Calling all geeks…
Our laptop is getting really slow. I’ve anti virused, anti-spammed it, removed as much startup stuff as I feel safe with, etc but it is still slow as hell. I do realize that at about 4 years old, it’s a dinosaur compared to the newer ones, but I’d like to speed it up a bit.
We have a fair number of things right on the desktop and someone told me that just by them being there it slows things down a lot, even if these programs are not running. They claimed that Windows uses the desktop differently than just another folder, and they recommended putting everything in folders in C:, and just putting shortcuts on the desktop.
Does this make sense?
Would that just apply to executable programs, or stuff like pictures and documents too?
I don’t know that I can be of any help if you’ve already disabled unnecessary start-up items, done anti-virus, anti-spam, anti-rootkit etc.
Though it is not really true that the Desktop is any different to another folder. It is just another folder, really, and wouldn’t really slow things down other than in the sense that your workspace becomes cluttered for you.
Did you run a defrag on your C: drive? If your computer is really old and you hardly ever do a defragmentation, that will slow things down. Maybe not enough to cause frequent grinding halts so you could have another issue there.
The files should already BE shortcuts on your desktop, and not executable programs. It is impossible to store any program ‘on the desktop’ as it were. Have you run a full disk cleanup and defragmenter? You should be running cleanup several times a week and defrag at least once a week if you’re on the machine much. I have mine set up to do each once a day. Give that a shot.
That’s not quite right. I store non-shortcuts on my desktop all the time (mostly pics and docs but the odd exe file in the past too), it’s a bad habit of mine. I’ve heard that it slows things down and the reason had something to do with the screen refreshing every time I went back to the desktop but I’ve never followed up to determine if this is the case or not.
I’d try uninstalling anything you don’t need anymore and then defragging several times in a row, with reboots between the defrags. Also antivirus programmes have slowed my machines down in the past, but I guess that’s the price for ‘security’.
The number of icons on your desktop can slow down the display of your desktop. If your desktop has to refresh (like after exiting a program), there can be a pause while it reloads the icon images to display.
If your computer is generally slow, but you are sure you are free of viruses / malware, here are some things that may help.
First, delete your temp files. Don’t trust windows to do this; Windows does a bad job.
Click on start, run, then type %TEMP%.
Highlight everything with Control-A. Then hold down SHIFT and press Delete. Confirm that you want to delete the files.
If it stops with a file in use message, do Control-A again to select all files, go to the very first file, hold down Control and click on it to deselect it. Then do SHIFT-Delete again.
You may have to repeat this a few times to get past temp files that are currently in use.
After you delete your temp files, reboot.
Once this is done, defragment your hard drive. Always clear out the temp files first, then defragment–never do it the other way around.
That may help a lot–but if it doesn’t, please post again. There are other things that may help but you need to do these first in any case.
Rescan it with more than one Anti-virus. I’ve clean many computers by scanning with more than one program. There’s a gadget from various computer parts suppliers that allows the hard disk to be accessed by a different computer by removing it and plugging it into this device and going into a USB port. A passive scan will remove things that an in-situ scan cannot.
I recently fixed someone’s computer that had 21 viruses and spyware on it.
Also, try the online housecall anti-virus at www.trendmMicro.com, they have a free online scan and it find things that lot of other scanners don’t.
However, there were a few that Trend Micro missed but Avast caught. But Avast didn’t catch the others. (I originally scanned it with Avast)
I scanned removed the one with Avast by the USB method and choosing selective scan.
Hand killed two of the virus from USB access using DOS - a surgical kill!
Get rid of search bars, these are spyware in hiding. Cute stuff like precision time is also spyware.
Hijack this! is an excellent program for reveal a lot of hidden evils but must be used with care. (Same care taken when editing the registry)
You don’t need to reformat unless it is absolutely necessary. Viruses can be totally eradicated, but it takes time. Computer stores don’t do this type of work because it’s not quick money and time consuming.
They’re more like “General Practicioners” not “Computer Surgeons”.
If it’s not infected:
How much RAM memory do you have in it? If it’s free and clear of spyware and virus, additional RAM almost always speeds up a Windows machine. Also, a hard drive with a faster RPM will make some old computers faster provided that the controller isn’t a bottleneck.