Computer Help-please

[lips_sealed]

Ok. I know there have been thread about this before. Here is what I need to do ASAP.

My dads puter is sooooooo slow, and I have tried disk cleanup, degrag. Still runs every slow. I thought I would re-load the whole thing.

Steps to follow:

Copy all data i want to save.
Insert the OS CD that came with it, and reload.
Reload any additional software, including MSN for internet.

Do I have everything? Is it that simple, just insert the OS cd and let it load? How long should this take.

Waiting for reply before I get started.
thanks

 

[GWguy]

Ok. I know there have been thread about this before. Here is what I need to do ASAP.

My dads puter is sooooooo slow, and I have tried disk cleanup, degrag. Still runs every slow. I thought I would re-load the whole thing.

Steps to follow:

Copy all data i want to save.
Insert the OS CD that came with it, and reload.
Reload any additional software, including MSN for internet.

Do I have everything? Is it that simple, just insert the OS cd and let it load? How long should this take.

Waiting for reply before I get started.
thanks

Typically, yes, those are the steps. You need to answer a bunch of questions as the installer does it's thing, but it's pretty straightforward. Before you use the OS CD, reboot and watch for the boot up keystrokes (F2 for Setup, F12 for alternate devices, etc..). See if there is a Restore or Reload option. Some manufacturers (HP) put the OS load on a small partition on the hard drive and you can load it from there. If not, use the CD.

 

[Kordolar]

Ok. I know there have been thread about this before. Here is what I need to do ASAP.

My dads puter is sooooooo slow, and I have tried disk cleanup, degrag. Still runs every slow. I thought I would re-load the whole thing.

Steps to follow:

Copy all data i want to save.
Insert the OS CD that came with it, and reload.
Reload any additional software, including MSN for internet.

Do I have everything? Is it that simple, just insert the OS cd and let it load? How long should this take.

Waiting for reply before I get started.
thanks

A very basic breakdown yes but as GWguy mentions there's little details missing.

If your using the manufacturer's disk more than likely it will restore the original install image. This can certainly be a time saver but it depends if you want all the junk that is atypically loaded along side the image. This is also a destructive process so don't just backup to a separate folder on the machine because it will be wiped out by the image.

If it's a actual Windows installation disk you will get a clean installation. Depending on age you might have issues with drivers if you don't have the original disks with the system. You may need to get the boot controller drivers onto a floppy or thumb dive if dealing with Vista, so that the installation will recognize the hard drive. This is needed for a lot of newer systems that have on-board RAID controllers that the majority of people don't even make use of but is included regardless. You would know if this is necessary if the installation is unable to find a hard drive to install too.

Again depending on the age of the machine it should automatically boot from the cdrom. You would see something like "Hit any key to boot cdrom" before the normal OS starts. If it doesn't then you'll have to look for either a boot selection prompt during the BIOS post or if it doesn't have one a Setup option that will allow you to change the boot order to place the cdrom before the hard drive.

As long as you have a good backup; burned cd/dvd, external hard drive, thumb drive, etc. It's fairly straightforward with default options being adequate most of the time. Please make sure the stuff to save is on something external to the system. I would recommend during the installation to reformat the drive to get rid of anything legacy. If you just backed up to a folder on the hard drive then you'll accidentally wipe that out doing so.

Time wise depends. If your going from a straight OS cd then it would take 1-2 hours just to patch after the initial installation. A lot of time can be saved if you download the service pack for whatever OS your installing before hand and place on a cd or external drive. After that it's just loading the applications back which I couldn't guess without knowing what is being installed.

Also, unless it's a malware problem, you could continue plinking at the current installation. Though typically it's malware that causes a slow down issue the system could simply be running a lot of applications it doesn't need to be. If the system tray has a massive number of applications in it, if there's a lot of services running, etc, will slow a machine down significantly without being malicious. Unfortunately cleaning up that particular issue is more of a experience determination since it would be hard for someone unknown to determine whether something really needs to be running or not.

 

[Gwydion]

Just make sure that you have your drivers backed up. Especially your internet driver. Because if you don't...then you are going to shoot yourself in the foot trying to get back and operational. As long as you have the internet driver, you can connect to HP's website where (I assume) you can get the remaining drivers.

Which you should do anyway, because new drivers are released quite often and will allow your computer to have better performance.

