08-18-2010, 07:46 AM
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#1
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Franchise Player
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: South of Calgary North of 'Merica
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Computer Help
So my computer has been starting up super slow for the last month or so and it's really driving me nuts!
I've installed Avast and ran various other spyware programs and cleaned everything up but it's still starts up super slow. Defragmented as well and removed a lot of programs and files that I don't use anymore. I've also checked what programs are starting up as well and there are just the basics. What could be causing this and how do I fix it?
Thanks
RTTR
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Thanks to Halifax Drunk for the sweet Avatar
Last edited by return to the red; 08-18-2010 at 07:49 AM.
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08-18-2010, 07:57 AM
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#2
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Franchise Player
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Supporting Urban Sprawl
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Try running CCleaner from www.piriform.com
Otherwise, depending on your current system specs, your best chance for improved performance, in order of cost are: OS re-install, RAM upgrade, OS Upgrade, CPU/Motherboard Upgrade and, Computer Upgrade
__________________
"Wake up, Luigi! The only time plumbers sleep on the job is when we're working by the hour."
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08-18-2010, 07:57 AM
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#3
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Franchise Player
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: South of Calgary North of 'Merica
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rathji
Try running CCleaner from www.piriform.com
Otherwise, depending on your current system specs, your best chance for improved performance, in order of cost are: OS re-install, RAM upgrade, OS Upgrade, CPU/Motherboard Upgrade and, Computer Upgrade
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I've run that along with spybot and as mentioned Avast
__________________
Thanks to Halifax Drunk for the sweet Avatar
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08-18-2010, 08:13 AM
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#4
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Franchise Player
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Supporting Urban Sprawl
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If you have reason to suspect it is some sort of virus/malware/spyware/adware, try MalwareBytes from www.malwarebytes.org and Hitman Pro 3.5 from http://www.surfright.nl/en. Malware Bytes is free for personal use and Hitman Pro has a 30 day trial.
Otherwise your options are probably as I listed them in my previous post. If you would like to give some specs on your system, as well as what you use your computer for, someone might be able to point you in the right direction.
__________________
"Wake up, Luigi! The only time plumbers sleep on the job is when we're working by the hour."
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08-18-2010, 08:50 AM
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#5
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Backup Goalie
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Vancouver
Exp:
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How does your computer perform after startup? If it is just startup that is a problem, usually the solution is the delay or remove some of the less critical applications, especially those ones that take a long time to start. This can usually be accomplished by installing some kind of Startup Manager.
Also, just in case, are you running Windows Vista by chance?
__________________
“To make a bad day worse spend it wishing for the impossible...”
~ Calvin & Hobbes ~
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The Following User Says Thank You to FlamingStuffedTiger For This Useful Post:
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08-18-2010, 10:18 AM
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#6
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First Line Centre
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Coquitlam, BC
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Defragging is good, but defragging AND optimizing the files is better! Check out MyDefrag, or Auslogics Disk Defrag (both freeware) which on your system drive will move all startup files and commonly used program files to the fastest part of the hard drive.
I would also definately recommend defragging your page file, which requires a special program called PageDefrag.
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The Following User Says Thank You to BloodFetish For This Useful Post:
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08-18-2010, 11:05 AM
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#7
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Franchise Player
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: CGY
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Just Killdisk the HD and do a fresh install of Windows.
Unless its Vista. Then you're just screwed.
__________________
So far, this is the oldest I've been.
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08-18-2010, 04:40 PM
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#8
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Franchise Player
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: South of Calgary North of 'Merica
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FlamingStuffedTiger
How does your computer perform after startup? If it is just startup that is a problem, usually the solution is the delay or remove some of the less critical applications, especially those ones that take a long time to start. This can usually be accomplished by installing some kind of Startup Manager.
Also, just in case, are you running Windows Vista by chance?
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Thanks for the reply's everyone. It's actually our computer at work and performs well after startup but it's just at startup that takes probably 10 or so minutes to get everything going.
I've got our tech guy looking at it via logmein now so i'm sure he will figure something or take care of it but I like to try and solve this stuff so that I know for myself.
Thanks again everyone
__________________
Thanks to Halifax Drunk for the sweet Avatar
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08-18-2010, 06:02 PM
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#9
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#1 Goaltender
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rathji
Try running CCleaner from www.piriform.com
Otherwise, depending on your current system specs, your best chance for improved performance, in order of cost are: OS re-install, RAM upgrade, OS Upgrade, CPU/Motherboard Upgrade and, Computer Upgrade
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CCleaner is a joke. Removing old/unused registry entries will not have any effect on your machine's performance, other than to potentially mess things up. The registry is a binary tree structure represented via a memory-mapped file; it doesn't take any longer to get to any registry entry dependent on size. It's actually quite efficient.
Defragmenting is often a waste of time too. Check out a sample of what using these tools does for you here: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/2-effec...mance-windows/
A whopping 4% increase.
Defragging your pagefile is another great myth. How do you know that performance isn't better with a fragmented pagefile, which would statistically increase the odds of a pagefile request being nearer wherever the head is currently located?
Ultimately, you should be asking yourself why you are restarting your computer so often in the first place. Use hibernation or sleep. Windows is plenty stable enough these days to go days/weeks/months without a reboot. You could probably get by rebooting only every patch Tuesday.
If you can't go that long between reboots, something else is wrong besides slow startup, and that's what you need to focus your attention on.
__________________
-Scott
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08-18-2010, 06:17 PM
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#10
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Atomic Nerd
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Calgary
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goto start -> run
then type
msconfig
Goto the Startup Tab
Tell us what is listed there.
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08-18-2010, 06:58 PM
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#11
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Franchise Player
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Does defrag check for bad sectors? I've had problems with a slow starting laptop before cause of bad sectors on a hard drive. It was an older laptop with XP and FAT32 file system so I don't know if it's an issue with newer systems NTFS. Had to do a chkdsk to get it fixed.
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08-18-2010, 08:50 PM
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#12
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Atomic Nerd
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Calgary
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LockedOut
Does defrag check for bad sectors? I've had problems with a slow starting laptop before cause of bad sectors on a hard drive. It was an older laptop with XP and FAT32 file system so I don't know if it's an issue with newer systems NTFS. Had to do a chkdsk to get it fixed.
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No defrag does not check for bad sectors but sometimes will not run if there are errors so you should always run chkdsk /r first.
You should convert that XP to NTFS.
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