My desktop has slowed down

P

pedruid

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:confused:Good morning all. My desktop which is only about 6 months old has become very slow to react to commands such as Firefox and often has to refresh the desktop icons. I have deleted old files and defragged the drive but to no avail.
Any help will be much appreciated.:D

I am operating XP Home and have 2 GB of RAM.
 
Run an up to date anti virus program, if it finds any viruses and removes it and your pc is still slow you're probably going to have to reformat and reinstall windows
 
yea, reformat windows. with windows xp u typically have to formart more then once a year to keep the pc running at full performance... if u cant or dont want to for some reason try a good registry cleaner like cc cleaner, works quite well to get ride of all the files on your pc that u dont need.
 
when you guys say backup your stuff then reformat does that mean backup to disc then reformat the pc?
 
Dude this is one of xp's worst traits, reload it because nothing but a fresh install will bring the speed back. Wayne what i do it keep my all info on a seperate hdd to windows so when i reload i just format the windows drive.

Although with windows 7 i don't think i will be reloading as often as i did with xp. I had vista running for nearly 2 years with no re-load, when i used xp i loaded it fresh every 4 months or so :D. The nice thing about xp though is all the reloading money you make from clients cause they get agro it is so slow.
 
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And here I was using my same install of Windows XP for years on end without having to reformat ;)

EDIT: By all means go ahead and reformat your PC, but by applying best practices (not opening unsafe attachments, running a decent anti-virus suite, not visiting dodgy websites, not installing non-WHQL drivers if possible, etc) on the new install you shouldn't have to do it again.
 
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i am also running windows xp and have only had to reformat or reinstall the windows xp disc when my pc had a virus and crashed. now i worry that with all the stuff i have added onto my pc and all the stuff under my favourites and bookmarks i might not be able to backup everything without losing something along the line. i normally add then later delete stuff i am not using anymore and the wife says this is gonna cause my pc to mess up, it already crashes everyone and again and almost every few hours my IE will crash and then restart the session or Opera will crash and i would have to restart that session. already today the other spare hard drive that you guys helped me with is still giving me a full repost even though i deleted stuff.

i guess its all my fault anyway because i spend hours on the forum and always downloading new stuff for my pc.
 
The_Techie said:
And here I was using my same install of Windows XP for years on end without having to reformat ;)

EDIT: By all means go ahead and reformat your PC, but by applying best practices (not opening unsafe attachments, running a decent anti-virus suite, not visiting dodgy websites, not installing non-WHQL drivers if possible, etc) on the new install you shouldn't have to do it again.
Click to expand...

Strange though how on vista and windows 7 you can load anything you like and i never suffered the same slow down that xp does.

Personally i find using an OS that has 100 different things you should not install annoying and i would rather reload xp tons of times than avoid practically doing anything :D

Wayne is it not our fault we want to use windows xp to do stuff man, if that means it slows down well that is microsoft's fault, they fixed it in vista and windows 7.
 
killadoob said:
Strange though how on vista and windows 7 you can load anything you like and i never suffered the same slow down that xp does.
Click to expand...

Then you are either very unlucky when it comes to Windows XP or very lucky when it comes to Windows Vista/7. In fact I still have a Windows XP install on my build that I use to experiment with new software dating back to the start of 2006, which is still running smoothly even though it gets new software installed and uninstalled daily.

killadoob said:
Personally i find using an OS that has 100 different things you should not install annoying and i would rather reload xp tons of times than avoid practically doing anything :D
Click to expand...

Well it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that not installing untested, uncertified drivers is not the best course of action if you want to maintain a solid operating system install, regardless of whether you're using Windows XP or Windows 7.

In fact I've had Windows 7 slowly break (slowdowns aplenty) after installing third party drivers for my ZyXEL G-202 wireless adapter. Do I blame the operating system for this, or myself for not applying best practices? ;)

killadoob said:
if that means it slows down well that is microsoft's fault, they fixed it in vista and windows 7.
Click to expand...

I disagree on both counts. Feel free to come visit some day and I'll show you the two different builds and how easily I can slow down Windows 7 by doing foolish installs on it ;)
 
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Explain to me techie why i have reload so many xp systems that i have lost count over the years because they have become so slow? this is not a user problem but an xp problem.

I am not talking my own system here but clients pc's that have drivers and some work apps with nothing dodgy being done. Dude sadly as much as you want to believe because your system has never seemed to have the problem that everyone who suffers from it loads dodgy drivers and visits dodgy websites is very naive. It is a problem with xp without a doubt and the only reason i picked up on it and know it is such a problem is because i have loaded xp so many times on clients pc's and had to reload them tons after because the pc's went from being nice and fast to running like p1's.

I also not heard of many windows 7 users bitching about their dog slow pc's either.
 
killadoob said:
Explain to me techie why i have reload so many xp systems that i have lost count over the years because they have become so slow? this is not a user problem but an xp problem.

I am not talking my own system here but clients pc's that have drivers and some work apps with nothing dodgy being done. Dude sadly as much as you want to believe because your system has never seemed to have the problem that everyone who suffers from it loads dodgy drivers and visits dodgy websites is very naive. It is a problem with xp without a doubt and the only reason i picked up on it and know it is such a problem is because i have loaded xp so many times on clients pc's and had to reload them tons after because the pc's went from being nice and fast to running like p1's.
Click to expand...

Then I'll counter your question with my own: Why have none of the Windows XP machines that I've set up (set up more than a hundred for my high school alone) not experienced the same slowdown that you are referring to, even though they're at the mercy of high school pupils who love trying to break a system?

I also most certainly did not imply that everyone "loads dodgy drivers and visits dodgy websites", I merely included them in a very small list of things to avoid doing if you want a stable system. Don't attack the straw man ;)

killadoob said:
I also not heard of many windows 7 users bitching about their dog slow pc's either.
Click to expand...

I've heard of quite a few (including myself). To use your logic, just because you have had good experiences with Windows 7 doesn't mean that the thousands of people who are not having good experiences don't exist or did something else that must've caused their PCs to slow down because Microsoft fixed the slowdowns, that's just naive :p
 
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Who knows dude, anyways go put into google my xp machine is slowing down. So i would say it is wide spread problem.
 
I'm running XP here on all machines except for the Mac Pro and never had a virus or malware. I had malware picked up in emails, webpages and on USB sticks but none has ever infected my machines since - DOS 5 and Win 3.1 days.

I've had driver installs and registry corruptions destroy Windows 9x and XP installations, the registry corruptions on the XP. Windows if adequately secured can work but it has to be secured that way FIRST. TheTechie is probably very competent in this regard. Good for him.
 
killadoob said:
Who knows dude, anyways go put into google my xp machine is slowing down. So i would say it is wide spread problem.
Click to expand...

Code: 
My XP machine is slowing down - 221,000 results

Code: 
My Windows 7 machine is slowing down - 149,000 results

Seems to be either a widespread problem with both or a problem with neither? ;)
 
killadoob said:
Who knows dude, anyways go put into google my xp machine is slowing down. So i would say it is wide spread problem.
Click to expand...

Considering that XP has been around for almost a a decade and 7 is not released, I would expect the results to be overwhelming.
 
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