laptop trouble....

murphy61

Hi, my dell 5100 is running at a snail's pace... or slower. It was all right this afternoon when I switched it off, been running fine all day, no new programs installed or anything. I have avg and spyware doctor running all the time so can't see how it could be a virus/trojan. I can hear the processor ticking occasionally, sounds like it's nearly stopped. Sounds a bit scratchy too. The processor light is on all the time - not flashing like it normally does. Task manager says cpu at 0-2%. Does anyone have any ideas?

chaosfoz666

use ccleaner it free and easy to use. get it to clean all the old files from your pc. then let it look at the registry. Let it fix any problems there.

Once this is done. The most important step. DEFRAGMENT your hard drive.

murphy61

can't run any programs! defraggged recently anyway. I do a lot of video editing so regularly clear garbage off the hard disk. BTW, the symptoms are the same in safe mode..

Browntoa

sounds like hard disk problems....back the mother up now !!!!

only other thing ticking could be is the processor fan

speedfan will show processor temp and fan speed if motherboard supports it

murphy61

thought it might be something like that.... you reckon hard disk as opposed to cpu? Occasionally it'll come to life as normal, then suddenly slows right down again.

poppy_f1

i'd back everything up then use the recovery disks to get back to factory settings and see how things are then

murphy61

backing up as we speak.... recovery disks? I bought it 2nd hand on ebay! Although, I must say it has given me no trouble till now and must be 4 years old..

albertross_2

never seen a cpu light, it's probably the hard disk light, and as already suggested, a ticking noise is usually a sign of impending doom.

If you don't have recovery disks, do a disk image, so if you have to put a new HD in, you can recover the os as well as data.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=4174503&postcount=150

http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm

I wouldn't defrag it.., could tip it over the edge!

murphy61

that's very helpful. I'm backing up to an external hard drive at the moment. Is it feasible to put in a new hd? Is that something I could do myself? I know how to get the back off.......!

murphy61

Thanks very much for that. Just finishing the backup, then I'll get going with driveimagexml tomorrow. It seems to be running better now, but I've got a bad feeling about it.... nothing lasts forever. Thanks again