Technology HP Slowdown

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penguinophile

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I'm personally a Mac guy, and my girlfriend has a PC issue, so I need a bit of help. She has a ~3 yo HP dv4000 with XP that has gotten ridiculously slow over the past couple months. She can start up her computer, get tired of waiting for it to start (from hibernation as well as startup), do whatever she was going to do on my computer, and return with the computer just finishing up. Everything is running slowly, from app switches to openings. I've done a virus scan, dumped whatever files she doesn't need and then did a defrag, and have gotten rid of almost all her startup items and I don't know what else to try. Any suggestions? Thanks ahead of time.
 
What did the defrag look like?

Sometimes things get completely borked and defragging won't actually do the trick. If the scan didn't pull up too many fragments it might be okay.

Did the virus scan turn up any viruses or spyware? If so, these things can cause problems even after they're removed if they damaged things on their way through your HD.

I think the next step might be to reinstall the OS in case her system files are doing something odd. After that, my only other thought is hardware issues. If "part" of something went bad it could be causing a bottleneck. I had a RAM problem way back when that resulted in something similar.
 
Ollie123 said:
What did the defrag look like?
Click to expand...

After defrag it looked totally normal, at least as normal as it has always appeared. Not a ton of fragmented files, and none afterward
Sometimes things get completely borked and defragging won't actually do the trick. If the scan didn't pull up too many fragments it might be okay.

Did the virus scan turn up any viruses or spyware? If so, these things can cause problems even after they're removed if they damaged things on their way through your HD.
Click to expand...

No viruses, no spyware, my girlfriend does nothing on her computer above the ordinary, just email and documents for the most part.
I think the next step might be to reinstall the OS in case her system files are doing something odd. After that, my only other thought is hardware issues. If "part" of something went bad it could be causing a bottleneck. I had a RAM problem way back when that resulted in something similar.
Click to expand...

To reinstall XP do I have to reformat or can I just do a type of update? I haven't tried that with Windows before so I don't know all the details. Thanks so much for the suggestions!
 
If you increase the RAM, you'll notice a considerable difference. RAM is fairly inexpensive these days, so it's well worth the investment.

Check to see if you have a single 512 in there or two 256 modules. My guess is that you have the latter.

In any case, purchasing another 512 and adding that so that you have 768 will help. Better yet, go with 1 GB.
 
Go to Newegg and buy 2 Gigs of RAM for $30. That will give you a huge speed increase alone.

Also a few more things you can do if you want to get a little dirty.
- Click Start -> Run -> MsConfig
And turn off a few of the startup processes that you know are safe. Things like iTunes, AIM, Bonjour service, Groove monitor, Java, Quicktime, and the millions of bloatware programs that are on your computer if you hadn't had it "optimized".

- Download CCleaner which cleans out the registry and can help your computer become much faster!

- Download Auslogics Disk Defrag, it is a better disk defrag than the Windows default one.

If a program doesn't work like it used to, just boot into safe mode and turn those one or two programs on.

What anti-virus/anti-spyware are you using?
 
First I suggest checking out Crucial to make sure you can figure out which type of RAM to buy. Then Newegg would be a good choice to buy from. Just make sure you have the right type and the right amount. If you can run 2 GB then that would be great. 2 1GB chips.
 
What anti-virus are you running dude? If it is like Norton, Symantec(Business version of Norton), Mcafee you really should just delete it and run a free program like AntiVir or AVG.
 
I've had that laptop before. 3 things.

1) Get 2 GB RAM. Certainly anything less than 1GB will make XP run as slow as molasses. Should be around $50 for 2 1GB sticks, or cheaper if you look at craigslist.org.
2) Time for a re-install of XP. As time-consuming as that process can be, 3 years of running XP has no-doubt caused an over-accumulation of crap in her Windows settings. And make sure it's a CLEAN install, not with that HP crap that they have (though, it should be a separate install disc so you choose what you want).
3) Absolutely no Norton! None! Zip! Zero! Norton is a RAM-hog. Get something like the free AVG anti-virus that is much lighter but still has good protection.

From what I remember, that laptop ran decently well, but you need to make sure that random programs don't get installed onto it (especially stuff with official installers that mess with the Windows registry). Good luck!
 
Did you just uninstall or did you run the removal tool? If you did not run the removal tool, Norton is still on your computer.
Link

I would say if you can deal with one pop-up each time you turn your computer on, AntiVir is a lighter AV software.

A good defrag will get you great gains, but "+1" on the reformat if you can/want. Most people don't want to to a complete re-install though.

EDIT: Jeese RealMD, how'd you get 4,400+ posts in just over a year? haha
 
RdRaider said:
Did you just uninstall or did you run the removal tool? If you did not run the removal tool, Norton is still on your computer.
Link

I would say if you can deal with one pop-up each time you turn your computer on, AntiVir is a lighter AV software.

A good defrag will get you great gains, but "+1" on the reformat if you can/want. Most people don't want to to a complete re-install though.

EDIT: Jeese RealMD, how'd you get 4,400+ posts in just over a year? haha
Click to expand...

Many people need my help. The IQ of Pre-Allo is much less than other parts of SDN. 😛
 
Just wanted to give a thanks to all that posted. Installed 2 GB of RAM and got rid of symantec once and for all, and my girlfriend's computer is running faster than new!😀
 
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