Why is my PC so crappy lately?

[Gryffindorian]

I use a Dell XPS 710 at home, which I've had for about two years now. It runs on Windows Vista and has 2 GB RAM, a 2.4 GHz Pentium Duo Core Processor, a 250-GB hard drive (plus a 500 GB extra hard drive I installed this year).

Lately, however, it's been taking me 15 minutes or longer to log in because the computer has been crashing a lot (upon start-up, before log-in to Windows, upon loading desktop). It's become very, very frustrating. I've tried doing System Restore at least a couple of times, but I suspect some stupid Windows updates or other applications must be causing this the problem. Any suggestions on how I can improve the system performance? Thanks for your input.

 

[Holdfast]

Sounds like you just need to clean it a bit.

Run the usual spware/adware checkers like AdAware and Spybot.
Use a cleaner and registry fixer like CCleaner.
Run a virus scan with something like AVG
Remove any rubbish you don't need from the Start Up menu
Make sure everything is updated and old versions removed using something like Secunia.
Defrag & reboot.

After that if you still get crashing, run in Safe Mode and try to troubleshoot what exactly is causing the problem.

Good luck!

 

[Ethros]

Clogged up with porn

 

[Gryffindorian]

Thanks, Holdfast

Clogged up with porn

No way! All my porn is stored in a separate, external hard drive and USB jump drive.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Uninstalling all the stuff you don't use and/or need helps a lot, especially fonts. (Alternatively you could shift it all to a backup medium.) Freed hard disk space is your friend.

 

[Shurik]

This might sound rather extreme, but formatting the hard-drive and reinstalling windows is the best cure, provided your hardware is fine.

 

[Sheep]

This might sound rather extreme, but formatting the hard-drive and reinstalling windows is the best cure, provided your hardware is fine.

Is this still the case with Vista? I know it definitely applied to XP and other pre-XP OSes, but assumed things might have changed with Vista. Guess not.

 

[Australis]

Probably wouldn't hurt to run a defrag too.

 

[Shurik]

This might sound rather extreme, but formatting the hard-drive and reinstalling windows is the best cure, provided your hardware is fine.

Is this still the case with Vista? I know it definitely applied to XP and other pre-XP OSes, but assumed things might have changed with Vista. Guess not.

More or less ...

 

[Mistral]

Have you recently installed Ipod software? My computer bogged out when I did. It has to do with how many programs are trying to log in to the Internet on start-up. I used to have just Zone alarm. Then AVG, which tries to update at start up. Then I put on Itunes and installed an HP media center printer-both of which want to update/connect to the Internet at start-up. Now it takes 10 minutes to log in and sometimes, if I try to activate Firefox too quickly, I crash.

 

[Gryffindorian]

Nope, I detest Apple products in any shape, manner, or form. I do have a lot of programs running on my PC. I noticed "minor" improvement after I installed and ran AdAware 2008. There were about 300+ tracking cookies, etc., that I had removed. I defragged last night; took about a couple of hours to complete.

 

[SlyCardie]

Sometimes Dells have unexpected crap outs although you do have a top o' the line Dell, so that shouldn't be an excuse. I'd just focus on getting it some rest and turning it off every once and a while and the running some spyware/mcaffee products to clean it up.