Compaq Laptop is running very sloooow! (1 Viewer)

[tim55]

I have a compaq presario p4 512 ram laptop that has slowed down to the point that I cannot have more than 2 applications running at a time. Anyone have an idea of what I can do to revive it?

Thanks

 

[Steve_AS]

-- disinfect your drives with some good, up to date anti-virus software.

-- run disc cleanup to remove useless large files

-- runs some ad-ware /spy-bot software to identify and delete these annoyances

-- defragment your hard drive

 

[tim55]

Can anyone recommend a good ad-ware or spybot software?

 

[Rob Gillespie]

AdAware and Spybot

Do a Google search. You'll find the home pages very quickly.

 

[Steve_AS]

Forgot to add:

-- clear your browser caches manually (using the brower's options menu) 'just to be sure'.

 

[Greg Rakaska]

You didn't mention the O/S, if its NT, Win2k, or XP, bring up the task manager (Ctl+Alt+Del) and check the processes tab. Then click CPU column header to sort by % utilization. Normally the "System Idle Process" should be running about 99% if you are not running any applications.

If some other process is running a large percentage, determine what it is and then research why it might be sucking up so much CPU.

As an example, at my place of employment, we have had a real problem with McAfee antivirus running 100% CPU. A little homework on the McAfee site found that the EPO had corrupted some db files. solution: stop the AV services, delete the corrupt files, and restart AV. Some of my technicians had actually reinstalled the O/S to clear the problem before we learned about the corrupted files.

Like I said that is just an example of a run away process and its solution, more than likely not your problem.

 

[Vin]

I had a similar experience a few months back with my

 

[tim55]

Thanks for the info. I'm running XP home ed. if this helps.