Driving Me Crazy

I hope someone can help me fast, but I have an HP computer with 37.2 GB harddrive, 256 RAM, PIII, but don't really know what the GHz are. But my problem that everytime I start my computer, it works somewhat fine, but it takes a little longer than it should. Then like an hour or two later, my computer starts moving very slow, with the audio becoming very slow and hesistant. As I move my mouse across the screen, it slowly hesistants and also takes a long time to open folders. It's hard for me to explain this, but everything takes long to do than usually.

 

how well do you maintain your computer?

there are 3 things which every user SHOULD be doing on a regular basis to keep their computer clean

1) you need a nice AntiVirus with up to date definitions. if you need one, I
recommend Avast! free edition, available on MajorGeeks.
2) Adware/Spyware removing tools. It's a very good idea to run Ad-Aware, and Spybot Search & Destroy once every week or so. also available on MG.
3) a Firewall. If you have WindowsXP, upgradeing to SP2 will give you a better windows firewall and some other security features, but be warned there may be some trouble if you do so. a nice freeware firewall is the Kerio restriced version, or ZoneAlarm.


if you keep on top of those three categories, you should notice a nice increase of performance from your computer, that is pretty easily maintained.

 

Sorry I have win98 and now I have norton and the problem still exist, then I reinstalled my OS and it still does that slowing down thing.

 

Hi carnell ,,are you saying that you completely formatted and then reinstalled your Win 98 ??

 

Yes, I reinstalled win 98 without deleting the stuff I need on my computer and then my system slowing begins to slow down.

 

You can try going into Task Manager and checking the Processes. Look under the CPU column and see what is using up the CPU cycles. If you aren't running any programs, the System Idle Process should be at 99 to 97%. If some other process is using a high percentage of cycles you can right-click it and then select End Process. If you are unsure as to what the process is, do a google search or ask here before you kill it.

 

Hi carnell I'm a bit confused here. Has win98 a facilty to ''repair'' as you said ie. no need to format?? You never mentioned as asked wether you Formatted drive before you installed 98.

 

What is formatted, all I did was pop the reinstall CD in and followed the steps, but choose to keep all the old information on my system. But does anyone know how to get to the task manager.

 

Control+Alt+Delete will bring up the Windows Security window. From there click on Task Manager.

 

i don't have windows XP, so my task manager is different and I don't see those processes are anything.

 

Try Cacheman http://www.majorgeeks.com/download308.html or FreeRAM http://www.majorgeeks.com/download323.html . From what I've read, Win98 has some memory management problems, and these may help.

 

Just Playin u are the man, if their is anyting I can do for u, u know how to find me, I mean anything, u need a chic, u got it, anything.

 

I have another question, how do a work the free ram thing, how can I tell how much ram I have left or free some up.

 

Open it up (I believe you just need to double-click on the system tray icon) and click the Free button to manually free up memory. Click the options and you can set it to automatically free up memory on a schedule or when memory goes below a certain point, and set the tray icon to display memory as a number or graphic display. Click the help button for more detailed instructions. It's been a long time since I used it.