Why has my computer slowed down of late?

Question

I have a pentium 4 computer that works with Windows xp and broadband. The computer was working with good speed until recently. Over last 3-4 days, the machine has slowed down considerably. The slowdown is not only for browsing (pages taking ages to download) but even on standalone basis e.g. loading MS office it takes a long time. I have tried clearing cache memory, deleting cookies, history etc. but it has not helped. What could be the reason?

Answer 1

Check http://www.pc-optimizer-pro.com

With pc optimizer pro you can safely clean, repair and optimize your computer.

It will help improve your system performance without expensive hardware upgrades.

Answer 2

Hi, firstly, every piece of software that you load and run on your PC will slow it down, most of the slowdown will be negligible, but with file/disk intensive stuff like anti-virus the slowdown can become very noticeable. Q. Were/Are you running any other AntiVirus AntiSpyware software before you installed AVG? If you are then the slowdown is most likely caused by a conflict between both of the softwares, Disable one or the other. Q. If after installing AVG and updating it did you run a full check and did it find any malicious software? If yes did you quarantine/Delete it ? Have you changed any of the default AVG settings? causing it to run more regularly or in the background with intensive scanning techniques? all these things can cause slowdowns. I use AVG Free Version and have found it to be a very competent piece of software. Suggest also downloading and installing: Spybot Search and Ddestroy. Lavasoft's AdAware. PC Tools - Spyware Doctor. If you still have problems with speed then check out conflicts with drivers etc. also you could try starting your PC in Safe Mode (Press F8 as it starts up) then run the full scans from there. See if the PC runs normally in safe mode (It loads less background software and non-essential drivers)

Answer 3

If you're going to give advice that could -potentially- wreck a computer, please list some of the issues. Msconfig has some options you do NOT want to touch; so don't go getting brave by unclicking a ton of crap. Only the things that seem like you never use, but can tell what they are.



Things that are like "Itunes" or "quicktime" are safe.



Second, go to http://www.majorgeeks.com and download "CCleaner" and "Advanced System Care" both will clean/speed up your PC very well. Simply run the scans, and hit repair, and feel free to back up your computer.



(beginning of answer was aimed at first answerer)

Answer 4

Using a registry cleaner can clean up your computer and then make your computer faster,Why?the reason is that there may be some registry errors and remnant,corrupt files and temp files in your computer to cause "computer slow".

Every time you install and uninstall software on your computer and surfing online you create junk in the computer registry.over time, the registry can grow to enormous proportions, especially if the various programs you've installed do not do a good job of deleting and/or updating it's Registry entries.You need to scan and clean your computer with registry cleaner to make it fast.Good Registry Cleaner will improve your computer and Internet performance dramatically!

There are some comparison and review of TOP 5 registry cleaners.

http://www.make-pc-fast.com/

You can download and scan your computer for free.

Answer 5

Run a virus and or spyware scan. And go to Run type in "msconfig" go to the startup tab and uncheck everything that you don't need to start at startup. That should clear up some background programs that might be running and slowing it down.

Answer 6

Simply increase your RAM

Answer 7

here is my exhaustive list of what I think could possibly help your computer speed up. These are past answers of mine.



1. Slow processor...If your cpu usage is above 50%at idle than well you know.



2. Not enough RAM... A lot of processes use a lot of ram then computer has to utilize virtual ram and that slows it down. at least 2 GIGs for basic computing



3. junk Graphics Card with too little onboard gpu ram. Allowing your mobo integrated graphics processor to take care of the graphics needs of your computer slows it down. Buying a graphics card with at least a gig of ram as well as ddr3 memory will help.



4. Too many useless processes from old programs. keeping your start menu and the programs that start when your computer boots up to a minimum will keep your computer running smooth.sweepi boot manager helps in this are.



5 too much junk in the trunk. using Ccleaner and Sweepi will keep your computer Clean. As well as a fragmented drive will slow a computer down. Run the defragmenter as well.



6. Viruses,adware,malware,spyware,worms and the like will steal valuable speed from your cpu by enabling and running malicious programs and processes as well as a good possibility it will seriously slow down your internet speeds. They can be anywheres from the top of the list by taking control of your task manager and the rest of your computer to the bottom of the list by only tracking your internet comings and goings.



Now to help a computer user speed up his neglected computer.



