How can I find out what is wrong with my computer? (details inside)?

Question

My computer is going really slow. Everything seems to take twice as long as it used to. Even when I play music or the start-up sound comes on, it is choppy and slow. I have scanned for viruses and spyware. I have updated windows, and everything else I can think to update. I have checked everything I can think of, but I still can't make it work right. Any suggestions? The computer is only a year old, and it is a hp Pavilion dv8000. I don't have a warrenty.

Answer 1

There is obviously some program or process running on your system that is using up all of your system resources. It could be a virus or spyware. Or it could be a program (or 2 or 3) that installed itself when you were installing some other software.

I'm not sure what you used for spyware removal but I would suggest going to the Lavasoft website: http://www.lavasoft.com and download and run Ad-Aware. It does a fairly good job at removing spyware. Also download and run Spybot S&D from: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html These are both free programs and when run in tandem will remove 75 - 80% of the spyware on your system. No single program will remove 100% of the spyware out there. So the more of them you run the better off you'll be. Make sure that you update the signature file on both these programs prior to running them.

Next go to http://www.mlin.net and download a program called "Startup Control Panel" this is a very small but powerful program that helps you control what programs start up automatically when you start your PC. It is somewhat similar to the Windows MSCONFIG utility but less intimidating and far easier to use. Startup Control Panel has several tabs with each tab representing different areas of your system that dictate what programs run at startup. Each program will be listed with a checkbox next to it. If you remove the check in the box , that particular program will not run the next time you start up your PC. If, after you restart the system you are unhappy with the results, you can always go back ant re-check the box.

You can also look in "Task Manager" and see if ther is a process listed there that is using a lot of system resources.

Hope this helps,
Captain Computer

Answer 2

You are probably running too many applications at the same time. Try "start" "run" then type in msconfig click on the startup tab and uncheck the boxes for any programs you don't need to start with windows and run all the time such as quicktime, messengers, itunes, realplayer etc. The longer someone has a puter the more "stuff" you put into it so it acts like a boat that goes slower and slower as more people get into it. You should try a program like ad-aware to get rid of spyfiles, uninstall any programs you don't use then defrag the drive and do a disk cleanup. HPs are slow because they are bloated with useless proprietory software and one of the things I do to tweak a customers HP is to add ram and install an operating system without the HP crap on it but that is spendy because it involves them buying an OS and getting away from the HP recovery disc. If you have less that 1GB of ram and have XP up it to 1GB at least with Vista upgrade to 2GB. Main thing is to run as few applications as you can, get rid of spyfiles, uninstall progs you don't use and add more memory.

Answer 3

you didn't say what you were using for virus program, sometimes it takes more than one type to clear up the problem.

AVG virus
spybot search & destroy
superantispyware
all can be found at www.snapfiles.com, go to there freeware ,then under anti-virus , spyware.
then another thing to do it reset the start up menu:
1. start
2. run
3. type msconfig
4. when the box open click on the tab that says start up
5. you will see a list come up with all the items on your computer with boxs with checks in front of them.
6. uncheck everything, except your virus protection and internet service.
7. click apply and close
8. reboot and then a box come up that says something along the lines of "don't show this messege again, and something about last congiguration"
just put check mark in little box and click ok.

also do a disk clean, also

Answer 4

Interesting.

It seems to me that you have a large hard drive with little memory.

Here is my suggestion to you and it is in Windows. It is called Disk Defragmenter.

Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Disk Defragmenter

As advanced as hard drives have become, one item they are not very good at is housekeeping, or maybe that should be drive keeping. When files are created, deleted, or modified it's almost a certainty they will become fragmented. Fragmented simply means the file is not stored in one place in its entirety, or what computer folks like to call a contiguous location. Different parts of the file are scattered across the hard disk in noncontiguous pieces. The more fragmented files there are on a drive, the more performance and reliability suffer as the drive heads have to search for all the pieces in different locations. The Disk Defragmenter Utility is designed to reorganize noncontiguous files into contiguous files and optimize their placement on the hard drive for increased reliability and performance.

Best of luck!

Answer 5

Those are not ample main points...it might actually be whatever. If the opposite solutions do not paintings (spybot and adaware) then you may also must uninstall the systems that do not paintings and reinstall them once more. If that does not paintings, it might nonetheless be any quantity of hardware or program problems. If you will have XP take a look at restoring home windows (utilising System Restore) to an previous date if you'll. If all else fails and you do not wish to reformat your difficult force, then it can be valued at it to take it in to a laptop fix middle.

Answer 6

Try pc booster: http://www.pc-booster.info
It contains all the secrets to speeding up and optimizing your PC, without spending a single $ on hardware. It turbo-charges your PC to make it much more stable by preventing system inefficiencies that cause crashes, lockups and slowdowns of your computer. By running PC Booster's Auto Tune, you'll be left with a faster and more responsive system that is less prone to crashes and fatal error messages. So you have no more troubles running important programs or memory consuming multimedia or Internet applications.
pc booster: http://www.pc-booster.info

Answer 7

Have you ever used Disk Defragmenter?
Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Drefragmenter

Might improve performance.

Answer 8

Try defraging it. Go to all programs, click on accessories.click on system tools & click on disc defragmenter. A screen will pop up--go from there.

Answer 9

go to start menu go to all programs go to system recovery you will be asked to do microsoft system restore (DONT) click yes below it go to quick clean the third one down i think it will take about 10mins should work it will restore your computer to orignal factory settings it works great

Answer 10

Check out http://www.pc-optimizer-pro.info
With pc optimizer pro you can safely clean, repair and optimize your computer.
It will help improve your system performance without expensive hardware upgrades.
Good luck!