Lap Top Running Slow

Ay Cee

Friend of mine asked me to take a look at his laptop (Compaq, few years old) for him. Mentioned it was running slow. I've upgraded his anti-virus, scanned the machine - all clean. Ran Ad-Aware - all clean. Ran the disk cleanup and that wasn't showing anything significant anyway. Defragged the hard drive and it's still the same.

I'm gonna try Windows Washer & Hijack This, after that I'm lost.

He only uses it for checking the web. I assumed it was a virus of some sort. Anyone know of any trojans or anything else which might be causing this?

He also mentioned that his friends lap top can connect to the net when he's running it on battery but when he's on the mains he can't connect. Only thing I can think of is that it's shorting the modem or something. Any ideas?

Teamhair

What operating system is installed? First I'd check the Processes tab in Task Manager and have a look at what's running. You might spot something there that shouldn't be. If so, kill it and see if performance improves. Maybe have a look at the start up environment also. A lot of spyware hides out here and can really slows things down.

Tom Dunne

Check msconfig to see if there is any rubbish being loaded at startup.

Also check how much disk space is left, low disk space will slow the system down too.

Ay Cee

XP Pro I think.
I thought Ad Aware would pick up the spyware. I'm gonna try Hijack This and see if that picks up anything.

There's next to nothing on the HD. It's a 40 GB with only I'd say the OS on it. It's got 30 something gig left free.

After that I'm shtumped

Teamhair

You might want to be careful with the Hijack This- its perfectly possible to delete something from the registry that may in fact be crucial to the system! I speak from experience! I don't know what anti-virus you were using to scan with, but I recommend downloading the 30 Day Free Trial from NOD32.ie and running a scan with that. It really is excellent, but do this only if there's no other AV installed. I'm wondering were any additional Windows components installed that really don't need to be there? Especially if its just being used in the home and not in a networked environment. You could always check this in Add/Remove Programs, Windows Components.

Ay Cee

It's running Norton 2004 or 05 fully up to date. He suspects he got a virus but none of the scans turned up anything. I know there's a couple of sites where you can you post the Hijack This log and those more in the know will take a luke at it.

Hopefully that will do it.

I'll check the add/ remove option too.

MunsterCycling

He has NOrton running on it and you're wondering why its running slow. NOrton is the answer.


:rolleyes:

MC

Ay Cee wrote:

It's running Norton 2004 or 05 fully up to date. He suspects he got a virus but none of the scans turned up anything. I know there's a couple of sites where you can you post the Hijack This log and those more in the know will take a luke at it.

Hopefully that will do it.

I'll check the add/ remove option too.

matt-dublin

agreed with munster, norton and xp have issues, causes xp to bee very slow

Ay Cee

I would have thought that too. But he said it's mostly in the last week he's noticed it. I might try uninstalling it and stick AVG on it. See how that goes.

jimmycrackcorm

Bad Norton! Bad norton!

Try doing a disk deshag also.

The best option is a brand new reinstall.

Ruu_Old

How much RAM have you got OP?

MunsterCycling

Ay Cee wrote:

I would have thought that too. But he said it's mostly in the last week he's noticed it. I might try uninstalling it and stick AVG on it. See how that goes.

This should be interesting, wonder how long until you realise that NOrton sticks to a system like a limpet to a rock and getting rid of all trace of it is like ridding yourself of an incurable disease. (BTW There is a reason the 1st two letters are in capitals )


MC

/Starts banging drum again.... How about a ceremonial NOrton disk distruction?

Teamhair

Here's a nice tool for removing all traces of Norton from your system. Works really well:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Uninstallers/Norton-Removal-Tool.shtml

I really do recommend the NOD32. So easy on resources you can run it on DOS machines. Totally effective though.