Guest Ganz Doof Posted September 11, 2008 Posted September 11, 2008 My laptop (Win XP Pro) has become very slow to start up (more than 5 minutes before it is ready for business) and shutting down seems to take a long time too (about 3 minutes). What could I do to speed up the process? I have run CCleaner and also tried to uninstall unimportant programs - but it does not appear to help.
Guest Kayman Posted September 11, 2008 Posted September 11, 2008 Re: Very slow start up On Thu, 11 Sep 2008 18:47:24 +1000, Ganz Doof wrote: > My laptop (Win XP Pro) has become very slow to start up (more than 5 minutes > before it is ready for business) and shutting down seems to take a long time > too (about 3 minutes). What could I do to speed up the process? I have run > CCleaner and also tried to uninstall unimportant programs - but it does not > appear to help. Usual culprits: .. Malware (i.e., viruses, worms, trojans, dialers, adware, spyware) .. Failure to delete temporary files .. Too many programs running .. Not enough RAM (memory). Help! My Computer is slow! http://miekiemoes.blogspot.com/2008/02/help-my-computer-is-slow.html --and/or-- From: Shenan Stanley... #1: A process that's loading down your CPU: It could be a sub-process or application that's running in the background and taking all the CPU resources, which could be the cause of your PC running slow. To find and display what could be the problem try Process Explorer: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/SystemInformation/ProcessExplorer.mspx Note: Once you have Process Explorer installed and running: In the taskbar select View and check 'Show Process Tree' and 'Show Lower Pane' options. Then expand the process named 'Explorer' (click on the + sign) In the column on the left named 'CPU', look for any high CPU usage. Next click on the CPU column to sort the processes by %CPU usage (Highest to Lowest). Move the mouse cursor over any process, you should see a popup with some detailed info. Then mouse over the process that's using most or all the CPU %. Then click on that process to highlight it. Now that it's highlighted, right click and from the options listed select: 'Search Online' This should display what out there on the web about that process. You can also double click on any process to open up a more detailed 'Properties' window. Note: some entries like Explorer, System/Services, and Svchost entries may need to be expanded to show the detail (sub processes), in this case click on the + located to the left of the entry. An alternate method using Process Explorer is to double click on the Graph just below the Menu bar. This will open the 'System Information' window, which has a larger display of all three graphs. Move your mouse over any spike in the CPU Usage graph to see what process/application or service was the cause of the spike. #2: Stuff that loads during boot or logon and then is always running in the background: If you want to list and explore what may be the cause then: Try Autoruns from the MS Windows SysInternals site: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/Autoruns.mspx AutoRuns will show/list all apps/etc. that load/run when you first boot (Boot Execute tab), when you logon (Logon tab) and other programs that load (grouped by labeled tabs) for easy viewing. It also provides the ability to selectively allows you to stop any program (use with care) that you don't want to load. You can undo any changes you have made. Note: To get additional details on an item in the list you may need to highlight the item (right click) and use the 'Search Online' option to get the details, especially useful for the more obscure items in the list. #3: To much crap on the hard drive: Take a look at CCleaner as a tool to remove Internet history info, cookies, temp files, auto complete and other junk. Note that when CCleaner is first installed most if not all the options are checked which is far too aggressive. So I recommend unchecking all the items listed in 'Applications' tab and in the 'Windows' tab selectively place a check mark for only those options that are of some value in increasing the amount of free space on your PC. The 'Analyze' button allows you preview what and how much hard drive space you will get back. Also available is customization, see Options/Custom to add any other/additional folders you want files deleted from. http://www.ccleaner.com/ #4: Viruses, Malware Viruses and malware can also cause your PC to slowdown or malfunction. Malke has an excellent set of instructions on what to do: http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware --and/or-- Kaspersky's AVPTool http://downloads5.kaspersky-labs.com/devbuilds/AVPTool/ --and/or-- http://ftp.kaspersky.com/devbuilds/AVPTool/ There's no updating involved since the scanning engine is updated several times a day and you simply download the updated scanner whenever you want to do a scan. --and/or-- Dr.Web CureIt!® Utility - FREE http://www.freedrweb.com/cureit/ --and/or-- Malwarebytes© Corporation - Anti-Malware http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam/program/mbam-setup.exe --and/or-- SuperAntispyware - Free http://www.superantispyware.com/superantispywarefreevspro.html #5: Defragment your hard drive. Then: Download and execute HiJack This! (HJT) http://www.trendsecure.com/portal/en-US/tools/security_tools/hijackthis/download Please, do not post HJT logs to this newsgroup. Fora where you can get expert advice for HiJack This! (HJT) logs. NOTE: Registration is required in any of the below fora before posting a HJT log and read the 'stickies' (instructions/guidelines) for the respective HJT forum. http://www.theeldergeek.com/forum/index.php?s=2e9ea4e19d3289dd877ab75a8220bff6&showforum=29 http://forums.whatthetech.com/HijackThis_Logs_and_Infections_Removal_f27.html http://www.5starsupport.com/ipboard/index.php?showforum=18 http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/forum22.html http://www.spywarewarrior.com/viewforum.php?f=5 http://www.thespykiller.co.uk/index.php?board=3.0 http://castlecops.com/forum67.html Good luck :-)
Guest Unknown Posted September 11, 2008 Posted September 11, 2008 Re: Very slow start up Have you run disk cleanup? "Ganz Doof" <ganz@doof.org> wrote in message news:OEQIKs%23EJHA.2244@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl... > My laptop (Win XP Pro) has become very slow to start up (more than 5 > minutes before it is ready for business) and shutting down seems to take a > long time too (about 3 minutes). What could I do to speed up the process? > I have run CCleaner and also tried to uninstall unimportant programs - but > it does not appear to help.
Guest Plato Posted September 14, 2008 Posted September 14, 2008 Re: Very slow start up Ganz Doof wrote: > > My laptop (Win XP Pro) has become very slow to start up (more than 5 minutes > before it is ready for business) and shutting down seems to take a long time > too (about 3 minutes). What could I do to speed up the process? I have run > CCleaner and also tried to uninstall unimportant programs - but it does not > appear to help. done a defrag? -- http://www.bootdisk.com/
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