Laptop Slow - help?

cjmcork

Hi, hope someone can help - for the past week or so, my laptop has been super-slow doing everything - from booting up to switching links on webpages, etc............am looking for tips to get me back to my normal speed

Black_Knight

Has this just recently happened or has it been getting slower over time?

Is your hard drive nearing full?
What spec machine do you have?

Do a virus scan anyways with your anti virus software. I find adaware is a good program to find virus's.

Check how many processed you have running on start up. Ctrl+Alt+delete and click on the "processes" tab. Take a screenshot of that an post it up here. There could be a few programs running on startup that you dont need, and are slowing down your lappy.

leninbenjamin

Black_Knight wrote: »

Do a virus scan anyways with your anti virus software. I find adaware is a good program to find virus's.

add spybot search and destroy, malwarebytes, superantispyware. No one anti-virus is complete, so it's worth running multiple scans.

You could also try some of the online scans from Kaspersky or Panda.

But the most typical cause of slow boots is simply having too many programs installed that run on start up. Things like Skype and that when allowed to start on booting can seriously slow it down. If you installed any software recently that's probably the cause.

cjmcork

Hi, thanks for reverting..........there's 136gb on the laptop - 41gb free at this point..........this is the processes image (hope it comes out), I use Avria as my anti-virus, but amn't pushed about which one, so recommendations welcome...........not sure what to put down re spec.......a bit clueless on that side of things...........it's a Dell inspiron 1721 if that's any use?

CourierCollie

Had a look at my own task manager, and its very similar to yours with one exception, CPU usage. 77% seems amazingly high to me( mine is usually between 5% and 15%).
If I were you I'd definitely run a scan with Malwarebytes and Superantispyware as others have already suggested.

_ZeeK_

to see your system spec

start>control panel>system.


70%usage does seem a bit high.

5uspect

It seems that something is using your CPU heavily alright but the numbers in the task manager don't add up.

If there was a problem with some software you would expect to see that there but since the source of the CPU usage appears hidden I'd be suspicious.

Can you show us a grab of the Performance tab just to ensure I wasn't a spike and that the CPU usage graph is always that high?
(I've attached an example)

encryptix

taskbar shows 82 processes but there is only 40 something shown there

and update.exe looks a little suspicious...

http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/update/

5uspect

Yeah you need to click "Show processes from all users" at the bottom.

cjmcork

right, I've done the All Users processes thing...........again, v grateful for all help!

cjmcork

this is the performance grab

cjmcork

eek - did the registry booster thing..........these are the results..........what do I do next?

5uspect

Still can't see which one is using all the CPU.

Sort the list by clicking on the CPU tab so that you can see which one is using most and report back to us.

On a healthy idle machine the System Idle Process should be using 99%.

Your CPU usage is definitely a bit mad. It would be next to zero when idle.

cjmcork

think this is what you're looking for

5uspect

So your O2 BB app and ie are making up 40% with taskmanager using 20%.

That's pretty bad. Taskmanager should not be using more than 1%.
Did you have Internet Explorer open when you took those grabs?
If you kill those three processes does it get more responsive?

Right click on and End IE and O2 and see if the CPU usage drops.
(you may need to reboot to get O2 to reload, or fish it back out of the start menu)

I'd say you've got some kind of infection.
First of all stop using Internet Explorer. Get a working web browser like Firefox, Opera or Google Chrome.

Have you done a virus scan?

Black_Knight

registrybooster? WTF is that!

Have a search on your laptop for registrybooster.exe, see where its located.

Have you done anti virus checks yet?


EDIT: As 5uspect says, get a diff browser. Chrome will be the lightest on your processor. Go for that one.

cjmcork

spybot brings back nothing.........registry mechanic is processing at the moment.....167 problems found so far

5uspect

Those aren't Anti-virus scanners. You really need to check for virii.

Black_Knight

Well thats good! If it is a virus or anything, these might find it and fingers crossed, speed up you pc. Keep us posted.

5uspect: Isnt spybot a virus scanner?

OP. Try adaware, never fails me

cjmcork

Black_Knight wrote: »

registrybooster? WTF is that!

