slow

Good Morning, My computer has been very slow lately. It takes at least 8 mins. to start up, and If I try to open anything before that the computer freezes and then crashes…..and now a few days ago I noticed I had a few explicit ads pop up!! I run my anti virus daily, as well as my CCleaner, and bi weekly runs of spybot and adaware, as well as a defrag. I have already spoken with Scotty from the Malware team in the Hijack this forum, and he said there is no malware present. I am not sure how the microsoft forum runs, as I have never posted here. I am running Windows XP SP2 and just downloaded all the latest fixes. I own a Dell Inspiron B130 laptop, probably about 2 years old. It has a Intel celeron M 1.6 Ghz, which I know isnt the best processor, but like I said, I havent had these problems prior to a few months ago My hard drive shows 34.1 GB total And I believe I have 1 GB of RAM Again, I have never experienced my computer this bogged down before. If there is anything you could suggest, please let me know. Thanks Much, April

Hi CleanMe,

Your Hard Drive capacity is very small, how much free space is showing on it? If your HD is almost full, it would be hard to do a defragmentation on it. Right Click My Computer on your desktop > open > right click on your C:\Drive > Properties and there you will see a cake that tells you how much free space you have. You need at least 15% free space for a defragmentation to complete correctly.

How many startup programs have you got running? Go to Start > run > type msconfig > ok > click on the startup tab and tell us what is starting when you boot up. Many will slow your computer down to almost a halt.

Click Control/Alt/Delete and tell us how many processes are running on your computer? There could be many that are not necessary at startup which again will slow your boot time down to a crawl.

Post back with the details and we will try to assist you from there.

kind regards,

Try using ATF-Cleaner, it will clear your temp files giving you some diskspace back, I suggest you select empty all when you run it.
http://www.atribune.org/ccount/click.php?id=1

As for your pop-up problem, what browser do you use? If you use IE, I suggest Firefox as it is much better at blocking pop-ups.

To strengthen/turn on your pop-up blocker in IE:

1. Open IE and click the Tools button on the menu bar and choose Internet Options
2. Go to the Privacy tab and make sure "Turn on Pop-up Blocker" is checked. Also move the slider to Medium, if it is already there and you still get pop-ups you may consider trying Medium High or High.

Also, if you can identify the url of where the pop-ups are coming from, from the privacy tab if you click sites, you can add the url of a site to always block pop-ups from, this works fairly well.

To turn on your pop-up blocker in FF:

1. Open FFand click the Tools button on the menu bar and choose Options
2. Go to the Content tab and make sure "Block pop-up windows" is checked. Also move the slider to Medium, if it is already there and you still get pop-ups you may consider trying Medium High or High.

Unfortunately there is no way to strengthen your FF pop-up blocker, at least not that I know of.

April has already run several information collecting programs in her malware thread per Scotty's instructions. From what I can see there it looks like she may have too many programs starting a boot time. See this link: http://forums.whatthetech.com/slow_t95232.html

of the 34 GB of my hard drive, 21 are free. also, when i type msconfig into the run program, it says it cant be found……..?

Just to clarify what is happening, is this correct?

• When you go to Start
• Run
• type "msconfig" without the quotes
• Click OK
• You are told Msconfig "cannot be found"?

Please post back to confirm the above.

best regards,

yes, that is correct

From what I can see there it looks like she may have too many programs starting a boot time.

Definitely some that are duplicating efforts. I would uninstall Windows Defender, and Spy Bot with it's tea timer, and use MalwareBytes OR Super-anti Spyware. Then disable or uninstall/remove the Dell support stuff.
Tallon41

yes, that is correct

Try the following to make sure your OS has no missing or corrupt .dll files.

Windows Protected System File Checker SFC

• Start
• Run
• type:sfc /scannow (note the space between the c /)
• Have your Win XP installation disc handy as if damaged files are found they will need to be copied across from your disc
• If SFC can't find correct copies elsewhere.
  
  Windows XP Installation disc not available or wrong Service Pack - SP1 when SP2 is needed
  
  There are work- arounds to this problem but the easiest, by far is to borrow one and use that. It is perfectly OK to do this, for the purposes of running SFC,and if you ask around all your friends, you are likely to find someone who will be able to help you out.
  
  
  SFC no disc, no friends able to help.
  Well you will need to do it the harder way and as a registry edit will be required it is essential that you back up your registry before you do anything else. Then in the event of trouble it will be easier to repair your registry. Download ERUNT from here: and take a moment to familiarise yourself with the programme and how to repair your registry with it if it should become necessary. At the same time it would be wise to create a System Restore point, post back here if you need instructions on how to do this.
  
