Help with Dell laptop please

Maureen43

Hi All


I have a two year old Dell laptop which runs incredibly slowly when online. It is virtually un-useable.


This morning the CPU is running at 75% with physical memory.


Over the last few weeks I have uninstalled programs no longer needed and run ccleaner.


This morning I have some done some digging under performance monitoring in the control panel and have had the message that start up is slow due to number of programs. Which should I delete?




Alps Pointing-device driver
IDT PC Audio
Quickset
Stage Remote manager




stage_primary
Catalyst control center
Nero launcher
Adobe Acrobat
Acrobat Reader and Acrobat Manager
accuweather
VProtect application
mcui_exe
Microsoft Office 2010
AVG Internet security



Also, any other ideas on how to make the thing run faster (before I throw it out of the window!

Laz123

I would suggest backing up your data first then restore it to factory settings. This will format and reinstall windows. You will notice the difference immediately afterwards.

kstanley7

if you go into your startup via msconfig remove these from startup:
Nero launcher,
adobe acrobat,
acrobat reader and manager, microsoft office 2010 and stage_protect, the last item is dells bloatware and not really important.
I will keep an eye on this thread to help you out

Maureen43

If I delete these items from start up I assume I can still run them once the machine has booted up?


Shortcuts etc won't be deleted, will they?


Any other suggestions on speeding the machine up?


Thanks

debitcardmayhem

Do you use stage remote to stream ? If not disable it. You say it's unusable online , have you run a speed check on say http://speedtest.net/. It may be just your DNS settings. Have you scanned with Malwarebytes Free

Edit: Oh and how do you connect wifi or ethernet cable?

Maureen43

Bump - can anyone help?

Geep

How much RAM do you have installed, compared with what is possible in your laptop? Increasing RAM is always helpful for improving performance.

You ask about removing startup programs, and while that may help with slow boot times, it will not necessarily improve overall performance. To answer your specific query, removing from startup simply means you stop them from being immediately available and taking resources when not needed. You can always start them via shortcuts etc, the start time of the program might be a second or two longer, but I suggest for nearly everyone that is not an issue.

If you haven’t noticed, Ccleaner has (under Tools) a Startup facility that identifies which programs will start when your laptop or browser starts, in various categories. It is very easy to alter the behaviour of individual programs this way – and to restore them as easily if the alteration causes undue delay. In principle, I would stop any program starting unless you regularly use it, or it is required for the proper use of your laptop.

Coolfish

I run malwarebytes anti-malware software about once every 2 weeks, this removes any malware, it made a massive difference to the speed on mine and it's free

NiftyDigits

https://forums.malwarebytes.org/index.php?/topic/135528-removal-instructions-for-vprotect/
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/497814/stage-primaryexe-application-error/
You also have remnants of McAfee hanging around.

What is the Service Tag written on the underside of the laptop?

Maureen43

Thanks for all the replies.


I've run the Malware scan and it found nothing.


The service tag is 4JP6LT1

NiftyDigits

That machine has a CPU not much more powerful than one in a Netbook. In fact in some cases, it is less powerful.

I can see that it came with a lot of bundled bumph. V Protect could be Malware or part of AVG. If you don't use the DELL Stage software, you should remove it, together with NERO's SyncUP.

Personally, I would back up my data and run a clean install of the OS, eliminating all of the bundled crud. Then installing only what I wanted.

Your CPU is very poor, with an average benchmark of 445 (AMD C-60)and this is a machine from 2012. It is diabolical that DELL was selling such a system two years ago.
By comparison, my laptop is from 2009 and is by no means hi-end. It has a Celeron CPU with an average benchmark of 947

The saving grace is that it has some kind of graphics chip and 4GB of RAM.

You can take a look at the Task Manager to see what is using up your resources.