Have a search on your laptop for registrybooster.exe, see where its located.

Have you done anti virus checks yet?


EDIT: As 5uspect says, get a diff browser. Chrome will be the lightest on your processor. Go for that one.

I've downloaded only s/w that was suggested here..............this is the grab re registrybooster - should I delete?

5uspect

No Spybot and Adware are spyware scanners. These aren't the same as anti-virus apps.

What anti-virus software, if any, do you use?

cjmcork

avira is running now.

Black_Knight

A quick google shows theres nothing much wrong with it, but if its taking up memory and your processor and you dont know why its there, id uninstall it.

5uspect

cjmcork wrote: »

avira is running now.

Did you just install it or do you always use it?

Black_Knight

5uspect wrote: »

No Spybot and Adware are spyware scanners. These aren't the same as anti-virus apps.

What anti-virus software, if any, do you use?

Cant harm to search for spyware.

From what I see in the process list, the OP was running avira earlier on today. Could be wrong though:rolleyes:

cjmcork

been using avira a few months now, someone here recommended it

5uspect

No harm to check for spyware at all, just though it better to point out that they're not antivirus software. Wouldn't want someone relying on it for just that.

Antivir is very good. Would be unusual for something to get past it.

I wonder could it be something as simple as the O2 dongle causing problems.
Have you tried killing those processes?

You could always just do a system restore to a date before the problem.

cjmcork

I wouldn't have a problem with that - a week ago it was grand, it's getting worse by the second! don't know exactly how to do it though.............have you instructions?

5uspect

Close all open programs.
Open the task manager.
Go to the processes tab
right click on the Internet Explorer process.
Click end process

go to the performance tab and see if the CPU usage goes back to zero.

If not go back to the processes tab.
End the O2 process.

See if things improve.

As for System Restore.

cjmcork

right - removed all the spyware, etc that I've downloaded over the past few days, re-installed the 02 software...........think I'll just do a system restore - the bloody thing is now telling me that the power adapter isn't right :eek:

so do ye recommend that I get rid of Internet Explorer in favour of Firefox???

cjmcork

hi all - just wanted to update - system won't let me delete internet explorer from the C drive, but when it's not in the processes on task manager, the CPU usage is between 9 and 24%! so I think that's ok - am open to contradiction though

Black_Knight

Well... ya cant really delete IE. I think what was suggested was to not use internet explorer, and use a different browser. Like chrome.



How did that system restore go?

cjmcork

opps, I deleted it from the D drive, but it's still on the C drive! all seems to be back to normal now, thank God! thanks to all for their help (will the IE thing be an issue though?)

Black_Knight

Your is a backup drive incase you want to revert to when you first bought your laptop. Im open to correction on this. Dell do it on all their laptops as far as I know. So deleting it off your D isnt going to make any diff, unless you intend to use this feature.

cjmcork

cool - thanks to all for the help.......I won't have to call the C-SPCA now (for hopping the laptop off the wall!).......working as normal now! Thanks again!:D:D:D

leninbenjamin

5uspect wrote: »

No Spybot and Adware are spyware scanners. These aren't the same as anti-virus apps.

What anti-virus software, if any, do you use?

Just for the record, they aren't. However, Avira has (last time I checked) the best detection rates of all anti-viruses, so if Avira doesn't pick it up, you need to resort to malware tools like the above to detect anything.

In my own experience, Avira is good for detecting, not removing. I've had the odd virus detected by Avira, but only something like malwarebytes removed it.

5uspect

leninbenjamin wrote: »

Just for the record, they aren't. However, Avira has (last time I checked) the best detection rates of all anti-viruses, so if Avira doesn't pick it up, you need to resort to malware tools like the above to detect anything.

In my own experience, Avira is good for detecting, not removing. I've had the odd virus detected by Avira, but only something like malwarebytes removed it.

QFT.

5uspect

So the system restore helped? Or was it reinstalling the O2 software?

There may have been a system update or something that borked the O2 software.

You can't uninstall IE from a Windows box. Just don't use it!

cjmcork

it was the system restore that sorted it - thanks for all your help!