  For the alterations needed to run SFC Scannow . If you go there you will find detailed instructions on the copying of files and the system changes you need to make. When you have followed all the instructions, reboot you machine and try to run SFC again, and please let us know how you go.

There will be no notification on your desktop after the scan if all is well. The scan will take some time so please be patient. Post back for further advice or if you need to ask any more questions.

kind regards,

I installed Erunt. However, I know that you said if I dont have my XP disk I can go to the website and find out how to edit things myself, but when I went to the SFC info website you gave me, it still is telling me that I need my XP disk to install the I386 in order to make the insert disk notification go away…I do not have this disk and do not have access to it right now, I was hoping to resolve this asap. So is there a way I can repair what I need to repair without the disk? Or anyway I can download this file from the internet somewhere?

When I ran the SFC it did say I needed my disk. Also, I did a search and did indeed find the I386 present on my machine, and the sourcepath is correctly pointing to my hard drive. I now have no idea what to do….should I just download the msconfig zipped file for now and edit my startup programs before diving into these deeper registry problems?

Windows XP Installation disc not available or wrong Service Pack - SP1 when SP2 is needed
There are work- arounds to this problem but the easiest, by far is to borrow one and use that. It is perfectly OK to do this, for the purposes of running SFC,and if you ask around all your friends, you are likely to find someone who will be able to help you out.

My quote above is the only way that I know of to resolve your issue.

XP disk to install the I386 in order to make the insert disk notification go away

is part of your OS so you need the CD that by law should have come with your computer. Unless you can borrow one I have no answer for you I am sorry to say.

I know of no way to download OS from the internet as you need to purchase it and so I suggest you go and purchase your exact OS to repair your situation unless you can borrow one.

Good luck,

kind regards,

I see you have posted a second time before I had a chance to post the above to you.

should I just download the msconfig zipped file for now and edit my startup programs before diving into these deeper registry problems?

When did you get notifiction to do the above? I am not familiar with that at all so unless you can tell me how and when you got the above in quotes to execute, I cannot comment on it.

Borrowing a CD OS, inserting it, and running SFC is the simple and easy way to resolve this issue.

best regards,

I have done some deeper diving in my system, and I found that I do indeed have msconfig on my machine, but why I could not access it through the run programs feature I do not know. sorry for the continuous posts, I want to make sure I am giving all the info I can as I get it. April

I bought a dell laptop, and they did not include a disk for windows, but simply stated that it was already installed on the computer and system restore was taking the place of needing a cd…..which seems a bit ridiculous, but thats why I dont have the disk. anyway, I will either contact dell and request the disk for my OS, or will continue to search for a friend who has one. thanks for your help April

Hello CleanMe,

It is Sunday morning early so I am up and available again…those last posts were sent in the middle of our night as I happened to wake and found you needed help.

As you have now located msconfig, have you followed my suggestions in this post

Try the following to make sure your OS has no missing or corrupt .dll files.

Windows Protected System File Checker SFC

• Start
• Run
• type:sfc /scannow (note the space between the c /)
• Have your Win XP installation disc handy as if damaged files are found they will need to be copied across from your disc
• If SFC can't find correct copies elsewhere.

If so and you find all manner of startup items, you then need to follow my suggestions in my first post to you:

How many startup programs have you got running? Go to Start > run > type msconfig > ok > click on the startup tab and tell us what is starting when you boot up. Many will slow your computer down to almost a halt.

Click Control/Alt/Delete and tell us how many processes are running on your computer? There could be many that are not necessary at startup which again will slow your boot time down to a crawl.

There is certainly no reason for you to be apologising for posting for asssitance, as after all that is why we are here giving our time to volunteer help when folks like you need it. We are pleased to be assisting where we can.

I bought a dell laptop, and they did not include a disk for windows, but simply stated that it was already installed on the computer and system restore was taking the place of needing a cd…..which seems a bit ridiculous, but thats why I dont have the disk.

Here in Australia it is illegal to sell a computer without including the OS and the CD of the Drivers included in the sale. To tell you that System Restore was to take the place of your OS CD was deplorable and very misleading for you. I would have something to say about that if I were you.

As you have now located msconfig, you can go ahead and reduce your startup items and processes, but when you acquire the OS I would still suggest you do the SFC scan to make sure all files are correctly placed.

Post back if you need more assistance and keep us posted in any case.

kind regards,