I need help with a slow computer

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by nachtxeule

get chrome, firefox stinks anyways

Except Chrome doesn't run as well on my limited hardware.

[SneakySnake]

Maybe Lisbeth Salander is cloning your drive!

[Javed]

Nate, I think you should try disabling all add-ons in Firefox. It is quite common for add-ons to slow down a pc, when there are either many or particular resource heavy ones. If you find this speeds things up then you can gradually turn on a few add-ons at a time (and only the ones you really need). It is possible a particular add-on is causing the slowness. If this is the case and you want to keep it then you could just turn it on as needed.

I agree with ardeegee that the cpu is running quite high.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Javed

Nate, I think you should try disabling all add-ons in Firefox. It is quite common for add-ons to slow down a pc, when there are either many or particular resource heavy ones. If you find this speeds things up then you can gradually turn on a few add-ons at a time (and only the ones you really need). It is possible a particular add-on is causing the slowness. If this is the case and you want to keep it then you could just turn it on as needed.

I agree with ardeegee that the cpu is running quite high.

That wouldn't have helped in this case. CPU usage was normal.

But I have seen this before; Mcafee makes a Firefox add-on called Site Advisor, and even when it was just sitting in the background my CPU was at 100%. I deleted Site Advisor a long time ago.

[Spoon Man]

I've never liked Mcafee, I've got Avast running on my machine now and love it. I tried it some months ago and didn't like it, but they've changed a bit and its a great free software now.

[tommyr]

Disable Windows. I did 15 years ago.

[Prash]

Let me address things one at a time.

Solving your firefox problem:

1. Keep a copy of your bookmarks folder to restore them later. Just copy this folder at someplace safe.

If you are on Windows 7/Vista, keep a backup of this folder - C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\ Mozilla

If on Windows XP, backup this folder - C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\ Mozilla

2. Uninstall Firefox, when you are on it, firefox asks you if you want to keep the user data, make sure that you opt for deleting all user data present. (this deletes most of the Firefox trace from your computer)

3. Download and install the latest stable build of Firefox and import book marks from the Bookmarks menu in Firefox. Also install the Addons freshly, do not overwrite the Mozilla folder which you have backed up earlier.


Importing bookmarks makes sure that you only get the book marks back and no other old files/cookie. By reinstalling addons, you can make sure that which one was causing the problem, and a fresh install always works the best.

This should solve your Firefox sluggishness.

[Prash]

Now, making sure that your computer is running at its maximum potential (hardware-wise):

Download and install this app - CPU-z


CPU-z is one of the most trusted, hardware inspection software, ever. You will get various details viz., actual CPU speed, memory speed etc.

When you are running this app, look at the main window of the app and see if the Core(processor) speed matches the maximum speed of the Pentium-m processor you have, which is 1.7GHz. If it's running below that speed, then the Intel Speedstep/EIST is enabled which can bring down the performance drastically (I think this is one of the culprits in your case too). If it is the case, then it can be disabled at BIOS, which we can discuss later.

Speedstep/EIST is a processor feature, which brings down the processor speed to improve the power efficiency of any laptop/desktop computer. So a 1.7GHz processor might be underclocked to anywhere between 600MHz to 1GHz.

[Prash]

Speeding up the computer:

1. Making sure we have enough "Virtual memory" or decent sized pagefile, to be used as main memory when the RAM isnt enough.

Right click on My Computer>Properties>Advanced>Performance Settings>Advanced>Virtual Memory

You will see that the Operating system drive C is assigned with a specific amount of memory. Now, it would be very helpful if we knew the amount of RAM your system has.

I'll just assume that you have 512MB of ram for now, then you can keep the virtual memory set to anywhere between 1500MB to 2000MB to get decent performance out of it. So, set an initial value and a final value and press 'set' and 'ok'. This should help a little.

2. Deleting temporary files and also some unwanted files:

Go to Run, key in "%temp%" and hit enter, the temporary files folder opens. Just select all the files inside and "Shift+delete" for a permanent deletion.

Also you can find a folder called "Prefetch" in your Windows folder, inside Operating system drive. You can clear the content present inside that too, to clear all unnecessary files.

But both these, wont be affecting the speed to a very high extent, but every bit counts.

3. Disabling things from Startup through MSCONFIG. I feel you can still disable many more programs from there, which will give a boot speed bump. I prefer disabling everything and enabling only the ones which I really need. This gives you some time to analyze what you really need.

4. Disable windows sounds - a great speed improving step. Go to control panel>audio>Sound profile to none. I have given very short steps, but you should be able to do it.

5. Another very good step is to disable all effects which can drain system performance: Right click "My computer>properties>Advanced>Performance settings>Visual effects>Adjust for Best appearance>Ok

Eventhough this doesnt really speed up the operating system, it gives you a refreshing feel as the Menus tend to be a lot more responsive than before. Trust me on this. If you need specific visual settings enabled, you can do that yourself or just check mark those options in the Visual effects list, once you have unticked all of them.

In all these, I have assumed that you have a windows XP machine. For Vista/7, the steps vary only a little, but do let us know.

[Prash]

Scanning a computer for Viruses, malware etc:

I like Malwarebytes a lot. But I feel that, being a Windows driven application, it may not be as efficient a malware remover, as that of an application which runs independently.

I prefer running a full scan of Kaspersky Rescue Disk which is bundled with a Linux variant.

1. Download the ISO and the USB-boot enabler here
2. Use the USB application to copy the contents of the ISO to a flash drive
3. Boot with the flash drive and update the antivirus application
4. Run a full scan

If you are stuck at any steps, I'll be glad to help. This will be a comprehensive scan and will take few hours. But it should be more than good enough to get rid of any viruses or even malwares.