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any computer gurus on here, I read some where there is a way to help the computer run faster on the start up. my computer crashed couple days ago, got it up and running but now it is slow real slow, eaven with the ATT air card, it was pretty fast till I reset to factory default, any help would be appreciated. thank you in advance.
It could be almost anything, Michael....
When you say "crashed"....what ended up being wrong with it? Hardware or a problem with the operating system? (I'm assuming you're running some flavor of Windows?)
Just from your post (and a wealth of experience) I'd assume you got some kind of spyware/adware thing that jacked with your machine, but got it running again, except that now it runs really slow? That's just a guess from what I've seen a thousand times. But like I said to begin with, it could be anything.
It just locked up had to shut it off, restart it you know f11 save files re set to factory defult, afte I did that it works fine and far as it is suppose to, but what I have noticed is it's not as fast as before switching from site to site or window to window, so guy told me how to shut down the start up programs, but I dont know just how he said to do it, went into the control panel but cant find the programs to shut them down. oh well no big deal thanks will keep working on it.
I cured my computer problems when I bought a Mac . :D
I'm starting to think that way myself.Quote:
Originally Posted by TnRidge
Beagle Can You Tell Me What Windows You Are Working With? Xp Or Vista? Also What Is The Brand Of Computer You Have? I Am Not The Smartest Guy On The Block But I Have Been Able Over The Years To Do Somethings With These Darned Computers.
There Is A Windows Program That You Can Use To Speed Up Or Clean Up Your Hard Drive. Before You Start Close Down Your Internet Connection And Any Other Open Program Except Virus Protection Programs. Find The Folder Accessories Click It And You Will See Programs Like Paint, Calculator And There Will Also Be Another File Folder Called System Tools Click It. You Will Then See A Program Called Disk Defragmenter. Click On It, You May Have A Window Pop Up Saying That Windows Needs Your Premission To Continue. Click Continue, Then Another Box Will Open Up Click Defragment Now, Another Box Will Open Up Make Sure That There Is A X In The Box That Says All Drives. Then Click Ok And Then Leave Your Computer Alone It May Take A Few Minutes To A Few Hours!
What The Defrag Program Does Is Move Everything On Your Hard Drive To One Location. Remember When You Had One Of Those Old 33 Records With A Needle And It Started On The Outer Edge Of The Record And Moved Towards The Middle As It Played The Music. The Hard Drives On Computers Work Kind Of The Same Way. When You Store Something On A Computer The Needle Goes To The Largest Block Of Free Space And Stores It There. Well This Leaves Alot Of Different Open Spots On Your Hard Drive. Well When You Try To Open Up A Program The Needle On Your Hard Drive Has To Go All Over The Place Looking For This Program. What Defrag Does Is Takes Out All Those Little Open Spots And Puts Everything Closer Together. So This Will Make Your Computer Work Faster When It Don't Have To Work As Hard Finding Stuff.
I Hope This Makes Sense To You! Its The Best I Could Do To Explain It To You Or Anyone Else. I Am Not No Computer Nerd. I Have Not Had Any Schooling On Computers Except From The School Of Hard Knocks!
Hope This Helps!
Depending on what windows system you have XP or Vista probably, there is a way to "turn off" some start up programs. PM me if you want my number and I could try to walk you through it on the phone.
Dmw1960's idea should help too if you have had the computer for a while, I know windows 95 used to tell you when the drive needed to be de-fragmented.
If you do a "de-frag" make sure you turn off any anti-virus software and disable your screen saver before you start.
Not a "Guru" but I have been around these for a while.
By the way I solved my computer problems too.
I run a Linux OS, I hate Microsoft products.
all good advice listed so far. another thing to consider would possibly be how full your hard drive is and how much RAM you have. to know how much ram, right click my computer icon and click properties. to know how full the hard drive is, open my computer and right click the c drive and click properties. a hard drive that is almost full and/or insufficient RMA could cause "slowness". spyware-busting software tool, and defrag could also help for sure.
if you frequent the naughty websites, slowness should be expected :-) even if not, still a good anti-virus software tool should ALWAYS be used.
let us know what you find out and what fixed it, or if you still need some more help
good luck!
I believe the program you were looking for is winconfig. Just type that into the run box on your start menu and hit enter. It's been a while but I think the settings for all you start up items is to the far right. You can individually turn things off and on. Be careful not to turn too much off. A general rule of thumb is that it's pretty safe to turn off most anything that is located somewhere below Program Files.
Another thing could be your hard drive going south. In the last few years I have had two go out on me. The first sign was the computer just started to run very slowly. This would not be a bad time to back up your personal files, just in case. Good luck!