This will take a while. First and foremost lets make sure you don't have any junk in your trunk.Download and install then run Ccleaner(virus, adware, spyware free) as well as Sweepi(leave all boxes checked during the install). After that is out of the way run your Disk Defragmenter. That may have helped a bit. Next up are your start-up programs. When you install a program some of them automatically start when you boot. For some programs like AVG or other security programs then that's fine. For some others like Game-spy or some non-essential program that you can start manually if necessary you don't want those taking up ram unnecessarily. Open sweepi and run the Boot Manager(similar to the run command of msconfig but with a friendlier user interface). Delete the programs you don't want to start-up during boot-up. This will only remove them from the start-up not your computer. Most of the programs will also carry suggestions with them to advise you on the importance of the programs. After you deleted the junk programs then restart your computer. That may have helped a lot. If after all this your computer is still slowwww then you can tweak it a bit more. Click on start-settings-control panel--system--performance than virtual memory. YOu should let windows handle it. If you want to use more of the HDD as ram than click on the specify my own settings. The rule is about 12% of your HDD to be used as a page file or virtual memory. Some go a bit higher but never lower unless you are positive you have enough ram which i assume you don't If you want to max out your ram and not worry about virtual memory then install 3.5GIGs of the fastest ram that Crucial.com suggests.

Source(s):

http://www.crucial.com/store/drammemory....



http://www.download.com/CCleaner/3000-21...



http://www.download.com/Sweepi/3000-2094...



Could be a number of things. It could be throttling. A process used by an Internet service(not necessarily just your ISP it could be a browser like yahoo or any site that receives high traffic) that involves pulling back or rationing their bandwidth so that there servers won't crash due to the intense load. It could also be your browser. I have noticed that Mozilla Firefox loads pages a heck of a lot faster than IE7 or opera. It could be your puter's cache is FULL. Use a disk cleaner such as Ccleaner or Sweepi to delete all your old temp files and junk that clutters up your puter. It could be that you have other programs using bandwidth and yahoo isn't being seen as high priority. Unfortunately this Internet thingy isn't a science. If you don't have an Internet security system like avg installed it could be a virus, malware, adware, spyware, or worms. Most DNS clients cache the results of name resolution requests. This speeds up name resolution if multiple lookups are done to the same address, such as is common when browsing the web. Sometimes a bad DNS entry will be cached and you will need to either flush the DNS cache to get rid of it( ipconfig /flushdns in your run command ), or wait up to 24 hours for it to be dropped from the cache automatically. You may need to defragment your drives.



This will take a while. First and foremost lets make sure you don't have any junk in your trunk.Download and install then run Ccleaner(virus, adware, spyware free) as well as Sweepi(leave all boxes checked during the install). After that is out of the way run your Disk Defragmenter. That may have helped a bit. Next up are your start-up programs. When you install a program some of them automatically start when you boot. For some programs like AVG or other security programs then that's fine. For some others like Game-spy or some non-essential program that you can start manually if necessary you don't want those taking up ram unnecessarily. Open sweepi and run the Boot Manager(similar to the run command of msconfig but with a friendlier user interface). Delete the programs you don't want to start-up during boot-up. This will only remove them from the start-up not your computer. Most of the programs will also carry suggestions with them to advise you on the importance of the programs. After you deleted the junk programs then restart your computer. That may have helped a lot. If after all this your computer is still slowwww then you can tweak it a bit more. Click on start-settings-control panel--system--performance than virtual memory. YOu should let windows handle it. If you want to use more of the HDD as ram than click on the specify my own settings. The rule is about 12% of your HDD to be used as a page file or virtual memory. Some go a bit higher but never lower unless you are positive you have enough ram which i assume you don't If you want to max out your ram and not worry about virtual memory then install 3.5GIGs of the fastest ram that Crucial.com suggests. Then again there is always the virus, malware, adware, spyware, trojan or worm possibilitiy. You chould always keep your antivirus software running. Don't go overboard on security. Some products like mcafee(um spelling may not be even close) or norton and avg do not work in concert and can corrupt your system.



http://www.crucial.com./



http://www.ccleaner.com/download



http://www.download.com/Sweepi/3000-2094...



http://www.superantispyware.com/download...



http://free.avg.com/download?prd=afe#tba...



http://www.majorgeeks.com/Diskeeper_Lite



http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplaye...