Help! Slow newish computer

[wooohooo]

We bought my parents a HP desktop last year for Christmas, however it's always been running really slow. Opening documents, typing, surfing, all has a lot of wait time and gets really frustrating. For example if I type www.google.com, it'll take 3 seconds for text to appear followed by a 'Not responding' then it will finally go. Rinse and repeat.

I upgraded to windows 7 and the same problems are still occurring. Did all the windows updates. Ran antivirus using AVG, and two scans of adaware coming up with nothing.

Specs for computer:

AMD Phenom(tm) 9150e Quad-Core Processor 1.80 GHz.
7.00 GB RAM
Windows 7 64-bit Operating System

Windows experience - 3.4. Due to the graphics card being a ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics. However, we do not do any gaming, parents mainly use it just to send some emails, do some trading etc.

This is extremely frustrating. PLEASE HELP!!!

[iamajai]

How are you connected to the internet? Wired ethernet? Wireless? I tend to suspect something with the connection rather than the PC. Are other computers in the home experiencing the same problem? You could try a friend's laptop if there isn't another computer in the home.

[To Be Quite Honest]

Do you have a cisco wireless router? They are crap! At least that's what I'm told as I have one and it sucks.

[Rathji]

Without any real info, here are some random things that come to mind.

If the problem exists even while not online, such as opening a document or typing, then it probably isn't anything to do with your network. If they use a network drive, then that totally changes everything, but I find that doubtful in this situation.

Update all your software, including Java.

That computer should have no issues running the stuff you described with its current hardware. If it was bad out of the box, maybe there is a bad stick of RAM or a faulty drive. Try running the hardware diagnostic that comes on HP computers, I think it might be F11(?) on boot. You might even be able to run it from within Windows, I can't remember.

Could be a virus. Try running a full scan of Malware Bytes and run Hitman Pro 3.5 . The 2 programs you listed are not high on my list of effective anti-virus/malware programs, although for every 10 people you will probably get 10 opinions on that one.

You could run CCleaner but just to clean up temp files. The registry cleaner is probably a waste of time, but if you want to run it make sure you backup first.

Check drivers? Bad drivers, especially video card drivers can make things run choppy, even a simple webpage.

Did you do a clean install of Windows 7 or upgrade from Vista? The Upgrade path from Vista is pretty good, but I know 64 bit Vista was not the most trouble free OS and some of those troubles may have migrated.

If none of that helps you could check error logs to see if there is stuff that is going wrong constantly. Doubtful for there not to be any signs of it. How much bloatware is installed, maybe remove some?

[SebC]

A few culprits I've experienced.

- Using Firefox? Kill plugin-container.exe in Task Manager. If that works, it's Flash.
- Also noticed nVidia Control Panel can cause mini-hangs.

[Kipper is King]

I find all the crapware free programs and demos HP puts on their computers does not help them out. It sound like your problem is more extensive than that, but removing any of that stuff you don't need may help.

[wooohooo]

I am wired into the house. I should mention that my parents are through Telus and they *&@#$ up the TV connections multiple times. Also when I do a speed test internet falls under 1 MBps. Their contracts over end of the month but I'm not really sure if this problem is due to the slow internet speeds. My laptop runs fine so I'm sure it must be something

I'll try Malware bytes and Hitman and if not see if it's flash. How would I fix it if it's a flash problem?

Thanks everyone!

[mykalberta]

Try installing Google Chrome and see if the Internet experience is better there.

If it is, then its something with IE, likely a problematic toolbar is installed.

[Tyler12]

What type of internet connection do your parents have? If it's Cable internet make sure that Automatic Proxy settings are enabled. Not the cure but if they are not enabled and they are on cable it will affect the speed of the web pages.

[keratosis]

I run this on every new computer http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/.
Amazing the difference it makes.