William
KD0IJA
thanks every body, I will start working on these things, this all started when the hp guy told me to reboot the computer, ie f 11 set to factory default, I did and bam molassas slow and slower, run vista, this little lap top was just fine, fast as all get out not a problem till I reset it, man what a bummer, my air card wont eaven work now, got a new disc from ATT and am installing it as I type, hope to fish the air card problem this AM,If not, I have 26kdial up yey, smoking slow but faster than the post office, just barley. wish me luck,
Quote:
Originally Posted by beagle man
AHH THERE IS THE PROBLEM! I HAVE HAD MORE THAN ONE HP PERSON WHO DIDN'T KNOW NOTHING! SOME OF THEM ARE TOTALLY STUPID! SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO CALL BACK IN A COUPLE OF TIMES TO GET ONE WHO WILL WORK OUT OF THE BOX AND FIX YOUR PROBLEM. BEEN THERE AND HAD TO DO IT MYSELF!!!
Start | Run | msconfig <Enter>
BUT....be VEERRRY careful what you turn off.
Also, you might consider downloading Malwarebytes, Spybot Search & Destroy and AdAware. These are three free and very powerful tools that I use A LOT when working on people's machines.
Also, if you don't have Symantec (aka Norton) or McAfee, download AVG and install it. It's free also.
All of these are gonna suck to download if you can't get your aircard working. Fair warning.
Let me know if you need more help.
If you have a restore disk and are able to save off the stuff you want to keep (if its not a huge pain in the a$$) I would just dump it all and start new.
Quote:
Originally Posted by polvo
DITTO!
Sounds like the way to go, Beagle...you could be fighting this for a long time and not get it back the way it was. Sometimes it's just easier to start over.
(I'm wondering if that's what the HP guy was trying to get you to do? Hitting F11 at startup? You just need to save everything away first, though!)
the hp guy wanted me to start over so i did, got rid of everything, and this computer only has pictures and cdc on it, nothing else, no files to save, well one my fishing map but it's backed up on disc. so no problem there, so I zapped everything, back to square one, factory preset. default. so hear I am air card wont work, ATT closed on sunday, pages switch slow, real slow, so guess I will just live with it, dont want to shut down the wrong program, will call ATT monday morning after they have the coffee and constitunal. I think they can get the air card working, thanks and I will follow up after buzzy and I get back from stockton, If we dont get rained out. later all and again thank you
Did you just reset the factory defaults or wipe the entire hard drive and reload the operating system? I'd reload the operating system. If it's still borked after that, you may have a bad sector in your RAM. New RAM is cheap and easy to install.
I googled the problem and here's some interesting results:
Slow startup after system restore
Curious case - New computer running very slow even after system restore. - Tech Support Forum
Hey Beagle Did You Find A Hp Person Who Spoke English? Last Couple Of Times I Got Someone Out Of The Usa And I Couldn't Understand Them. I Asked To Speak To Someone In The Usa And Finally Got Someone That This Old Redneck Could Understand!
Had The Same Problems With Dish Network A Month Or So Back! We Were Having Problems And Called For Tech Support. I Got Some Guy Outside The Usa Who I Could Only Understand About His Every 3rd Word. Told Him That If He Couldn't Find Someone In That Company In The Usa Who Could Speak English In Ten Minutes All Their Equipment Would Be In Street And I Would Have Another Service Provider. Got One In 5 Minutes!
If These Major Corporations Are Going To Continue To Send Jobs Over Seas, We Are Going To Continue To Ask To Speak With Someone In The Usa!
