Slow laptop

MrECameraman

RUSTEDCORE wrote: »

4GB ram is great

A 2 Ghz processer (probably dual Remember, the kernelcore) is not great but good enough for most things, definitely enough for browsing unless you are trying to watch 1080p video online.

Vista is crap xp or seven are far better


My suggestion is that you get a copy of windows vista and reinstall it as you have the product key on the laptop this would be free and would return the laptop to the condition you purchased it as.

NOTE-you should back up your files but windows automatically does that so dont worry
You will need to reinstall your programs that did not come with the pc though and if you use itunes this would delete all music on your ipod the next time you connect it

seems a bit drastic. sure Vista can be a touch bloaty, but it's tunable. Remember, the internals, and particularly the kernel, are very similar to 7.

Also a 2GHz core2duo should be fine

OP, the best advice I could give is ask a friend who knows what they're doing. Things like defrag and that won't hurt, but you really want something like procmon or xperf to see exactly what it's doing. Your friendly neighborhood nerd should be able to help. it's not a big job.

hth

liammur

yoyo wrote: »

Sorry . Meant that having multiple iexplore.exe processes is normal, not multiple explorer.exe ones

Nick

What's the difference Nick between iexplorer.exe and explorer.exe ?

yoyo

liammur wrote: »

What's the difference Nick between iexplorer.exe and explorer.exe ?

explorer.exe is the Windows explorer process, there should only be one. Some malware will call itself explorer.exe to try hide from av software and also appear to be genuine. iexplorer.exe is internet explorer, which newer versions make a new precess for every tab I think

Nick

liammur

yoyo wrote: »

explorer.exe is the Windows explorer process, there should only be one. Some malware will call itself explorer.exe to try hide from av software and also appear to be genuine. iexplorer.exe is internet explorer, which newer versions make a new precess for every tab I think

Nick

Thanks Nick. I'll keep an eye on those processes - what type of ones would be suspicious ? I think it's a virus I have and Norton can't get it.

Dey were Sooted

if u feel it is a virus download a free trial of eset nod32 , run an update and full scan . if there is a virus there that is more than 24 hours old , more than likely it will get it ... if there is nothing found, go do the same with malwarebytes if you haven't done so already . i have been in situtations where one of these programs have caught a virus where the other one hasn't ..... you will need to remove norton before you do this

ruling out a virus for sure would be the first step imo

vista can run pretty well with software tweaks

norton - don't know how they have been getting away with it for so long - if a dodgy/slow computer is handed to me and has norton insatlled - first thing i do is remove it ..... norton have been so so bad in the last few years that even if they could ,they still ain't got nothing to improve on......

btw - is it just me, but vista and a year old computer don't add up - where did u get it ?

RUSTEDCORE

MrECameraman wrote: »

seems a bit drastic. sure Vista can be a touch bloaty, but it's tunable. Remember, the internals, and particularly the kernel, are very similar to 7.

Also a 2GHz core2duo should be fine

OP, the best advice I could give is ask a friend who knows what they're doing. Things like defrag and that won't hurt, but you really want something like procmon or xperf to see exactly what it's doing. Your friendly neighborhood nerd should be able to help. it's not a big job.

hth

A procmon tutorial

RUSTEDCORE

If you want a proper check for viruses you need this free softwre

I have run all the top software that you have to pay for and then run spybot search and destroy and it finds stuff the others dont and keeps it simple.

BostonB

RUSTEDCORE wrote: »

If you want a proper check for viruses you need this free softwre

I have run all the top software that you have to pay for and then run spybot search and destroy and it finds stuff the others dont and keeps it simple.

Thats because thats not a Virus checker, its a spyware and adware scanner.

You need to run both a Virus scan AND a spyware and adware scanner.

RUSTEDCORE

BostonB wrote: »

Thats because thats not a Virus checker, its a spyware and adware scanner.

You need to run both a Virus scan AND a spyware and adware scanner.

In my opinion true viruses cannot be found from software so I search manually for that and generally it is adware that slows a pc. Viruses are designed for stealth.

BostonB

You're entitled to your opinion. But that is why they find different things. They scan/fix different things.

Spybot I found quite heavy on resources on an old machine. It also finds a lot of false positives. Its a great tool, but to be aware of that if that if you are finding a machine slow, or it keeps finding things. I generally keep it off an older machine unless theres a problem I need to fix. Then I might install it.

9/10 I fix a slow machine by un-installing all the frills and keeping the essential apps. While you can tweat Vista to run better, its still always slower than XP/W7 or Windows 8. Windows 8 runs especially well on older machines I find. Its a cheap upgrade from Vista too.