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Solve : Computer running EXTREMLY slowly?

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Hi there,

as the subject says, my computer started RUNNING extremely slowly in normal mode (appears completely fine in safe mode with networking though) by extremely slowly I mean it takes about 2mins to close the screensaver, 5ish mins to open firefox and about a minute when you click on the start menu...and that is on a good day.

It was working fine and seems to have happened literally over night. I have run Spybot, Ccleaner, ESET, repaired from DOS and tried to do a defrag and apart from a virus that has since been deleted I can not for the life of me figure out what is wrong!

any help anyone can offer is really appreciated!Try disabling real-time protection for both ESET and Spybot. You could also uninstall Spybot and use a much better alternative to work with your current antivirus for free. http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free and http://www.superantispyware.com/ (Free edition).Did you recently make any hardware changes or updates to software? Typically when there is slowness, reversing any recent changes to the computer should do the trick (system restore?)

If not, and it is just slow for no reason, I would suggest backing up files and doing a clean install of the OS. Normally when something is causing your device to slow down, it is never just one thing, but multiple things. Sometimes they can be tricky, and not all virus scans can DETECT all things. For peace of mind, and an effective solution, I would do just that.Open msconfig and on the General tab choose "selective startup" (uncheck all three items) and reboot. Does the problem still occur? If not, start adding items back to msconfig one or two at a time, rebooting after each change, until the problem reappears and you'll have identified the OFFENDING process. This is clearly a time consuming procedure, but it is the best way to determine if some process loading with the system is the cause of your problem.

After you've isolated the cause, do not use msconfig to permanently disable the process. Instead, if it is a service go to START - RUN and type: services.msc (then press enter) and disable the service OR, if it a program, you can download & run a simple app such as Mike Lin's Startup Control Panel (http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml) to enable, disable, or otherwise manage startup programs.
Hey guys,

thanks for all of your replies, unfortunately none of them have worked so far...I have not reinstalled the OS as I have a number of things on my computer which would require me to re download them and where I am currently at I only have 10GB internet allowance p/m (should be fixed soon, but not for a month or so.) for the same reason I have not done a system restore.

I have stopped all the startup items and it did nothing. I don't believe that ESET or spybot are the problem as ESET was installed after the problem happened and I have had Spybot on the computer for as long as I can remember. This problem seems to have happened in the space of an hour or so. The computer was on and working completely fine one minute, and then about 3ish hours later it crashed as I was playing wow and has not worked since.
Quote from: Mystyeyes on November 18, 2011, 09:07:00 PM

I have not reinstalled the OS as I have a number of things on my computer which would require me to re download them and where I am currently at I only have 10GB internet allowance p/m

I do not understand this statement. If you have 'things on your computer' you can back them up without internet connection. (personally, i would not recommend a System Restore as the first thing to do, never mind a clean install. That is a bit overkill so far, so forget them for a bit)

Quote from: Mystyeyes on November 18, 2011, 09:07:00 PM
I have stopped all the startup items and it did nothing.

You disabled ALL the startup items. Did you follow Allan instructions to the letter ?

In your first post you say 'tried to de-frag', what actually happened

Also, more information would be helpful. What OS are you using. How much RAM ? What size is the hard drive and how much space is on it ? What other programs do you have running?Quote
Did you follow Allan instructions to the letter ?
yes I did, thus the .... I disabled all the startup programs....

Quote
In your first post you say 'tried to de-frag', what actually happened
nothing.....after leaving the computer for 3 days it still had not gotten past 1%

Quote
What OS are you using. How much RAM ? What size is the hard drive and how much space is on it ?
I am running Windows 7, Intel(R) nCore i5 with 4GB RAM. My main HDD is 1TB with 518GB Free

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What other programs do you have running?
I am not 100% sure how to answer this as I have a large number of programs on my computer, however to the best of my knowledge at the time that the problem occurred the only ones that were running were Wow, Firefox and MS Excel
Quote from: Mystyeyes on November 19, 2011, 10:06:34 AM
yes I did, thus the .... I disabled all the startup programs....

He also ask you to enable them again, one by one and re-boot to check the PC. I was trying to confirm this. You still have not stated you did this.

Quote from: Mystyeyes on November 19, 2011, 10:06:34 AM
I am not 100% sure how to answer this as I have a large number of programs on my computer, however to the best of my knowledge at the time that the problem occurred the only ones that were running were Wow, Firefox and MS Excel

The 'msconfig' tells you how many programs you have running. If you'd done what Allan said, you'd know !he actually told me to only start re-enabling the programs if disabling them fixed the problem
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Does the problem still occur? If not, start adding items back to msconfig one or two at a time
..... I took the 'if not' to mean if the problem no longer occurs, which it did (still occur that is), thus the reason that I have not enabled any of them as disabling them didn't fix it so it stands to reason that re-enabling them wont do anything either.... if I misunderstood by all means correct me...

Quote
The 'msconfig' tells you how many programs you have running. If you'd done what Allan said, you'd know !
as stated above I have done what Allan has asked me to do, there were 25 different programs that start up at when I turn my computer on, however I turn alot of them off if I am planning on having my computer on for extended amounts of times, thus I stand by not being 100% sure as to which of these was running at the time the problem occurred, if you think it will help I am happy to type them out for you here, however they are all fairly standard programs



OK, what are your specs ?? As 25 programs running consecutively seems excessive.

Does the problem still occur in Safe mode ??

In your initial post your said you 'repaired from DOS', what did you do ??were you after specs other then the ones that I have already listed? if so which ones?

runs completly fine in all the safe modes and the repair in DOS was the option that comes up when your computer doesnt start correctly and it is the first of the options that you are given when you get to the 'open in safe mode' screen ...... I am not sure what it doesRun a software to post your hardware temperature. Have you done house cleaning lately? The reason I suggested removing spybot as a troubleshooter is or other protection software is some features enabled that tends to make the system slow. Spybot has an immunization feature for computer files and tea timer providing a real time protection and so as your ESET.http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.htmlMissed them, sorry

Try the above recommendations.


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