem started? If it has started just after the antivirus installation. Then most likely that antivirus must be causing some problem.
Now before you go ahead and uninstall your antivirus or do a system restore, try the following and see if that improves your situation in someway.

The first and foremost thing i would ask you to do is to create a new user profile and see if your system is slow with that new user as well or not? If not then your user profile has some problem, you need to delete it and use the new created profile.

Make sure you have ample of disk space free. Atleast 25% of free disk space. Perform a disk cleanup and delete the files in the temp folders as well. I would say download a file from http://diskcleanup.notlong.com and run it. Now run disk defragment and see if that makes a little bit of difference.
Secondly do an msconfig. Click on start> click on run> type msconfig over there. Under the system configuration utility click on the startup tab and click on disable all, then click on the services tab, choose hide all microsoft services just above the "Close" button and then click on disable all. Click on apply and then restart the system and see if that makes a difference or not. Also download a file from http://userprofilehiveclean.notlong.com and run it. Then restart the system and see if that also makes a little bit of difference.
Now i would also suggest you to run a first screen repair by booting into recovery console using your Operating System disk and running a "chkdsk /r" under the recovery console.
To boot into recovery console, setup your system so that the cd/dvd drive is the first boot device then insert your operating system disk and then restart your system. Press any key to boot from CD. It will say setup is copying files. When copying of files complete, it gives you an option to press R to repair using recovery console or press enter to setup windows. Press "R" on that screen. It ask for which windows you want to boot into. Choose your operating system and then it will ask for your administrator's password. Once you are into recovery console type "chkdsk /r" and it is going to repair the files. This process can take upto 40 minutes or more. When it has completed type exit and restart your system. See if that makes a little bit of difference or not. Then also i would like you do a sfc /scannow.
When you have booted into windows, click on start and click on run and type there "sfc /scannow". Make sure you have the operating system disk with you before your start on with this process otherwise you will not be able to cancel once initiated.
Put in the disk, it might say file not found, keep clicking on retry. Once finished see if that made some difference or not.
Now if all of these process did not made much of difference then see if you can restore your system back to an earlier date prior to antivirus installation using system restore feature. But lemme tell you that it might bring virus back onto your system because though the antivirus program might have healed it, but the restore points might be having a backup copy of it. So now if you find that after doing a system restore its better then it definately means that the antivirus must be causing your system to slow down. So what you can do now is undo the restoration so that you can once again get rid of the infected files and uninstall the antivirus. Make sure you do not do a system restore in safemode else you will not get an undo restoration option. And once you have done that, try to do some of the above steps one more time i.e
installing user profile hive clean
doing msconfig
chkdsk /r and
sfc /scannow

If everything else failed, then i'm sorry once again... you'll have to do a clean OS reinstallation.

Best of luck.
Do lemme know if any of the steps did made a difference or not. Thanx.

Answer 5

Have you cleaned out your cookies? This is usually the cause of slowness. Every site you visit attaches something to you, and its not vicious so its called a cookie. Goto your start and then click on my computer, click performance and remove cookies. You will get a screen that lists all, remove all unless you want to keep the password savers, preferably don't.

Answer 6

you might have a virus infection, and when the mcafee is running it is processed by the cpu so it slows the computer, try to format your PC clean after you backup the important data

Answer 7

Format and XP clean install.

Answer 8

take a sledgehammer to it and buy a new one, that way you will not be without a computer! sorry!

Answer 9

probally adaware and other viruses, just reformat and that a guarantee fix...

Answer 10

how much RAM u got in it? how much free space u have on ur C drive?