The old girl's slowing down

[[exile]]

Temp/Temp Int files have been deleted, and I've bumped the free space to 2.07GB -- 0.12GB short of me being able to safely defrag the hard drive. I'm working on seeing what else I can delete without having to install the programs you guys are suggesting.

DPH, I don't know if these are actual files or not that I have in quarantine, but I guess I can assume they are. Once I get a defrag done I'll try out the program.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, but I really need the questions from the first post answered first

Oh, and Anakha, formatting is my last-ditch resort. ^^

[Usufruct]

As to your question of whether or not you need 15% HD space free before safely doing a defragmentation, the answer is, it depends. I believe microsoft provides that figure as a guideline. If you're not using much of your virtual memory, your defragmentation should go fine. In other words, turn on your computer, close everything you can, and run your defragmentation. It may not provide much of a performance boost, however. I reformat and reinstall somebody's computer when they are experiencing slow performance or they have their machine loaded with spyware. It's easy, it doesn't take long, and it provides results every time.

[{KOW}Spazed]

The virtual memory warning was probably a big factor in the slowness. Now that you have some more free space are you still having problems?

Virtual memory is used when the RAM is all used up. It is written to the hard disk and loaded into RAM when the space is available. If you are using a lot of virtual memory you are tying up the hard disk from doing other things and nothing else can be done until what is currently in the RAM is cleared out.

So you can get more RAM and that should help. If it was a sudden kind of a thing a RAM stick may have gone bad. If it was slow, you're on your own.

[SaroDarksbane]

I've been having trouble with space on my comp, and then I realized the Windows XP Restore feature was eating up like 6 gigs of HD space.

Sorry, I don't need 20 restore points on my computer. Im sure 2 would suffice.

And I go with 10% free HD space before I defrag. I don't think there's anything wrong with doing it when you have less, it just takes forever. o_O

[[exile]]

Well, Knight Online has turned out to be a lagtastic failure in my computer's current sorry state, and I'm not sure it'll get any better even after I defragment. In any case, I don't need KO right now so I'm uninstalling and I'll have enough space to defrag by then for sure.

Hopefully a defrag will help out. If not, I guess I'll be visiting Download.com for a bit. Or maybe following Anakha's suggestion.

Saro - where can I find out whether or not I have this active, and if I can remove it?

[Tor]

start => help and suppost look up system restore

i use system restore alot, cuz i usually screw up my computer and have to revert back

[Omikron8]

My computer, I mean.

Lately I've been getting 5-minute boot-ups and 5-minute shutdowns. I figured it wasn't so much of a problem. (Lately as in the past few months.)

But then I installed Knight Online today and was thoroughly discouraged. I sat and waited through a full 15 minutes of load time and a full 15 minutes of exit time as well.

So I guess I just have a couple of questions. Will a disk defragmenting help me out? And do I really need to have that 15% of free disk space the defragmenter advises? (I currently have about 500MB free out of 14.6GB).

Format, the cure for all my software problems

I partitioned my 40 gig drive into a 5 gig section for my operating system and program (not games/movies/etc.) files, while the rest is simply for data and other non-important programs. Whenever i start having annoyances like spyware that can't be found (not even by spybot) i just wipe the 5 gig partition.

[carrothers]

@[exile] - You'd be amazed at how well a reformat can help you out. This summer, I reformatted my computer of at least 3+ years. I use an Athlon XP 2100+, nothing real fancy or anything. A reformat cleaned out programs that were only partially deleted, and other things like that. Just spend a couple hours backing up files on a CD, or get a buddy with a computer to join up on your network and hold onto your important stuff for a while. A reformat doesn't take long if you know what you're doing, and what you have to reinstal/download in order to get back up to speed.

Also, if you're not going to reformat, I HIGHLY URGE you to download a registry sweeper or TuneUp Utilities. Not only are these small programs, but they'll easily clean up your computer more than you could think. There's more than just temp files lying around, and they should be cleaned out, too. If you don't like our program suggestions, simply uninstal them after you use them once. :lol:

[Phesto]

My computer, I mean.

Lately I've been getting 5-minute boot-ups and 5-minute shutdowns. I figured it wasn't so much of a problem. (Lately as in the past few months.)

But then I installed Knight Online today and was thoroughly discouraged. I sat and waited through a full 15 minutes of load time and a full 15 minutes of exit time as well.

So I guess I just have a couple of questions. Will a disk defragmenting help me out? And do I really need to have that 15% of free disk space the defragmenter advises? (I currently have about 500MB free out of 14.6GB).

This could be due to about a trillion different things, but the lack of free memory is certainly contributing.

Is this your computer?

Do you have a lot of music and movies?

I recommend getting rid of Norton because it's nothing but a resource hog. Norton takes forever to load at startup. Your computer will boot up and down about two minutes faster, at least. AVG is better and you can download it for free. I'm not alone on this.

Spybot - Search and Destroy and Ad-Aware are more than enough to deal with any relevant crapware issues. Other anti-spyware tools are either worse or unnecessary.

If you'd like to eliminate a huge amount of potential problems I recommend downloading HijackThis, which is a small but powerful tool that checks important areas of the registry and hard drive and displays information that can be copied, pasted, and viewed by someone who can determine whether anything is bad, and how to deal with it. You simply scan and save the log. I'll PM you the website where this information is analyzed. All you have to do is register.

I've been cleaning persons' computers for three years and I can assure you that the programs I've mentioned are awesome. Their popularity and reviews can be seen at a certain well-known site for downloading.

If your computer's problem isn't simply a matter of memory and you're not willing to download anything you may have a tough time fixing it.

I'd like to add that while formatting your computer will obviously fix the problem, it's an extremely drastic solution and the chance of it being totally necessary is almost nonexistent. Also, cleaning the Registry and using the Disk Defragmenter, while good ideas, won't make a noticeable difference in how fast your computer operates.

[carrothers]

On the subject of reformatting, I'm very confident to say that it meant the world to my boot speeds and load times. Before, my computer would just lag and lag and lag. Now, after a reformat, it's just as fast as the moment I got it out of the box (er, I mean, got the parts out of the boxes and built it myself, I hate premade computers).

Reformatting is heavenly.