Laptop Cleanup

kah22

I'ts just turned 9 O'Clock here where I live, it is a wet, dreary, Sunday morning and I'm resisting the temptation of throwing the laptop out the window: I need counselling!

OK it is a common problem I know you have the computer for several years and it begins to drag when you boot it up. And it is a common quest - what the hell do you do???

I done all the normal things: defragmented, checked for virus and spyware, and tried to clean up my start up programs (the ones in the bottom right) but I don't think I'm getting anywhere. I've really only used the computer for business purposes, theres no massive archive of photos, no massive song lists, no films, it's mainly all text type stuff.

What I need is a 'How To Clean Up Your Computer And Make It Run Like New For Dummies' So any ideas. I was thinking that perhaps there might be some software out there that would help me get over the problem - a thrity day FREE trial would be nice

Please reply you could save a computers life - and save me some money

Kevin

[Deleted User]

1. Uninstall all unnecessary programs from Control Panel then restart your computer.
2. Run Windows Update: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ then restart your computer.
3. Run CCleaner: http://www.ccleaner.com
4. Run an anti-virus scan: http://www.free-av.com/
5. Run an anti-spyware scan: http://www.superantispyware.com/
6, Run an anti-malware scan: http://www.malwarebytes.org/
7. Check the VRAM settings i.e.:

- Click Start, then open the Control Panel.
- Click Performance and Maintenance, and then click System.
- Click the Advanced tab.
- Under Performance, click Settings.
- Click the Advanced tab.
- Under Virtual memory, click Change.
- Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the paging file (virtual memory) settings that you want to change. In almost every case, this will be your C: drive.
- Click to select the "System managed size" option, then click Set.
- Click OK three times and restart your computer.

8. Run a defrag: http://www.defraggler.com/
9. Investigate msconfig: http://netsquirrel.com/msconfig/
10. Perform disk error checking: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265

tomsutton529

or, get everything you want to keep onto an external hard drive or dvd/cd and reinstall windows. All the machines I reapir that come with a report sheet saying they are runnin slow get wiped.

MrCarrot

Personally I would backup all of your work and emails to an external hard drive or DVD, and then reformat it and reinstall windows. Usually you can do this using the Windows CD or a "factory recovery" CD that comes with the computer.

You must be thorough in backing up all your stuff, including emails, address books, pictures, etc, etc - otherwise at the end of the exercise you'll discover you've forgotten something and it'll be lost.

Strider590

You can try moving your large and non-program files onto another drive, then running a defrag and moving them back. This forces the MFT (master file table) to clean itself up a bit and doesn't take as long as a full reinstall.
FYI, the reason PC's/Laptops slow down over time, is fragmentation of the MFT. It doesn't always get cleaned properly and fragments and data is moved around the drive to make way for new data.

You certainly don't always need to wipe everything, there's a bunch of clueless "engineers" around by my area of business who wipe PC's to fix silly things like malware and spyware infections. I tend to take things on more of an individual basis.

Try the above though, if you haven't got a lot of actual programs installed, it's worth a go.