joedog what is Symantec? every time I turn on the computer it comes up then it says symantec has stopped working, when I go to AVG to down load it takes so long it stop downloading and a prompt comes up and says the time slot to down load has expired and windows has shut down:mad: I have the computer up and running pretty good, DW60 MY computer does the defrag,automaticatly, done all the stuff ya'll suggested and can post and everything now or for two days now, but I still cant use the air card, done the uninstall,reinstall, and it works a little bit,but not often, tried all the crap the ATT people told me to do, no good, oh well will keep trying. thanks everyone I shall endevor to perserver..... ten bearsQuote:
Originally Posted by Joedog
BEAGLE SORRY YOUR HAVING TROUBLES! SYMANTEC IS NORTON ANTIVIRIS. OH BY THE WAY MR BEAGLE!!! HP S_CKS! I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON MINE FOR THE LAST 3 DAYS! MY HP WON'T SHOW THAT I HAVE A CD ROM DRIVE! AND I HAVE BEEN ON EVERY HP WEBSITE LOOKING FOR THE DRIVERS! THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED TO MY COMPUTER! CAN'T FIND THE DRIVERS NOW AND THEY (Hp) SAYS IT IS ALL WINDOWS VISTA PROBLEM. I WOULD CALL HP BUT I ALWAYS GET SOME A HOLE WHO CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH! I AM ABOUT TO PUT AN EXTERNAL CD ROM ON THIS COMPUTER AND CALL IT QUITS! ALL I WANT TO DO IS INSTALL A MAPPING PROGRAM FOR MY FISHING GPS UNITS! AND I CAN'T EVEN DO THAT! I COULD USE PW'S COMPUTER BUT THEN I WOULD HAVE TO USE IT WHEN EVER I WANTED TO BACK UP MY WAY POINTS AND I AM NOT GOING TO DO IT!Quote:
Originally Posted by beagle man
hey DW if your trying to install a map program from garmin you have to download a program from garmin to get vista to take it, Frosty and I had the same problem, garmin gave me a file to install and all is well, is your a garmin map
NOPE MY PROGRAM IS A LOWRANCE FOR MY HAND HELD GPS UNITS. CAN'T INSTALL THE PROGRAM UNTIL I GET MY CD-ROM DRIVE FIXED. LOL VISTA IS FUN ISN'T IT!Quote:
Originally Posted by beagle man
Man For The Good Old Days!!!!!!2 Wire Iron Wire Circuit And 10 Party Lines,,,,,,,,our's Was A Long- Short- Long
B-t-y What Is A Vista,,,,something New
FUZZY, VISTA IS A VERSION OF MS WINDOWS. JUST SOMETHING ELSE TO MAKE MORE MONEY FOR BILL GATES! THE NEXT ADDITION OF WINDOWS IS ABOUT TO COME OUT AND IT WILL BE CALLED WINDOWS 7. FUZZY BEFORE VISTA THERE WAS WINDOWS XP AND WINDOWS 98. EACH NEW VERSION IS SUPPOSED TO FIX THE PROBLEMS WITH LAST VERSION. BUT THE WAY IT LOOKS TO ME WITH EVERY FIXT THEY DO IT JUST CREATES MORE NEW PROBLEMS!Quote:
Originally Posted by old fuzzy
Dan, in most cases, the OS will have the needed drivers to operate the CD (or DVD) drive. There are exceptions, to be sure, but pursuing the web for drivers for your optical drive may be a waste of time. Does it even show up in your hardware, either with a yellow exclamation point or a red X?Quote:
Originally Posted by DMW1960
Did it somehow get disabled in the BIOS?
Can you boot from the CD?
My guess is (esp. since it is a POS HP) that the drive is pooched. You get any lights on it at all during POST?
Beagle, I been wondering how your machine's been running. I've seen you still posting, so I figgered it was operational, at least. Didn't know you were still fighting it.
Maybe try traveling to a hotel parking lot or something...see if you can whore somebody's free, unsecured wireless? That'll get you through the downloads, anyway?
Joedog My Drive Doesn't Show Up On The Hardware. I Am Thinking I Am Going To Have To Call Hp Which I Don't Look Forward To Doing.
thanks for everything joedog, got the ole girl up and running again, got a cd from ATT and the air card is working again, not 3g yet, but we dont have 3G on the tower nearest my house, but it works ok on 2G so I am happy for now,
GLAD YOUR FIXED BEAGLE! I JUST GOT OFF THE PHONE WITH HP AND I HAD TO ORDER A NEW CD/DVD DRIVE FOR MY COMPUTER! OUCH!Quote:
Originally Posted by beagle man
Not warratied? I'd check eBay for the same thing...either the drive itself or the entire unit that has a bad screen or mobo or something....then you can score all kinds of spare parts off of it, maybe upgrade memory, too? Lots of times cheaper than replacement from the dealer.Quote:
Originally Posted by DMW1960
I also hope you're sure it's actually the drive, not the controller....fair warning.:)
Oh...and....glad it's all working Michael....hopefully you'll get that 3G tested out soon. Switching between web pages is working a little faster now? At least you're happy...for now, anyway!:eek:
I KNOW THAT IS WHAT THE HP TECH TOLD ME!Quote:
Originally Posted by Joedog
The real issue is the Windows operating system, you can put lipstick on a pig and it's still a pig. I am a retired System Administrator and I know something about computers and the way to cure most of the problems mentioned here is to remove Windows and install Linux. By the way it's absolutely free. Ubuntu Home Page | Ubuntu
I agree 100% with this, however, if you don't know what you are doing, I would have someone do it for you. I have used Ubuntu and it is very easy to install and run for a novice computer user, there are still some issues with hardware on some newer computers. I use a Mepis version which is allot like the Ubuntu and I can't get the WiFi to work with it yet. Anyone interested in trying it can PM me or I'm sure hangdup would help too.Quote:
Originally Posted by hangdup
https://www.mepis.org/.
Beagle, did you ever get that laminate flooring done? I'm still willing to pack the tools down there and do it for the gas money to get there and a fishing trip on Stockton. I could look at the computer too!!
I would be glad to help anyone get off Windows.