Anyone help please?

[Bubbles]

Hi Everyone

Can anyone tell me.......in very simple words, as I'm not techie.......what I can do about my pc?

I am on British Broadband connection, and this is a newish pc....six months ole...Dell....will send more specs when son gets home, told you I'm not very techinical.

Problem is......when I got it, and new Broadband connection....all was very quick on here...no waiting, instant almost changing from site to site.

Now, suddenly, well...it's been happening for about a month.....it's like someone's poured glue into the thing. It's all so slow, and it drives me nuts.

So..........what could it be? And what could I, as someone who doesnt' know the front from the back of a pc, do about getting it to speed up?

Thanks guys.
Bubbs.

[Splatted]

lkjlkjlk

[Strong Eagle]

Chances are good that your computer has been infected with spyware. This stuff hooks itself into your browser and consumes the majority of CPU cycles as it records your keystrokes, directs you to websites you don't want to go to, and presents pop up windows that you never asked for.

There are two good free products which you should download and install on your machine. Together, they do a great job of knocking out most of the crap.

Spybot search and destroy

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html

and Ad Aware

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

[Splatted]

lkjlk

[Bubbs]

Ta everyone
Anyone who has any other ideas, please write.
Not tried the ones suggested yet, but will do so pronto...
Bubbs

[Guest]

Ta everyone
Anyone who has any other ideas, please write.
Not tried the ones suggested yet, but will do so pronto...
Bubbs

Apart from surfing, how are downloads like for you.

are they also getting slower?

btw, love your nick,... reminds me of Finding Nemo.

Bubbblless!!!!

[Bubbs]

Hi

My son tried that Spyware on here. It seems to have speeded it up a bit. Many thanks.

However,

Do you think that if I got more memory for the pc it would make any diff to the speed?

Son seems to think perhaps so........not sure tho.

Not too pricey, about £50 he says....but fifty quid is fifty quid, so if anyone thinks this is a rubbish suggestion, please let me know.

Ta
Bubbs.

[Guest]

Hi

My son tried that Spyware on here. It seems to have speeded it up a bit. Many thanks.

However,

Do you think that if I got more memory for the pc it would make any diff to the speed?

Son seems to think perhaps so........not sure tho.

Not too pricey, about £50 he says....but fifty quid is fifty quid, so if anyone thinks this is a rubbish suggestion, please let me know.

Ta
Bubbs.

More memory wont necessarily increase speed if the issue is with your ISP, for example, when it comes to surfing / downloading.

It may perform faster, but if your downloads are generally slow, they will still be slow.

Having said that, if you find adding more memory inexpensive, then why not.

Second thing to look at with overall speed is your hard disk speed. Reason for this is that the computer stores files temporarily there in a sort of "virtual memory" .

If your hard disk speed is 5400 rpm, this is considered very slow, and adding more memory wont make much difference to the overall speed of your pc.

7200 is standard these days,.. there are faster HD's available than this though >10000 rpm i believe.

While on the topic of hard disks, is your hard disk very full? This too can affect the overall performance if you have too much clutter. There is, what's called "defragmentation" utility which is standard on all windows. Worth running - look under System tools in your windows menu. This basically "tidies up" what free space you have, and for some people can improve performance if space was very limited.

hmm ,.. what else.. ooh, yes,..

you mentioned you use DELL... nice packages, but lots of trouble when it comes to upgrading bits and pieces.

Although, i've never owned a Dell, i'm told that they use non-standard parts in their pc's , eg motherboards that will only fit in their boxes, etc and if you try upgrading to another non-dell motherboard, it wont fit in the same box.

I'm not sure if this is the case with other parts such as Hard disk, or memory (perhaps other people on this forum who use Dell can advise), but you may be limited to only buying upgrade parts only from Dell, which may not necessarily be cheap.

hope this helps......

[Bubbs]

Hey last guest, and all the others........thanks so much.

Will let you know what happens when I show my son all the posts......coz I'm a bit stupid with anything technological......give me a pen and paper and I'm fine........but anything from a remote for the tv to a pc...and I instantly become a blithering idiot.

Ta Bubbs....or Bubbles........reason not signing in on Bubbles is this pc............it just takees so damned long, and getting online as Bubbles takes about five mins longer than if I just find the site and sign in as Bubbs.

[Strong Eagle]

Hi

My son tried that Spyware on here. It seems to have speeded it up a bit. Many thanks.

However,

Do you think that if I got more memory for the pc it would make any diff to the speed?

Son seems to think perhaps so........not sure tho.

Not too pricey, about £50 he says....but fifty quid is fifty quid, so if anyone thinks this is a rubbish suggestion, please let me know.

Ta
Bubbs.

As others have noted, if your ISP is a dog, then nothing will work. But, memory is absolutely the fastest and cheapest way to speed up everything on the computer. You should have 256 meg on a "modern" computer and 512 is becoming the norm even on laptaps. Memory is an excellent way to reduce the effects of a slow hard disk... because programs stay in memory instead of getting paged to the disk.

[Notateckie]

If I may add my experience here. Had a couple of Trojans in a 2 wks span. My whole pc slowed down. Followed the Security notes on deleting the virus but couldn't find the damn things even with unhiding of extensions etc. , called a techie fren in, he found 'em but couldn't delete them either. Finally took it to a shop and they fixed it.

Don't know if other postees agree with this: according to shop, it is ok to go into links but never download files you are not comfortable with.

Hope this helps.

[Strong Eagle]

If I may add my experience here. Had a couple of Trojans in a 2 wks span. My whole pc slowed down. Followed the Security notes on deleting the virus but couldn't find the damn things even with unhiding of extensions etc. , called a techie fren in, he found 'em but couldn't delete them either. Finally took it to a shop and they fixed it.

Don't know if other postees agree with this: according to shop, it is ok to go into links but never download files you are not comfortable with.

Hope this helps.

If you are ever unfortunate enough to get coolwebsearch (or any of its mutlttude of variants) on your machine, it is a major pain in the ass and cannot be removed via any of the traditional spyware programs. It attaches itself to the IP chain that resolves addresses, and you must use a program to rebuild the chain.

For websites that you do not know, neither links nor files are safe. Links can contain malicious code that loads bum software to your machine. A good rule of thumb is that if you are going to go to unknown sites of questionable character, then turn off both java and javascript, and make sure that active x controls are set to prompt or disable.

[Bubbs]

Oh Gosh
Why wasn't I born with a scientist's or technologican's head? All the above makes me go all strange....like when you know you have a maths test and you know you know nothing......arrgh!

Write you a story in two minutes.....but anything to do with pc's...

But thank goodness all those years of getting up in the night, reading to them, and wiping noses etc have paid off...thankyou Whoever Is Responsible for sending me a son who understands modern tecnology!!!!!!!!!

So, when he surfaces from his Friday night partying I'll show him this...

Thanks so much guys....and girls........