Why is my computer sluggish now?
From time to time I get asked to fix a windows computer. There are many things you can do to keep your computer running in tip top shape. I want to say this: Your computer doesn't get old and slow. When I say this I don't mean that it keeps up with the current pcs but the speed shouldn't change much from the day you bought it. Generally speaking your computer slows down for a few reasons.
Opps did I delete something?
The first reason that your windows box gets all slow and you might see the blue screen of death is because you deleted something that should of stayed on your machine. See back in the day when hard drives were tiny, there was things called DLL files. Now these files are shared amongst many programs to save space and to save the programmers time from rewritting code that is already there. So if you just go around deleting any old thing, you might delete one of these DLL files and then maybe 4 or so programs stop working and you see the blue screen of death. I don't pretend that DLL's cause all the blue screens of death. It is usually the biggest reasons that people new to computers see this kind of corruption.
Helpful Links:
Microsoft Support
Annoyances.org
Kelly's Corner
Blackviper
Is your Operating system up to date?
Keeping your computer current with the latest updates will go along way to keeping the machine sailing along. There are plenty of security problems with Microsofts operating system.
Helpful Links:
Windows Update
Are you drivers up to date?
Another way to keep your computer current is to get new drivers. that your computer gets tired is old drivers. I think it is a good idea to go to the manufacturers that made your computer/video card/sound card(for example) and get the latest drivers. If you didn't build your computer yourself or have someone do it for you..then going to your pc manufactures site should have all the newest drivers you need in one place.
Helpful Links:
Dell
Sony
Compaq/HP
Do you have a virus?
Viruses SUCK. They come in many flavors. Most viruses today are for denial of service attacks. It used to be that you had to click on an attachment in a email to execute files, not anymore. You can get a virus today from just opening your email if you have html activated(on your email client) and don't have active x turned off. Once the virus spreads to your comptuer it then could email itself to all your friends. Oh but it doesn't look like it is from you. It will appear to be from another friend on your addresslist and could be sent to a totally different person on your list. Chances are they don't even know each other. Once the designated time hits for its payload... All the computers that are infected with the virus send things to one place at one time causing the server to crash.
Targets are corporations like Microsoft. Why Microsoft?....the virus writers hate big companies like them. Then Microsoft gets hit with this huge load bringing down their servers and doing damage by having lost time and money for the company plus the cost of cleaning the virus off their servers and preparing for the next round. Linux and Macintosh aren't targets near as much as microsoft. But thats because there is something like a 95% saturation of microsoft computers out there. And OS's like linux usually have sauve users. This is just one kind of virus that is out in the wild. There are Trojan Horses , Worms, and kinds that can do physical damage to your hard drive.
You can get a virus from just surfing the net. So get a good virus protector and think about changing the setting on your browser for higher security.
I recommend getting a good virus protector. I am all about FREE. I have been using AVG for over 2 years now. It is excellent. The key to antivirus programs working is to let it update itself and run it a few times a week. If you don't let it update itself then at least update it once every week. It watches over you as you check email and surf webpages without a hit on performance. Caution it wont protect as you check aol's email if you don't use outlook, eudora or a similar program.
Warning: Some viruses like to mess with the system restore function of XP and ME. So you may think you got rid of something and it is there when you restart. You may have to disable the system restore for a few days.
Helpful Links:
Download AVG
AVG Top Threats
SARC
Sophos Info
Sophos top 10
Virus Hoaxes
Are you Spying on me?
Spyware/Adware. It usually happens when you download that cool free program. ..well its really not free. THIS is WHY most peoples computers get slow. www.searchCRM.com defines it as “Spyware is any technology that aids in gathering information about a person or organization without their knowledge. On the Internet (where it is sometimes called a spybot or tracking software), spyware is programming that is put in someone's computer to secretly gather information about the user and relay it to advertisers or other interested parties. Spyware can get in a computer as a software virus or as the result of installing a new program. Data collecting programs that are installed with the user's knowledge are not, properly speaking, spyware, if the user fully understands what data is being collected and with whom it is being shared. However, spyware is often installed without the user's consent, as a drive-by download, or as the result of clicking some option in a deceptive pop-up window.”
There are two big reasons why you should get MAD here. First off, you do things on your computer with a false sense of security. If you are married you might look at pictures of the opposite sex. Or perhaps you have been searching for a disease you think you might have but it probably don't. Regardless what you are doing online..these companies are watching your every move. Sending you advertisements for things that you have searched for or pages that you have visited. Claria(formerly Gator)is an example of this. They also put their advertisements over top of legitimate businesses advertisements causing hard working companies to lose ad revenue.
Secondly, the computer you use only has so many processes it can run before it starts hanging and running slowly. If you look at your processes(cntrl-alt-delete) you will see things that are running. If you have say more then 13 things running at once. You may have spyware/adware bogging your system down. Its really hard to get its information about you to its home base making your pc run slow and your internet connection run evenSLOWER. It is sharing your bandwidth with you while you surf. Hmpf isn't that nice. You PAY money for YOUR computer and even more money for YOUR internet connection.
I think the Best course of action here is to get a new browser like Firefox. This will keep the pop-ups under control and not allow for nasty scripting viruses/spyware to do their evil things. There are many great functions that firefox does which Internet Explorer fails at. Namely, security, tabbed browsing and rss feed reading. Also don't forget to get spyware/adware detectors like Adaware and Spybot.
Helpful Links:
Adaware
SpyBot
Bad Claria
Spychecker
Aunty Spam
Guard my computer!
The last thing I can think of to slow down your machine. Stupid legitmate companies. These companies want to allow you to start up their programs so fast. So they put themselves into the start up routine and also camp themselves right onto your taskbar. This takes precious cpu from you. It will SLOW down your computer start up to begin with. I think you should have maybe 5 things on the taskbar(bottom right) when nothing else is running. Perhaps your printer software, speaker controls, antivirus, zonealarm software firewall..things like that. Real player, quicktime, things like that don't need to run in the background or start up 2 secs faster.
I suggest getting a software firewall at the minimum. If you can afford it get a hardware firewall. The hardware firewall is usually a router for high speed internet. It uses a whats called NAT to hide the computers from the outside world. A software firewall is not needed if you have a hardware firewall. But I still recommend it! Why do I? Well I can see what programs are trying to gain access to my computer from the net or send information out of my computer. It enables me to know right away something is wrong.
