I Need Help With My Laptop???

Question

I was given a Sony Vaio PCG-731 and want to use it only for the internet and some Mircosoft Works documents. It has a 10GB hard drive, two 64MB sticks, a wireless card, and a Symantec Antivirus program.

I have a couple questions:

A) I want to know how to see how much free memory I have available so I can clear out some unnecessary stuff.

B) I seem to get these pop-up adds telling me my computer 'may' be infected and to purchase these kits to clean out any virus I might have. How do I get this to stop? When I log onto the internet these adds pop-up before my home page does. I updated my Symantec add ran a scan on my entire computer and it found and quarintined a virus/bug. But I still have problems with the adds and pop-ups. Plus my internet seems like it is slower then when I first got it. Any ideas???

C) What extra things can I do to make the internet a little bit faster (would a bigger hard drive help, is it worth it)???

Thanks for any feed back, I appreciate it.

Answer 1

If I am not mistaken, your laptop is USED, VERY used...
It's just the vibe I'm getting...

A) Cleaning out your hardrive:
Go to my computer
Find your Hard Disk Drives.
Find the one you are using (usually C:)
Right click > Properties
On the pie chart, the blue is the used space and the magenta is the free space.

This is a good way to keep tabs on your hard drive, but if you want to clean it out, you'll have to do the following:
Go to Control Panel (usually in Start menu)
Click on Add or Remove Programs
Here's you'll see a list of all the programs installed on your computer. Go though the list to see which one's you need and which ones you don't. For the programs that you don't need, click on it and press the Remove button (sometimes it's Change/Remove) follow the steps to uninstall the program.

B) Spyware and Adware.
You need an antispyware program. If you feel like it, you can always shop around for some free ones at download.com
Some good ones are Ad Aware SE http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad-aware_se_personal.php and Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner (if you don't mind getting your hands dirty) http://www.download.com/Bazooka-Adware-and-Spyware-Scanner/3000-8022_4-10377953.html?tag=lst-0-4

Try these first, however, if you really want to speed things up, I'd suggest restoring the computer to factory specs (reformatting you hard drive) although you will lose any files that you might have created, you'll also get rid of all the junk that was there before...

C) Speeding up your internet
If you think memory is the problem, you'd have to get more RAM, but seeing as how you are given a laptop, it would be pretty much impossible to install any additional hardware... so hardware wise, you're stuck.

You could always try some software... Firefox works pretty fast on my computer and Google makes an internet accelerator. But just keep in mind that no matter how good your software is, it'll never be able to reach its full potential with bad hardware.

Again, if you REALLY want to speed things up, you might want to consider reformatting your hard drive.

Answer 2

Your old PC is a slug. Here are some ideas:

Stuff as much RAM as possible into that machine. 128 megs isn't enough. 256 megs is minimal. 512 is okay.

Second, Norton is horrible. Make sure you disable the Norton firewall, the email scan, and the spam protection.

Third, you need to get into control panel - administrative services - services and turn off "Messenger". That is where you popups are coming from.

Fourth, you need to download, install and update Spybot and AdAware. Restart in safe mode, and run both, and let it fix what it finds.

A bigger hard drive is always good. I just put a 100-gig one into my IBM, and paid $115 for it. Great investment.

Those are the things I'd try.

Answer 3

In addition to other people's answers, 10GB is not a lot of memory. If you have an available USB port, you may want to consider purchasing a large external hard drive (they have them up to 700GB, now). When you plug it into your computer, you can transfer all of the files on your computer to the external hard drive, then delete them from your laptop. I did that with my Compaq laptop, and it sped it up quite a bit. Also, whenever I need to access a file or program that I deleted from my computer, I simply plug in the external hard drive, and open it from there! It's awesome, and should help you out.

Answer 4

AVG Antivirus.Its free and constantly updated. AD Aware SE edition and Spybot search and destroy. All free and constantly updated as well. Goggle toolbar with built in popup blocker and Firefox .

Also you mean free Hard drive space.Click on My Computer. Select drive C: Right click select properties and you'll see a pie chart showing free space on you HD.

Answer 5

A- Open my computer and right click your hard drive and click properties. I would suggest reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling your operating system and put on the programs you need, nothing more.....This will also stop B.

B- Sounds like you have adware/spyware on your computer ( it will speed your computer up if you remove it DRAMATICALLY!) Download spybot search and destroy and adaware Off of download.com

C- No i wouldnt suggest a new hard drive, just i would do #1 listed above

Answer 6

You might want to tell me what operating system you have. I bet windows ME. I would download spybot 1.4, adaware , update both and run them to clean up that spyware and adware. You can get them here
http://www.download.com/3000-8022-10122137.html

http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Edition/3000-8022_4-10399602.html?tag=lst-0-1

Answer 7

http://mypchelp.blogspot.com/2006/10/pc-running-slow.html

Answer 8

Here is a free test that will give you suggestions:
http://www.pcpitstop.com/
Just click on the yellow key and test anonymously. It is safe; I use it all the time.