Hi fellas, got a weird problem here.

My 'puter is running REALLY slow. It's not just a Windows thing, or a software thing, I don't think. Even just starting the computer up takes a long time, I'm currently trying to start Windows in safe mode, and it's been about 15 minutes. The weird thing is it IS running the processes, but they all just take forever, which leads me to think it may be a hardware issue. Another reason I suspect the hardware is the 'puter in question is an admittedly rather abused 5 year old Dell Inspiron with 1Gig of RAM. This also came out of nowhere, as I woke the 'puter up yesterday and this shiat was happening (Windows said System is preparing to hibernate when it seemed to be doing just that already)

I'm currently digging through the piles of knowledge surrounding my desk for the Dell diagnostics disk, not sure if that will help me though. How else can I test for hardware issues? I am open to the possibility of this being a software issue, as typically hardware problems result in nothing working, but I just don't know the cause here. Also as a one time software implementation project manager I am always the last to admit it's the software's fault. :-D

Anyway, any thoughts/helpful hints?

 

Hi Muuurph, and welcome to MGs. Since I am not an expert, but I can give you a thought. It's possible you may have just picked up some kind of 'nasty.' Malware, virus, adware, etc. All of which are known to slow a machine down. Just to be sure follow these instructions and post the results in the Malware Forum. http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407 IF it is some kind of malware, those people will find it and tell you how to remove it, yeah, they ARE that good!! Granted, it may not be that, but it sure wouldn't hurt to find out for sure. Good Luck

 

hi there,
it's not a surprise it's slowing down as most aging computers go through this process:-D
First of all I would give disk cleanup a try, guessing your running XP go to start>accesories>system tools>disk cleanup.
Once you've done that go onto the system tools again but this time choose disk defragment, epending on size and usage of your HDD this might take a long time so you'll have to be patient:cool
After these two tasks your system should hopefully be running a bit quicker, do a restart to see if anything has changed speed wise.
Now it's time for virus etc removal, all computers should have some kind of protection so if you don't get ad aware and do a full scan, i'm sure it will pick up plenty of malware etc which you have inherited through the years:-D
http://download.cnet.com/Ad-Aware-A...045910.html?part=dl-ad-aware&subj=dl&tag=top5
Finally the last thing you'll need to do is download CCleaner, it's a free and useful registry cleaner. Once downloaded click on Registry then Scan for Issues and Fix All Selected Issues.
http://majorgeeks.com/CCleaner_With_Yahoo_Toolbar_d5125.html

I hope this has helped you and your computer, things should be running smoother/faster now hopefully!

Dacads

 

How about THIS LINK ... it has absolutely everything you should need in it .... except for specialised issues

If your computer is still slow after following the linked guide, repost here and we'll start some advanced troubleshooting

Good Luck!