PC very slow to respond to actions and browsing

OK please try IE again and let me know the results now.

Hi rshaffer61, Opening IE to google home page took 30secs Opening Bigpond took 26 secs (9 seconds to clickable links) Opening Webmail login box 3 secs Open Inbox of webmail 28secs Logout of webmail 36 secs Reload home page 7 secs Open Qantas page 19 secs These times seem rather similar to those for most of the Add-ons checking. They are certainly much faster than when I first started on this in the malware forum and first got the javascript links working. I await your advice on the next move. Kangaroo

Tutorial for running chkdsk in Vista\Win 7 located HERE.

Hi rshaffer61, I did that, scheduling the chkdsk on restart. When it ran it gave the message "the drive is clean" and took very little time. I had checked both check disk options. Where to now? Kangaroo Extra: I was bemused by the chkdsk I reported so decided to do it again while I waited for your response. This time it is doing what I expected. It is now into stage 3 of 5. I'll report whe it is complete. Kangaroo

I was going to say something wasn't right because it should have taken a lot longer to complete. I will wait for the results and BTW you are doing a great job.

Thanks for your kind words. We have just started stage 5 of 5. Kangaroo

Hi rshaffer61, CHKDSK has now completed. Kangaroo

OK how is the system now?

Hi rshaffer61, Startup to logon is 95 secs then to desktop is 24 secs to HDD activity light not continuously flickering is 119 secs (total from entering p'wrd) Opening Word 2007 for first time to blank document is 49ecs; to open last doc is 9 secs Closing Word 5 secs Opening Word again to a blank document 15 secs Opening IE to google home page took 42 secs Shuting down IE 1 sec Opening IE a second time 15 secs Opening Bigpond took 45 secs (13 seconds to clickable links) Opening Webmail login box 7 secs Open Inbox of webmail 40 secs Logout of webmail 51 secs Reload home page 3 secs Open Qantas page 32 secs Shutting IE is <1 sec Open Excel 2007 4 secs Open weight record spreadsheet 1.5secs Close Excel <1 sec These times are a bit slower than before the CHKSK but that may be to do with their being done the first time. Also, my neighbour has agreed to source the additional 1Gb of RAM to go to the maximum of 2Gb RAM. (This is a Win7 Starter OS 32-bit with the Intel Atom N450 1.66GHz CPU) Do you think there is any more we can do before upgrading the RAM? Kangaroo

I highly doubt it at this point. You should be very surprised at the speed increase you will get with the additional memory. I would not be surprised at all if your times are a 1\4 of what they are now.

my neighbor has agreed to source the additional 1Gb of RAM to go to the maximum of 2Gb RAM.

Don't buy a 1GB stick of RAM as the PC only has one ram slot!

You need to buy a single 2GB stick of ram and then remove the 1GB stick from the PC and replace it with the 2GB stick.
See my original link for buying ram here in OZ as that is as cheap as you will get it anywhere. The link shows the ram model you need.

If you wish, the old stick can be sold on ebay to recoup some of the cost.

Cheers and good luck,
Lee

Good catch Lee and thanks for stepping in on that.

My apologies, Lee and rshaffer61, my wording was poor. I'm aware that we only have one slot and that what we need is the 2Gb stick of memory to replace the existing 1Gb stick. Thanks for making that clear though. I see that delivery is up to two weeks (10 business days) so it may be awhile before we see the blinding speed of the extra RAM. Do we do a cleanup of programs used now and just await the hardware upgrade? You mentioned before using TFC and Auslogics Defrag (I think they were the two) for routine housekeeping in future; is that right? Would you mind giving me the cleanup steps I should take now before returning the netbook to its home, if you think that is where we are at, please? Kangaroo

You mentioned before using TFC and Auslogics Defrag (I think they were the two) for routine housekeeping in future; is that right?

Yes at minimum once a month. The newer OS's since Xp do a better job at keeping the system defragged but this will help.

Would you mind giving me the cleanup steps I should take now before returning the netbook to its home, if you think that is where we are at, please?

You can run TFC and then Auslogics Defrag and then it should be ok when the memory finally arrives.

My thanks to rshaffer61, Lee, Ztruker, uchkur and of course Tomk from the Malware forum who started this repair process for us. Thanks to to Lee for the links to a local supplier and to YouTube on installing the memory; I've located the video for the Dell 1012 (this model) and thankfully it is one of the simpler netbooks to upgrade memory in. Once again, WTT makes solving a problem a delight. Thanks guys. Kangaroo