Quote: Lee Henman @ April 28 2009, 3:55 PM BSTDumped 12 DVD movies off the hd.
Calling all computer geeks Page 2
Quote: Lee Henman @ April 28 2009, 3:55 PM BSTDumped 12 DVD movies off the hd.
!
Thanks for all the extra info and advice on here.
I do enjoy a scan disc and defrag - it's something I can actually manage to do and I find it quite satisfying to watch all the files being 'tidied up'.
I tried doing that today, to speed up my slow computer.
But it was doing it so f**king slowly I gave up. 
Awwwwww
Can I just say that I have no idea how to do ANY of the stuff you've been talking about.
Rob the Luddite, coming for your new-fangled thinking boxes armed with his sledge hammer and some trite folk songs.
Aw! Does somebody type on here for you?
Dan
Nah, I just hit the keyboard with the sledgehamer and press Enter. It's like monkeys with typewriters and Shakespeare only with a lower success rate.
Note to self: must be funny, one day. Soon.
Quote: Jane P @ April 28 2009, 7:29 PM BSTI do enjoy a scan disc and defrag - it's something I can actually manage to do and I find it quite satisfying to watch all the files being 'tidied up'.
In that case you won't enjoy Vista, as it has made 'Defrag' almost invisible. No more sexy multi-coloured, animated graphics display of the defrag process.
First problem is you installed Vista, butthat's too late now, would have been better off keeping to XP, personally I never install a new OS until it's been out for a few years and had time to be thoroughly tested and updated especially if it's Microsoft (Most Intelligent Customers Realise Our Software Only Fools Teenagers (Geek Joke)).
Don't know much about Vista but if it's taking a long time to start up obviously there is a lot of data crap the processor is sorting through during boot up until it finally gives you control of the PC. As the others suggested adaware and antivirus programmes with a defragmentation will help with this.
Another option is clearing your desktop of items that don't need to be there, if like mine your desktop is full of folders , apps etc... it may take longer to load the OS best to rearrange the files keeping the desktop as clear as possible.
Also disabling part of the prefetch cache will help a great deal, don't know how to do this in Vista but could tell you how to do it in XP. Or just Google prefetch cache XP or Vista and it will probably come up with a guide for your OS.
Very roughly, what the Prefetch does is preload programs you have used a lot in the past during boot up to make launch faster after boot up, after time this cache may be full of 'crap' so disabling parts will increase boot up speed.
IMPORTANT, before doing anything always back up your most important files!
Quote: Kenneth @ April 29 2009, 2:04 AM BSTIn that case you won't enjoy Vista, as it has made 'Defrag' almost invisible. No more sexy multi-coloured, animated graphics display of the defrag process.
>_<
HeyNonny - in the history of computing has a new version of anything ever been ready before they unleashed it on a (mostly computer illiterate) public?
Obviously, computers generally are amazingly, magical creatures but when they stop working the problem is usually some 'new improved' version of software.
Go on tell us the truth - is it all a conspiracy? - like the pesky spammers who also make the anti spam software? Which by the way has suddenly become a big problem at work lately - it used to be under control by the IT dept but now it's infiltrating everywhere. What's going on!?
I've got the email of some Nigerian Prince who claims he knows all the answers to your questions. Just send me your account details and I'll put him in touch.
(BTW best 'scam-baiting' ever is in the link below. It's one of the funniest things I've read on the internet. It is *very* long but well worth a read: http://www.419eater.com/html/bigman.htm . I've posted it before a while back, but here it is again for all you that have joined recently.)
Dan
Quote: Lee Henman @ April 28 2009, 3:55 PM BSTOkaaaay so...
AVG was set to scan the pc at 5 pm every day. I've changed that to midnight. Uninstalled 22 programs I don't use. Ran disk clean and defragged. Dumped 12 DVD movies off the hd. Restarted and it certainly feels zippier!Cheers guys
If it's any help, I also run a thing called CleanUp! which helped speed my pc up a little bit when it started getting sluggish. Now I just use it every now and then.
I got it from here:
Quote: Jane P @ April 29 2009, 7:51 AM BST>_<
HeyNonny - in the history of computing has a new version of anything ever been ready before they unleashed it on a (mostly computer illiterate) public?
Obviously, computers generally are amazingly, magical creatures but when they stop working the problem is usually some 'new improved' version of software.
Go on tell us the truth - is it all a conspiracy? - like the pesky spammers who also make the anti spam software? Which by the way has suddenly become a big problem at work lately - it used to be under control by the IT dept but now it's infiltrating everywhere. What's going on!?
If it's Microsoft no. Nearly all software contains bugs or other 'stuff' just about all software applications are prorammed by a team of people producing modules which when put together may not be 100 percent compatible. Some companies especially anti-virus developers program their software with the intent to make it conflict with any other anti-virus software you may have installed, the reason why you should never have more than one anti-virus program on your PC.
The most stable software is the free open source software, this is developed by programmers then distributed to programmers worldwide who then debug, enhance, reprogram etc literally hundreds of thousands of programmers debugging, testing and improving software, and all for free. Microsoft would never be able to afford a huge army of programmers to develop, test and upgrade Windows,that's why it crashes so often and Linux or Unix is super stable and will never crash and is updated virtually daily.
Conspiracy? I worked as a programmer for a software company some years back, and it's not unknown to use legal but questionable tactics to give your product a market edge. Don't do this anymore, I just use evil cunning plans to get people to page one of Google now, it's more fun than pretending to laugh at geek jokes about variables and arrays.
Just one more thing about the old PCs running slow Lee. Back up everything!
The life expectancy of a hard drive is 3-5 years. Ok I know pleanty of people with hard drives about 10 years old which are still working, but when your drive is more than 4 years old the chance of the data getting corrupt or the drive just quitting is pretty high. I just had a 120GB drive full of stuff die on me, it was only 14 months old.
Hehe -- if you type 'search engine' into Google, it doesn't find Google till the bottom of the second page of results.
Well, it made me laugh...
Dan