My dad's Computer Problems

My dad has a windows xp computer that he bought a few years ago, he has been getting very frustrated lately because it is so slow, it has 3 users on it and it has norton antivirus, and winpatrol.I don't think it is malware and spyware, i just think it needs a little maintaince, so i will do what you guys tell me to do and if it still does no get better than i will try the malware after, but for know i will try other things.

I'm not that good at computers so i need some guidance, i was thinking of using ccleaner, a spyware removal program to prevent, a defragmenter program, and a process and start up checker, any of you have any other ideas and could tell me if I'm going in the right pass with these programs and witch ones to use that are safe and good.

my dad has very important information on this computer so i cant takes any risks with programs that could possibly break the computer.


thanks in advance, I'm counting on you guys!!I did not download anything yet, I'll wait until someone tells me I'm doing the right thing and what to download.

 

One of things you can do is download avg antivirus free edition (because norton antivirus is a real resource hog and avg takes little resources).
the best anti spyware program i know is spybot search & destroy (which is free) and have it scan for spyware.

 

Dude......give your old man a sledge hammer.....and $500 bucks.....it's cheaper than hiring us to come over and pumel the old box....LOL

But seriously.....ADAWARE and NOD32 or similar.......it's all you need....I had so many problems because I thought adding extra protection/scanning/disccleaners....ect was the go, it slowed and stuffed everything....KISS....Keep It Simple Stupid

Get rid of the crap.....make it simple.....your comp will run faster....but unfortunately there is a GHOST in all hard drives......so I reccomend a new one


And damn anit they cheap these days...............250gb $75 bucks:drool

 

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Al that is pretty cool for a basic setup.... I had all themBut just had conficts........If you get some 'doozy' jump on ya comp and try some 'porn', or other sad sites.....( it's happened brfore) then you are gonna have some serious problems......Adaware....awesome....the rest are just more BS for your HD to worry about....SLOW SLOW SLOW.....one anti virus and one 'malware/spam/thingo' is all you need.....a HD is like a brain.....the more poo you have to think about the slower you'll be......trust me ....I've tried all those programs and had the best of the best slap me for downloading them.....


1xantivirus, + 1x cleaner......(I omnly run Nod32 and Aaware)......never have a problem aslong as I remember to update the free versions.....but ofcourse there are cracks out there for the educated....eh....:cool

 

First thing to do would be to perform the steps in this link and see what affect they have in speeding things up.
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=106650
After that, if you still experience slow performance some of the options mentioned before can be done.
Hope this helps.

 

Yeah LBMEST....a slegehammer works....Psychiatrists recommend them highly for old computers.....lol...I crack me up!

 

Check the icon bar at the bottom left of your screen.

If it's got more then about 7 icons tell us. If that happens I'll tell you what to do from there. :tired

 

Well i left my dad's house, so ill be back there in a few weeks, i did as much as i could with the little time i had,i got ccleaner and found 253 registry broken and fixed them and cleaned the junk files, then i got a defragemneter and degremented his hardrive, then i ran a spyware program and found 2 high risk spyware and deleted them, i also found out he only has 256 mb of ram on his computer, lol, i was like no wonder lol.so its running a little faster, his startup and processes were clean, i told him to run it once a week, and i'll be cleaning the rest when i get back, he did not have a lot of programs running in the corner, i also got to update his software, a lot of work to be done on that computer, but I'm looking forward to it because well i might learn something new.I was cracking up when i read the responses lol maybe ill bring a hammer with me next time i come over lol.Also i did not get rid of norton yet but i will, he also had tons of tool bars and junk programs that he never used.

also my dad told me that my cousin had a laptop that is so slow that they don't bother to use it any more because it freezes a lot so I'm going to clean that thing up to.

thanks for the help-he did not trust me at first so i had to prove to him that i knew how to fix it.

 

How much memory does it have? You can check this in my computer properties. It needs at least 256Meg, more is better. Many computer manufacturers cut corners and only put 128Meg in, which is work for a while, then display the symptoms you describe.