Acer laptop running very slow

freakyogre

I have an Acer Powermate 4060 (although label says 4062LCi). It is used quite a lot, but not for anything major. I usually use it purely for browsing the internet and keeping documents.

I thought I had formatted it a few weeks ago, but it turns out the instructions I was given just restored it from an image? (i'm not very technical!) Since then I have only installed AVG, my software for internet, Yahoo messenger and Office. It is still running VERY slow. It seems to be ok when it's switched on initially, but after a couple of hours it just seems to grind to a halt.

Since the weekend, Word seems to crash whenever it feels like it, which is really useful a the moment seen as I need it for application forms!

I have been advised that hard drive is on the way out so to look for another one, but also it only has 256mb of ram. I'm not sure whether to try a hard drive first, or get more ram. If it's one of the other, I don't really want to get both.

Or, would formatting it (fully) help? If so, could anyone advise how I go about doing this? I have looked on Acer's website, but it's not very clear. I don't have any of the original or a Windows CD.

Luckily I have my pc so if this does decide to die, it's not the end of the world!

Thanks for any help.

aidso

Most of these off the shelf computers come bloated with a bunch of crap you dont need - like internet providers, McAfee, Norton etc and if the person has reinstalled your computer from the image it came with it is likely that these are all kicking in again.

What OS are you running as 256MB RAM seems very low and it could be struggling once it gets moving? RAM would be my first point of call. If you are only using the laptop for Word and browsing etc then id be concerned if the hard drive is dying already.

freakyogre

I did notice that it seems to have Norton on again, but doesn't appear to actually be installed.

I'm running Windows XP. It takes a long time to start up, sometimes up to 5 minutes before everything seems to sort itself out. Once on, it's ok (apart from the Word crashing) but then seems to get 'tired' after a while. I'm hoping it isn't the hard drive, i've had it for about 3 years? but for one year it wasn't used at all as I didn't have internet access.

My brother looked at it before I 'formatted' it and said there was a lot on it that shouldn't be, but I don't know what should and shouldn't be there. It's currently showing 50 processes running and I have no idea what 90% of them are, so don't want to get rid of any of them in case I make it worse.

aidso

Bring up the Task Manager and order them by the amount of memory they are using and then enter the names into Google. You'll get a brief example of what they do and you can kill them off. I'd leave anything Windows related and start running things like AVG, SpyBot Search and Destroy and Adaware to clean up any nasties.

beardiedog

I'd certainly increase your RAM to at least 1Gig and uninstall any applications you don't use.

andy2004

freakyogre wrote: »

I have an Acer Powermate 4060 (although label says 4062LCi). It is used quite a lot, but not for anything major. I usually use it purely for browsing the internet and keeping documents.

I thought I had formatted it a few weeks ago, but it turns out the instructions I was given just restored it from an image? (i'm not very technical!) Since then I have only installed AVG, my software for internet, Yahoo messenger and Office. It is still running VERY slow. It seems to be ok when it's switched on initially, but after a couple of hours it just seems to grind to a halt.

Since the weekend, Word seems to crash whenever it feels like it, which is really useful a the moment seen as I need it for application forms!

I have been advised that hard drive is on the way out so to look for another one, but also it only has 256mb of ram. I'm not sure whether to try a hard drive first, or get more ram. If it's one of the other, I don't really want to get both.

Or, would formatting it (fully) help? If so, could anyone advise how I go about doing this? I have looked on Acer's website, but it's not very clear. I don't have any of the original or a Windows CD.

Luckily I have my pc so if this does decide to die, it's not the end of the world!

Thanks for any help.

The recovery image, is basically a format and reinstall so its exactly the same as it was when you got it from the factory, or Factory Fresh, so it would be trojan and virus free. 256mb for windows xp is not very much, I would suggest getting a memory upgrade, you should have 2 slots, a 1gb memory upgrade should cost around £20-25 at the moment.
If the crash was a result of the harddrive, you would get read / write errors.
download the hard drive testing tool for your make of hard drive, use Everest Home edition to see what make it is, http://majorgeeks.com/download4181.html freeware.
will also tell you about your memory.

macman

Nothing in what you say indicates imminent hard drive failure. How full is your hard drive though? Get rid of all software/files that aren't needed and up the RAM. 512MB is the absolute minimum you neeed to run XP properly, but preferably 1GB.

basmic

Download SIW from http://www.gtopala.com/. On that page there are two green Download SIW buttons - you want the Standalone English Version. Save that somewhere, then run it.

Once loaded, from the File menu on the upper left, choose Create Report File > HTML > a new window, titled Save As Type, will open.

From this window, click the Options button - a window, titled Preferences will now open. On the left hand side, if it isn't already, press + to expand Report and click on Software.

The easiest thing to do here, is click the None button, then put a tick in the box next to Installed Programs - or you could just untick all the boxes, except for Installed Programs!

On the left hand side, under Report, click Hardware and press the None button - then do the same for Network.

Once that little lot has been done, click the Save button. Type in a filename for the report, if you wish to do so, then click the Save button - after that, just upload the report to somewhere such as MediaFire (link) and post the link to the file here.

phil11

Run task Manager, select Processes and order by memory usage to see what is taking up all the resources. Update your anti-virus and defragment the disk.

aliEnRIK

You definitely need more ram ~ 1 gig is a minimum and will be a HUGH increase in speed to what you have now

aliEnRIK

Gamer wrote: »

I have just commented on the same thing in another post.

RAM should not depend on speed, it should depend on what you are using the computer for.

If you are using the computer for photo editing, video editing or web design then you should really consider upping your RAM to the maximum capacity. People will tell you that there is not much point in this but if you want to be able to run the machine with many windows open and editing many things at one time then the more RAM you have the better.

Head over to Crucial (just google them) and use their System Scanner to determine what your system can take. Crucial will tell you all of the relevant information that you need and then you can go ahead and sort you system out to get it working in the best possible way

It has 256Mb RAM
If 1 gig didnt seriously increase its speed id saw my foot off and eat it