If you don't have your driver CD, then copy your driver to a USB thumb drive. USB 1.1 is defaulted, so you don't even need to worry about USB 2.0 compatibility.

 

[Jeff]

Try going to the Manufacturer's website as well. Some actually have a list of all the drivers in one spot for your particular make/model of Computer.

There might even be a step by step guide on how to go about reinstalling things.

Possibly even an 800 # to call if you have any questions or run into any snags along the way.

When I first got into Computers, I knew nothing, when I ran into a glitch, I dumped them and reinstalled everything. Did this MANY a time. This was before everything came nice and neat on 1-2 CDs. It's pretty cut & dry nowadays though.

 

[forceofnature]

Use Linux. I dont remember it ever getting slow.

 

[LordStanley]

how old is the computer???

How big is the harddrive thats in the computer???

How much data was stored on the harddrive.


There are tons of reasons a computer slows down over time. Normal wear and tear on the hardware, harddrive full of data, too many processes running in the background....

wiping the drive and reloading everything is not always the best course of action.

upgrading you memory and increasing the size of the paging file will speed up the computer and be a lot easier than starting from scratch

 

[BLUIGAL]

Re: purchase of new big screen t.v.....help!

Hello everyone, can anyone please give me some advice on what is a good brand of t.v. to buy...looking for 42-50 inch t.v. I have little or no knowledge about the new technology and will appreciate any help you can offer.....thanks very much.

 

[Gwydion]

Hello everyone, can anyone please give me some advice on what is a good brand of t.v. to buy...looking for 42-50 inch t.v. I have little or no knowledge about the new technology and will appreciate any help you can offer.....thanks very much.

My help is to create a new topic so a question about a tv ain't in the computer section.

 

[BLUIGAL]

Sorry.........I made a mistake.......

 

[Inkpen]

how old is the computer???

How big is the harddrive thats in the computer???

How much data was stored on the harddrive.


There are tons of reasons a computer slows down over time. Normal wear and tear on the hardware, harddrive full of data, too many processes running in the background....

wiping the drive and reloading everything is not always the best course of action.

upgrading you memory and increasing the size of the paging file will speed up the computer and be a lot easier than starting from scratch

Often times adding more memory solves the problem.
WinXP hogs tons of memory!!!!!

 

[kwillia]

Hello everyone, can anyone please give me some advice on what is a good brand of t.v. to buy...looking for 42-50 inch t.v. I have little or no knowledge about the new technology and will appreciate any help you can offer.....thanks very much.

Here is what worked very well for me... make note of the manufacturer, make/model # of the specific TVs you are interest in. Go the MSN.COM and type in the full model # followed by the word review into the search engine. You can read the reviews of people that bought that specific TV and they are usually very detailed about pros and cons. Weed out the ones with negative reviews and then make your selection from there.

 

[BLUIGAL]

Thanks so much, I appreciate your help, have a great day........

 

[lips_sealed]

how old is the computer???

How big is the harddrive thats in the computer???

How much data was stored on the harddrive.


There are tons of reasons a computer slows down over time. Normal wear and tear on the hardware, harddrive full of data, too many processes running in the background....

wiping the drive and reloading everything is not always the best course of action.

upgrading you memory and increasing the size of the paging file will speed up the computer and be a lot easier than starting from scratch

Just found out, puter did not come with CDs, documentation says use sysem restore. I dont know if that will work. I ordered the CDs.

Now I wonder if that will work or not. here is what they have.
Dell Dimension DE051 Intel(r)
Celeron (R) CPU 2.53GHZ
253 GHZ, 256 MB of RAM

and I looked on the c drive and it says this
Capacity 71.4GB
Used Space: 10.3GB
Free space: 61.1 GB


This computer is so slow. It takes at least 3-6 min for something to load, then it gets hung up.

 

[LordStanley]

Just found out, puter did not come with CDs, documentation says use sysem restore. I dont know if that will work. I ordered the CDs.

Now I wonder if that will work or not. here is what they have.
Dell Dimension DE051 Intel(r)
Celeron (R) CPU 2.53GHZ
253 GHZ, 256 MB of RAM

and I looked on the c drive and it says this
Capacity 71.4GB
Used Space: 10.3GB
Free space: 61.1 GB


This computer is so slow. It takes at least 3-6 min for something to load, then it gets hung up.

256 megs of ram isnt alot nowadays. If you have a lot of applications auto loading and running in the background, the computer will be slow as heck.
This is natural... The more advanced programs become, the more memory they eat up. I would buy as much as the motherboard will allow. Dell should be able to tell you the limit. Memory is cheap $$$...

At this point dont wipe it, if your just going to put everything back on there. You will end up back with a slow computer.

Are all the vendor patches up to date??? (Xp hotfixes, office patches, virus definitions...) You might have spy/ad ware or a root kit, that is causing your machine to be slow.

If you take the machine back to what was installed from the factory, it will be faster, untill you start loading all the other things back on it. The more programs you install over the course of the computers life, the slower it becomes.....

here are a couple senerios

1- you have a virus, add/spyware or root kit slowing your machine down. Wipe and restore, but restoring is not easy, since you need to connect back to the internet and download all the Microsoft patches and any other vendor patches. Dont forget you will also have to reconfigure the machine so it can connect back to the internet.
2- your harddrive is bad or going bad... Reloading wont fix your problem.
3- not enough memory to support your applications. Easy fix to upgrade and expand the size of the paging file...

 

[dn0121]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows CE; PPC; 240x320))

is an internet driver like a nascar driver?

 

[lips_sealed]

256 megs of ram isnt alot nowadays. If you have a lot of applications auto loading and running in the background, the computer will be slow as heck.
This is natural... The more advanced programs become, the more memory they eat up. I would buy as much as the motherboard will allow. Dell should be able to tell you the limit. Memory is cheap $$$...

At this point dont wipe it, if your just going to put everything back on there. You will end up back with a slow computer.

Are all the vendor patches up to date??? (Xp hotfixes, office patches, virus definitions...) You might have spy/ad ware or a root kit, that is causing your machine to be slow.

If you take the machine back to what was installed from the factory, it will be faster, untill you start loading all the other things back on it. The more programs you install over the course of the computers life, the slower it becomes.....

here are a couple senerios

1- you have a virus, add/spyware or root kit slowing your machine down. Wipe and restore, but restoring is not easy, since you need to connect back to the internet and download all the Microsoft patches and any other vendor patches. Dont forget you will also have to reconfigure the machine so it can connect back to the internet.
2- your harddrive is bad or going bad... Reloading wont fix your problem.
3- not enough memory to support your applications. Easy fix to upgrade and expand the size of the paging file...

Sounds like my best bet would be to upgrade memory and see if that helps at all.

 

[jrt_ms1995]

256 megs of ram isnt alot nowadays. If you have a lot of applications auto loading and running in the background, the computer will be slow as heck.
This is natural... The more advanced programs become, the more memory they eat up. I would buy as much as the motherboard will allow. Dell should be able to tell you the limit. Memory is cheap $$$...

At this point dont wipe it, if your just going to put everything back on there. You will end up back with a slow computer.

..

Not necessarily; if this machine is more than a few years old it may require now-obsolete memory, and you can pay a hefty price if you can find any. Current memory is certainly cheap (historically). I searched Dell's site, but could find no info on this model number (I suspect there's a typo above). Anyway, insufficient memory is almost certainly the major part of the problem. Check here Apple Compaq Dell HP Sony Gateway Computer Memory - Data Memory Systems for prices; I've used them since the mid-90's with no problems. Be sure you get the model number correct, and get as much as you can.

Edit-
If it's actually a Dell Dimension E510 the motherboard can support up to 4 gigabytes (16 times what's in it now) of memory. You shouldn't need that much. Data Memory Systems has 1 GB memory modules for the E510 for $19 each; buy a gig and stick it in.

 

[RadioPatrol]

Edit-
If it's actually a Dell Dimension E510 the motherboard can support up to 4 gigabytes (16 times what's in it now) of memory. You shouldn't need that much. Data Memory Systems has 1 GB memory modules for the E510 for $19 each; buy a gig and stick it in.

Ahem .... @ 20 a stick no reason not to go all in and do 2 1Gb Sticks and 2 512s for a total of 3 gbs of memory ...

I have Dell 400SC (cheap server ) I was using as a desktop and it was very quick on 3 Gb ...

P4 2.4 Gh Proc 3 Gb Ram, 2 320Gb Hard Drives ...

I would recommend a memory upgrade, back up data, do a wipe and clean install ... set the Swap File @ a static size like 3Gb ... it yrs past the recommendation was 1.5 times the memory but with 3Gb it is not really required